"Players, purse-cutters, money-batterers,
Golde-washers, tomblers, jogelers,
Pardoners, &c."
Sign. B. vj.
III. It hath been observed already that plays of miracles, or mysteries, as they were called, led to the introduction of moral plays, or moralities, which prevailed so early and became so common that towards the latter end of K. Henry VII.'s reign John Rastel, brother-in-law to Sir Thomas More, conceived a design of making them the vehicle of science and natural philosophy. With this view he published. A new interlude and a mery of the nature of the iiii. elements declarynge many proper points of philosophy naturall, and of dyvers straunge landys[1163], &c. It is observable that the poet speaks of the discovery of America as then recent:
----"Within this xx yere
Westwarde be founde new landes
That we never harde tell of before this," &c.
The West Indies were discovered by Columbus in 1492, which fixes the writing of this play to about 1510 (two years before the date of the above Houshold Book). The play of Hick-Scorner was probably somewhat more ancient, as he still more imperfectly alludes to the American discoveries, under the name of "the Newe founde Ilonde." [Sign. A. vij.]
It is observable that in the older moralities, as in that last mentioned, Every-man, &c., is printed no kind of stage direction for the exits and entrances of the personages, no division of acts and scenes. But in the moral interlude of Lusty Juventus,[1164] written under Edward VI. the exits and entrances begin to be noted in the margin.[1165] At length in Q. Elizabeth's reign moralities appeared formally divided into acts and scenes with a regular prologue, &c. One of these is reprinted by Dodsley.
Before we quit this subject of the very early printed plays, it may just be observed that although so few are now extant it should seem many were printed before the reign of Q. Elizabeth, as at the beginning of her reign her injunctions in 1559 are particularly directed to the suppressing of "many Pamphlets, Playes, and Ballads; that no manner of person shall enterprize to print any such, &c." but under certain restrictions. Vid. Sect. V.
In the time of Hen. VIII. one or two dramatic pieces had been published under the classical names of comedy and tragedy,[1166] but they appear not to have been intended for popular use. It was not till the religious ferments had subsided that the public had leisure to attend to dramatic poetry. In the reign of Elizabeth tragedies and comedies began to appear in form, and could the poets have persevered the first models were good. Gorboduc, a regular tragedy, was acted in 1561;[1167] and Gascoigne, in 1566, exhibited Jocasta, a translation from Euripides, as also The Supposes, a regular comedy from Ariosto, near thirty years before any of Shakespeare's were printed.
The people, however, still retained a relish for their old mysteries and moralities,[1168] and the popular dramatic poets seem to have made them their models. From the graver sort of moralities our modern tragedy appears to have derived its origin, as our comedy evidently took its rise from the lighter interludes of that kind. And as most of these pieces contain an absurd mixture of religion and buffoonery, an eminent critic[1169] has well deduced from thence the origin of our unnatural tragi-comedies. Even after the people had been accustomed to tragedies and comedies moralities still kept their ground. One of them, intitled The New Custom,[1170] was printed so late as 1573. At length they assumed the name of masques,[1171] and with some classical improvements, became in the two following reigns the favourite entertainments of the Court.
IV. The old mysteries, which ceased to be acted after the Reformation, appear to have given birth to a third species of stage exhibition, which, though now confounded with tragedy and comedy, were by our first dramatic writers considered as quite distinct from them both. These were historical plays or histories, a species of dramatic writing which resembled the old mysteries in representing a series of historical events simply in the order of time in which they happened, without any regard to the three great unities. These pieces seem to differ from tragedies just as much as historical poems do from epic: as the Pharsalia does from the Æneid.