[1164] Described in vol. ii. preface to book ii. The Dramatis Personæ of this piece are: "Messenger, Lusty Juventus, Good Counsail, Knowledge, Sathan the devyll, Hypocrisie, Fellowship, Abominable-lyving [an Harlot], God's-merciful-promises."
[1165] I have also discovered some few exeats and intrats in the very old interlude of the Four Elements.
[1166] Bp. Bale had applied the name of tragedy to his mystery of Gods Promises, in 1538. In 1540 John Palsgrave, B.D., had republished a Latin comedy, called Acolastus, with an English version. Holinshed tells us (vol. iii. p. 850), that so early as 1520, the king had "a good comedie of Plautus plaied" before him at Greenwich; but this was in Latin, as Mr. Farmer informs us in his curious Essay on the Learning of Shakespeare, 8vo. p. 31.
[1167] See Ames, p. 316. This play appears to have been first printed under the name of Gorboduc, then under that of Ferrex and Porrex, in 1569; and again under Gorboduc, 1590. Ames calls the first edition quarto; Langbaine, octavo; and Tanner, 12mo.
[1168] The general reception the old moralities had upon the stage will account for the fondness of all our first poets for allegory. Subjects of this kind were familiar with every one.
[1169] Bp. Warburt. Shakesp. vol. v.
[1170] Reprinted among Dodsley's Old Plays, vol.i.
[1171] In some of these appeared characters full as extraordinary as in any of the old moralities. In Ben Jonson's masque of Christmas, 1616, one of the personages is Minced Pye.
[1172] The first part of which was printed in 1559.
[1173] Catal. of Royal and Noble authors, vol. i. p. 166-7.