History of English Dramatic Poetry to the Time of Shakspeare and Annals of the Stage to the Restoration Volume 2

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1831 edition. Excerpt: ...here their soules from helle to save, ' And throw them headlondes into the devyls domynyon. ' If'_they be no devyls, I saye there are devyls non. ' They brynge in fastynge, but they leave out Scriplum est. ' Chalke they geve forgold, soch fryndes are they to the Besides religious plays connected in subject and acted in succession, which belong to the beginning of Elizabeth's reign, several dramas were written and printed upon separate stories and incidents in the Bible, complete in themselves, and apparently represented without reference to any other pieces which might precede or follow them. One of the most remarkable of these is The Life and Repentance of Mary Magdalen, which came from the press of John Charlewood, in 1567, and, as the title-page expresses, was ' made by the learned clerk Lewis Vo1..1I. _ R Wager.' It contains no attacks, direct or indirect, upon Catholics or Protestants, and judging from the style, it would seem to" have been written after the Reformation had been completed. The following quotation from the prologue proves that it was represented by common itinerant players, and that it had been performed at one of the universities: --' We, and other persons, have exercised ' This comely and good facultie a long season, ' Which of some have been spitefully despised, ' Wherefore I thinke they can alleage no reason..... ' I marvell why they should detract our facultie: ' We have ridden and gone many sundry waies; _ ' Yea, we have used this feate at the universitie, ' Yet neither wise nor learned would it dispraise; ' But it hath been perceived ever before our daies, ' That foles love nothing worse than foles to be called: ...