William Shakespeare; poet, dramatist, and man . the Moralities the stage was surrenderedto the personifications of abstract virtues. In placeof a very real Devil, revelling in grotesque humour,and an equally real Herod, who gave free play tothe melodramatic element so dear to the unculti-vated in every age, appeared those very tenuous andshadowy abstractions, the World, the Flesh, theDevil, not as actors in the worlds tragedy, but aspersonifications of the principle of evil; with GenusHumanum, Pleasure, Slander, Perseverance, andthe Seven Deadly Sins. These prolix and monot-onous plays cover a
William Shakespeare; poet, dramatist, and man . the Moralities the stage was surrenderedto the personifications of abstract virtues. In placeof a very real Devil, revelling in grotesque humour,and an equally real Herod, who gave free play tothe melodramatic element so dear to the unculti-vated in every age, appeared those very tenuous andshadowy abstractions, the World, the Flesh, theDevil, not as actors in the worlds tragedy, but aspersonifications of the principle of evil; with GenusHumanum, Pleasure, Slander, Perseverance, andthe Seven Deadly Sins. These prolix and monot-onous plays cover a wide range of subjects, fromthe popular Everyman, which deals, not without i6 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE dignity, with the supreme experience of death, to Wyt and Science, which doubtless, on many aschool stage, set forth the charms of knowledge, andpresented one of the earliest pleas for athletics. The Moralities beguiled the darkest period in theliterary history of England; the tide of the firstdramatic energy had gone out, the tide of the second. FOUR MORALITY PLAYERS. Contemplation, Perseverance, Imagination, and Free Will. — From a black-letter copy ofthe Morality Hycke-Scorner. and greater dramatic movement had not set were freedom, spontaneity, fresh feeling,poetic imagery, in the ballads; but the Moralitieswere mechanical, rigid, laboured, and uninspired. The Moralities marked, however, one importantstep in the development of the English drama : theycreated opportunities for professional actors, andmade acting as a profession possible. The earlierplays had been in the hands of amateurs; men who THE FORERUxNNERS OF SHAKESPEARE 17 had, in many cases, considerable skill in acting, butwho were members of guilds, with other and differ-ent occupations. Side by side with the Mysteryand Miracle plays there had percolated through thelong period when the English drama was in themaking many kinds of shows, more or less coarseand full of buffoonery, in the hands of rovingpanto
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