auditors, who were
tenacious of their old habits and doctrines; and opposers in the
younger, who eagerly adopted the term Reformation in its full sense.

This conduct of the Catholics called down a proclamation from Edward the
Sixth, (1549,) when we find that the government was most anxious that
these pieces should not be performed in "the English tongue;" so that we
may infer that the government was not alarmed at treason in Latin.[145]
This proclamation states, "that a great number of those that be common
players of interludes or plays, as well within the city of London as
elsewhere, who for the most part play such interludes as contain matter
tending to sedition, &c., &c., whereupon are grown, and daily are like
to grow, much division, tumult, and uproars in this realm. The king
charges his subjects that they should not openly or secretly play in the
_English tongue_ any kind of _Interlude_, _Play_, _Dialogue_, or other
matter set forth in _form of Play_, on pain of imprisonment," &c.[146]

This was, however, but a temporary prohibition; it cleared the stage for
a time of these Catholic dramatists; but _reformed Enterludes_, as they
were termed, were afterwards permitted.

These Catholic dramas would afford some speculations to historical
inquirers: we know they made very free strictures on the first heads of
the Reformation, on Cromwell, Cranmer, and their party; but they were
probably overcome in their struggles with their prevailing rivals. Some
may yet possibly lurk in their manuscript state. We have, printed, one
of those Moralities, or moral plays, or allegorical dramatic pieces,
which succeeded the Mysteries in the reign of Henry the Eighth, entitled
"Every Man:" in the character of that hero, the writer not unaptly
designates Human Nature herself.[147] This comes from the Catholic
school, to recall the auditors back to the forsaken ceremonies of that
church; but it levels no strokes of personal satire on the Reformers.
Percy observed that, from the solemnity of the subjects, the summoning
of man out of the world by death, and by the gravity of its conduct, not
without some attempts, however rude, to excite terror and pity, this
Morality may not improperly be referred to the class of Tragedy. Such
ancient simplicity is not worthless to the poetical antiquary; although
the mere modern reader would soon feel weary at such inartificial
productions, yet the invention which may be discovered in these rude
pieces