hester Plays_, published in 1818; but it is most
probable that he had read the pages devoted to mystery plays in
_Warton's History of Poetry_, or that he had met with a version of the
_Ludus Coventriae_ (reprinted by J. O. Halliwell Phillipps, in 1841),
printed in Stevens's continuation of Dugdale's _Monasticon_, 1722, i.
139-153. There is a sixteenth-century edition of _Le Mistere du Viel
Testament_, which was reprinted by the Baron James de Rothschild, in
1878 (see for "De la Mort d'Abel et de la Malediction Cayn," pp.
103-113); but it is improbable that it had come under Byron's notice.
For a quotation from an Italian Mystery Play, _vide post_, p. 264; and
for Spanish "Mystery Plays," see _Teatro Completo de Juan del Encina_,
"Proemio," Madrid, 1893, and _History of Spanish Literature_, by George
Ticknor, 1888, i. 257. For instances of the profanity of Mystery Plays,
see the _Towneley Plays_ ("Mactacio Abel," p. 7), first published by the
Surtees Society in 1836, and republished by the Early English Text
Society, 1897, E.S. No. lxxi.]

[88] {208}[For the contention that "the snake was the snake"--no more
(_vide post_, p. 211), see _La Bible enfin Expliquee_, etc.; _[OE]uvres
Completes de Voltaire_, Paris, 1837, vi. 338, note. "La conversation de
la femme et du serpent n'est point racontee comme une chose surnaturelle
et incroyable, comme un miracle, ou conune une allegorie." See, too,
Bayle (_Hist. and Crit. Dictionary_, 1735, ii. 851, art. "Eve," note A),
who quotes Josephus, Paracelsus, and "some Rabbins," to the effect that
it was an actual serpent which tempted Eve; and compare _Critical
Remarks on the Hebrew Scriptures_, by the Rev. Alexander Geddes, LL.D.,
1800, p. 42.]

[89] [Richard Watson (1737-1816), Bishop of Llandaff, 1782, was
appointed Moderator of the Schools in 1762, and Regius Professor of
Divinity October 31, 1771. According to his own story (_Anecdotes of the
Life of Richard Watson_, 1817, p. 39), "I determined to study nothing
but my Bible.... I had no prejudice against, no predilection for, the
Church of England, but a sincere regard for the _Church of Christ_, and
an insuperable objection to every degree of dogmatical intolerance. I
never troubled myself with answering any arguments which the opponents
in the Divinity Schools brought against the articles of the Church, ...
but I used on such occasions to say to them, holding the New Testament
in my hand, '_En sacrum codicem_! Here is the founda