y and vulgarity observable in the _Towneley_; several of the
plays concerned with the New Testament and early Christian story are,
however, in substance common to both series. The _Towneley Plays_ or
_Wakefield Mysteries_ (32) were undoubtedly composed by the friars of
Widkirk or Nostel; but they are of a popular character; and, while
somewhat over-free in tone, are superior in vivacity and humour to both
the later collections. The _Chester Plays_ (25) were undoubtedly
indebted both to the _Mystere du vieil testament_ and to earlier French
mysteries; they are less popular in character than the earlier two
cycles, and on the whole undistinguished by original power of pathos or
humour. There is, on the other hand, a notable inner completeness in
this series, which includes a play of _Antichrist_, devoid of course of
any modern application. While these plays were performed at Whitsuntide,
the _Coventry Plays_ (42) were Corpus Christi performances. Though there
is no proof that the extant series were composed by the Grey Friars,
they reveal a considerable knowledge of ecclesiastical literature. For
the rest, they are far more effectively written than the _Chester
Plays_, and occasionally rise to real dramatic force. In the _Coventry_
series there is already to be observed an element of abstract figures,
which connects them with a different species of the medieval drama.

Moralities.

The Devil and the Vice.

The _moralities_ corresponded to the love for allegory which manifests
itself in so many periods of English literature, and which, while
dominating the whole field of medieval literature, was nowhere more
assiduously and effectively cultivated than in England. It is necessary
to bear this in mind, in order to understand what to us seems so
strange, the popularity of the moral-plays, which indeed never equalled
that of the miracles, but sufficed to maintain the former species till
it received a fresh impulse from the connexion established between it
and the "new learning," together with the new political and religious
ideas and questions, of the Reformation age. Moreover, a specially
popular element was supplied to these plays, which in manner of
representation differed in no essential point from the miracles, in a
character borrowed from the latter, and, in the moralities, usually
provided with a companion whose task it was to lighten the weight of
such abstractions as Sapience and Justice. These were the Devil