ersonages. _Farces_ were more
exactly what their title indicates--obscene, gross, and dissolute
representations, where both the actions and words are alike
reprehensible.

The _Sotties_ were more farcical than farce, and frequently had the
licentiousness of pasquinades. I shall give an ingenious specimen of one
of the MORALITIES. This Morality is entitled, "The Condemnation of
Feasts, to the Praise of Diet and Sobriety for the Benefit of the Human
Body."

The perils of gormandising form the present subject. Towards the close
is a trial between _Feasting_ and _Supper_. They are summoned before
_Experience_, the Lord Chief Justice! _Feasting_ and _Supper_ are
accused of having murdered four persons by force of gorging them.
_Experience_ condemns _Feasting_ to the gallows; and his executioner is
_Diet_. _Feasting_ asks for a father-confessor, and makes a public
confession of so many crimes, such numerous convulsions, apoplexies,
head-aches, and stomach-qualms, &c., which he has occasioned, that his
executioner _Diet_ in a rage stops his mouth, puts the cord about his
neck, and strangles him. _Supper_ is only condemned to load his hands
with a certain quantity of lead, to hinder him from putting too many
dishes on table: he is also bound over to remain at the distance of six
hours' walking from _Dinner_ upon pain of death. _Supper_ felicitates
himself on his escape, and swears to observe the mitigated sentence.[97]

The MORALITIES were allegorical dramas, whose tediousness seems to have
delighted a barbarous people not yet accustomed to perceive that what
was obvious might be omitted to great advantage: like children,
everything must be told in such an age; their own unexercised
imagination cannot supply anything.

Of the FARCES the licentiousness is extreme, but their pleasantry and
their humour are not contemptible. The "Village Lawyer," which is never
exhibited on our stage without producing the broadest mirth, originates
among these ancient drolleries. The humorous incident of the shepherd,
who having stolen his master's sheep, is advised by his lawyer only to
reply to his judge by mimicking the bleating of a sheep, and when the
lawyer in return claims his fee, pays him by no other coin, is
discovered in these ancient farces. Brueys got up the ancient farce of
the "_Patelin_" in 1702, and we borrowed it from him.

They had another species of drama still broader than Farce, and more
strongly featured by the grossne