his fools. In a word, the _World_ dresses himself in the coat and cap
of _Folly_, and he becomes as gay and ridiculous as the rest of the
fools.

This _Sottie_ was represented in the year 1524.

Such was the rage for Mysteries, that Rene d'Anjou, king of Naples and
Sicily, and Count of Provence, had them magnificently represented and
made them a serious concern. Being in Provence, and having received
letters from his son the Prince of Calabria, who asked him for an
immediate aid of men, he replied, that "he had a very different matter
in hand, for he was fully employed in settling the order of a
Mystery--_in honour of God_."[99]

Strutt, in his "Manners and Customs of the English," has given a
description of the stage in England when Mysteries were the only
theatrical performances. Vol. iii, p. 130.

"In the early dawn of literature, and when the sacred Mysteries were the
only theatrical performances, what is now called the stage did then
consist of three several platforms, or stages raised one above another.
On the uppermost sat the _Pater Coelestis_, surrounded with his Angels;
on the second appeared the Holy Saints, and glorified men; and the last
and lowest was occupied by mere men who had not yet passed from this
transitory life to the regions of eternity. On one side of this lowest
platform was the resemblance of a dark pitchy cavern, from whence issued
appearance of fire and flames; and, when it was necessary, the audience
were treated with hideous yellings and noises as imitative of the
howlings and cries of the wretched souls tormented by the relentless
demons. From this yawning cave the devils themselves constantly ascended
to delight and to instruct the spectators:--to delight, because they
were usually the greatest jesters and buffoons that then appeared; and
to instruct, for that they treated the wretched mortals who were
delivered to them with the utmost cruelty, warning thereby all men
carefully to avoid the falling into the clutches of such hardened and
remorseless spirits." An anecdote relating to an English Mystery
presents a curious specimen of the manners of our country, which then
could admit of such a representation; the simplicity, if not the
libertinism, of the age was great. A play was acted in one of the
principal cities of England, under the direction of the trading
companies of that city, before a numerous assembly of both sexes,
wherein _Adam_ and _Eve_ appeared on the stage entirely na