famous mysteries performed by the trading
companies of Coventry; the entire series have been since printed by the
Shakspeare Society, under the editorship of Mr. Halliwell, and consist
of forty-two dramas, founded on incidents in the Old and New Testaments.
The equally famous _Chester Mysteries_ were also printed by the same
society under the editorship of Mr. Wright, and consist of twenty-five
long dramas, commencing with "The Fall of Lucifer," and ending with
"Doomsday." In 1834, the Abbotsford Club published some others from the
Digby MS., in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. In 1825, Mr. Sharp, of
Coventry, published a dissertation on the Mysteries once performed
there, and printed the Pageant of the Sheremen and Taylor's Company; and
in 1836 the Abbotsford Club printed the Pageant played by the Weavers of
that city. In 1836, the Surtees Society published the series known as
_The Towneley Mysteries,_ consisting of thirty-two dramas; in 1838, Dr.
Marriott published in English, at Basle, a selection of the most curious
of these dramas. In 1837, M. Achille Jubinal published two octavo
volumes of French "Mysteres inedits du Quinzieme Siecle." This list
might be swelled by other notes of such books, printed within the last
thirty years, in illustration of these early religious dramas.]

[Footnote 97: In Jubinal's _Tapisseries Anciennes_ is engraved that
found in the tent of Charles the Bold, at Nancy, and still preserved in
that city. It is particularly curious, inasmuch as it depicts the
incidents described in the Morality above-named.]

[Footnote 98: The British Museum library was enriched in 1845 by a very
curions collection of these old comic plays, which was formed about
1560. It consists of sixty-four dramas, of which number only five or six
were known before. They are exceedingly curious as pictures of early
manners and amusements; very simple in construction, and containing few
characters. One is a comic dialogue between two persons as to the best
way of managing a wife. Another has for its plot the adventure of a
husband sent from home by the seigneur of the village, that he may
obtain access to his wife; and who is checkmated by the peasant, who
repairs to the neglected lady of the seigneur. Some are entirely
composed of allegorical characters; all are broadly comic, in language
equally broad. They were played by a jocular society, whose chief was
termed Prince des Sots; hence the name Sotties given to the farces.]