ing John_. Another comparatively late
type of morality sought to teach an ethical lesson by showing the
effect of vice and virtue upon the lives of men and women. _Nice
Wanton_ (c. 1550), for instance, represents the consequence of good and
evil living, not only by the use of such allegorical characters as
Iniquity and Worldly Shame, but also by means of the human beings,
Barnabas and Ishmael and their sister Dalila. Thus, although the more
abstract moralities persisted until late in the sixteenth century,
these other types at the same time helped lead the way to the drama
which depicts actual life.

+The Interlude+.--Both miracle play and morality were written with a
definite purpose, the teaching of a lesson, religious, moral, or
political; the interlude, on the other hand, was a short play intended
simply to interest or to amuse. The original meaning of the word
"interlude" is a matter of controversy. It may have meant a short play
introduced between other {28} things, such as the courses of a banquet,
or it may have meant simply a dialogue. Be that as it may, the
interlude seems to have had its origin in the dramatic character of
minstrel entertainments and in the dramatic character of popular games,
such as those, especially beloved of our English ancestors, which
celebrated the memory of Robin Hood and his fellow-outlaws of Sherwood
forest. The miracle plays set the example of dramatic composition, an
example soon followed in the interlude, which put into dramatic forms
that became more and more elaborate popular stories and episodes, both
serious and comic. Although there had been comic episodes in miracle
plays and moralities, it was as interludes that the amusing skit and
the tiny farce achieved an independent existence. The first real
interlude which has come down to us is that called _De Clerico et
Puella_, _Of the Cleric and the Maiden_, which was written not later
than the early fourteenth century. This is little more than a dialogue
depicting the attempted seduction of a maiden by a wanton cleric. The
only other surviving fourteenth-century interlude, that of _Dux
Maraud_, is, on the other hand, the dramatization of a tragic tale of
incest and murder. This is, however, somewhat exceptional, and may
perhaps be regarded as belonging rather to a type of miracle play not
common in England, in which the intervention of some heavenly power
affects the lives of men. At any rate, it is probable tha