surprising, the opportunities for
originality more plentiful. The very fact that they could not easily be
welded together as scenes in a larger play is a testimonial to their
art. They are more complete in themselves. They are, that is to say, a
further stage on the way to that Elizabethan drama which only became
possible when all idea of a day-long play had been discarded in favour
of scenes more single and self-contained. The sacredness, also, of the
saintly narrative was less binding than that of the Bible story. Those
who had a compunction in caricaturing or coarsening the unholy or
nameless people of the Scriptures would feel their liberty immensely
widened in a representation of the secular and heathen world which
surrounded their saint. This is clearly seen in the _Miracle of the
Sacrament_, where the figure of Jonathas the Jew is portrayed with
distinct originality. His long recital of his wealth in costly jewels,
and the equally lengthy statement by Aristorius, the corruptible
Christian merchant, of his numerous argosies and profitable ventures,
are early exercises in the style perfected by Marlowe's Barabas. The
whole story, from the stealing of the Sacred Host by Aristorius and its
sale to Jonathas, right on through the villainous assaults, by the Jew
and his confederates, upon its sanctity, and the miraculous
manifestations of its power, to Jonathas's final conversion and the
restoration of the sacrament, is a very fair example of the power which
these Saint Plays possessed in the structure of plots.

[Footnote 3: go.]

[Footnote 4: being.]

[Footnote 5: destroy.]

[Footnote 6: pleasure.]

[Footnote 7: might.]

[Footnote 8: power.]

[Footnote 9: wrought.]

[Footnote 10: one.]

[Footnote 11: realms.]

[Footnote 12: more worthy.]

[Footnote 13: injure.]

[Footnote 14: how.]

[Footnote 15: offended.]

[Footnote 16: those.]

[Footnote 17: their.]

[Footnote 18: sorrow.]

[Footnote 19: See the stage-direction at the end of 'The Trial of
Christ', 'Here enteryth Satan into the place in the most orryble wyse,
and qwyl (_while_) that he pleyth, thei xal don on Jhesus clothis'.]

[Footnote 20: lowly.]

[Footnote 21: obedient.]

[Footnote 22: counsel.]

[Footnote 23: young.]

[Footnote 24: courtly.]

[Footnote 25: counsel.]

[Footnote 26: each one.]

[Footnote 27: crippled.]

[Footnote 28: overtaxed.]

[Footnote 29: overreached.]

[Footnote 30: rob.]

[Footnote 31: curse.]