find mystery in the pulpit and mystery on the stage. They
appertain to social infancy. Such dramas as those I have alluded to, and
many others that, if space had permitted, might have been quoted, were
in unison with the times. The abbeys were boasting of such treasures as
the French hood of the Virgin, "her smocke or shifte," the manger in
which Christ was laid, the spear which pierced his side, the crown of
thorns. The transition from this to the following stage is not without
its political attendants, the prohibition of interludes containing
anything against the Church of Rome, the royal proclamation against
preaching out of one's own brain, the appearance of the Puritan upon the
national stage, an increasing acerbity of habit and sanctimoniousness of
demeanour.

With peculiar facility we may, therefore, through an examination of the
state of the drama, determine national mental condition. The same may be
done by a like examination of the state of the pulpit. Whoever will take
the trouble to compare the results cannot fail to observe how remarkably
they correspond.

Such was the state of the literature of amusement; as to political
literature, even at the close of the period we are considering, it could
not be expected to flourish after the judges had declared that no man
could publish political news except he had been duly authorized by the
crown. [Sidenote: Newspapers and coffee-houses.] Newspapers were,
however, beginning to be periodically issued, and, if occasion called
for it, broadsides, as they were termed were added. In addition,
newsletters were written by enterprising individuals in the metropolis,
and sent to rich persons who subscribed for them; they then circulated
from family to family, and doubtless enjoyed a privilege which has not
descended to their printed contemporary, the newspaper, of never
becoming stale. Their authors compiled them from materials picked up in
the gossip of the coffee-houses. The coffee-houses, in a non-reading
community, were quite an important political as well as social
institution. They were of every kind, prelatical, popish, Puritan,
scientific, literary, Whig, Tory. Whatever a man's notions might be, he
could find in London, in a double sense, a coffee-house to his taste. In
towns of considerable importance the literary demand was insignificant;
thus it is said that the father of Dr. Johnson, the lexicographer,
peddled books from town to town, and was accustomed to open