and the angels nearly always appeared; later, the various virtues and vices were personified. The representations were usually given in the streets or in fields, and sometimes on the water. The highest dignitaries of the Church did not disdain to act in these plays, nor did their promoters hesitate at times to reduce the exhibition to the level of a Punch-and-Judy show by the introduction of puppets cleverly manipulated. The earliest of these miracle-plays in England were performed by the various London Companies. The Tanners, for instance, produced the Fall of Lucifer. The Drapers played the Creation, in which Adam and Eve appeared in their original costume,--apparently without giving offence. The Water-Drawers naturally chose the Deluge. In the scene describing the embarkation of Noah's family, the patriarch has a great deal of trouble with his wife, who is determined not to go aboard. She declares that if her [11] worldly friends are left behind, she will stay and drown with them, and he can

"Rowe forth away when thou liste,

And get thee another wif."

Noah expostulates with her in vain, grows furiously indignant, and bids her

"Come in, wif, in twenty devill ways,

Or alles stand thee without."

Her friends the gossips entreat her to remain with them, and have a carousal over a "pottel full of malmsey;" but at last Shem makes a virtue of necessity and forces her into the ark, as the following scene shows:--

"In faith, moder, in ye shall,

Whither you will or noughte."

NOE.

"Well me wif into this boate."

[She gives him a box on the ear.]

"Haue you that for thee note."

NOE.

"A le Mary this whote,

A childre methinks my boate remeues,

Our tarrying here heughly me grieues."

[She is forced into the ark.]

The earliest of these representations, so far as has been discovered, dates back to the twelfth century, and is known as the Feast of Asses. In these [12] exhibitions, Balaam, superbly habited and wearing an enormous pair of spurs, rode a wooden ass, in which the speaker was concealed. The ass and the devil were favorite characters. The former sometimes appeared in monkish garb and brayed responses to the intonations of the priests, while the latter, arrayed in fantastic costumes, seems to have been the prototype of clown in the pantomime. As late as 1783 the buffoonery of this kind of exhibition continued. An English traveller, describing a mystery called the "Creation" which he saw at Bamberg in that year, says:--

"Young priests had the wings of geese tied on their shoulders to personate angels. Adam appeared on the scene in a big curled wig and brocaded morning-gown. Among the animals that passed before him to receive their names were a well-shod horse, pigs with rings in their noses, and a mastiff with a brass collar. A cow's rib-bone had been provided for the formation of Eve; but the mastiff spied it out, grabbed it, and carried it off. The angels tried to whistle him back; but not succeeding, they chased him, gave him a kicking, and recovered the bone, which they placed under a trap-door by the side of the sleeping Adam, whence there soon emerged a lanky priest in a loose robe, to personate Eve."

The buffoonery and profanity of the early exhibitions, however, gradually wore away when the Church assumed the monopoly of them and forbade secular performances. Among the earlier works Burney cites the following:--

[13]

"The 'Conversion of St. Paul,' performed at Rome, 1440, as described by Sulpicius, has been erroneously called the first opera, or musical drama. 'Abram et Isaac suo Figliuolo,' a sacred drama (azione sacra), 'showing how Abraham was commanded by God to sacrifice his son Isaac on the mountain,' was performed in the Church of St. Mary Magdalen in Florence, 1449. Another on the same subject, called 'Abraham and Sarah,' 'containing the good life of their son Isaac, and the bad conduct of Ishmael, the son of his handmaid, and how they were turned out of the house,' was printed in 1556; 'Abel e Caino,' and 'Samson,' 1554; 'The Prodigal Son,' 1565; and 'La Commedia Spirituale dell' Anima' ('The Spiritual Comedy of the Soul'), printed at Siena, without date, in which there are near thirty personifications, besides Saint Paul, Saint John Chrysostom, two little boys who repeat a kind of prelude, and the announcing angel, who always speaks the prologue in these old mysteries. He is called l'angelo che nunzia, and his figure is almost always given in a wooden cut on the title-page of printed copies. Here, among the interlocutors, we have God the Father, Michael the archangel, a chorus of angels, the Human Soul with her guardian angel, memory, intellect, free-will, faith, hope, charity, reason, prudence, temperance, fortitude, justice, mercy, poverty, patience, and humility; with hatred, infidelity, despair, sensuality, a chorus of demons, and the devil. None of these mysteries are totally without music, as there are choruses and laudi, or hymns, that are sung in them all, and sometimes there was playing on instruments between the acts. In a play written by Damiano and printed at Siena, 1519, according to Crescimbeni, at the beginning of every act there was an octave stanza, which was sung to the sound of the lyra viol by a personage called Orpheus, who was solely retained for that purpose; at other [14] times a madrigal was sung between the acts, after the manner of a chorus."

It was not until the time when San Filippo Neri began his dramatization and performance of Biblical stories, such as "The Good Samaritan," "The Prodigal Son," and "Tobias and the Angels," accompanied with music written by his friend Giovanni Animuccia, that the term "Oratorio" came to be accepted as the distinctive title of these sacred musical dramas. His productions were very crudely and hastily arranged, his only purpose having been to render his service attractive. After his death, however, in 1595, his work was continued by Emilio del Cavaliere, a Roman composer, who produced the first real oratorio which had as yet appeared. It was entitled "La Rappresentazione dell' Anima e del Corpo" ("The Soul and the Body"), and was first performed in February, 1600, in the oratory of the Church of Santa Maria della Vallicella at Rome. Burney assigns to it the credit of being "the first sacred drama or oratorio in which recitative was used." The characters were Time, Human Life, the World, Pleasure, the Intellect, the Soul, the Body, and two youths who were to recite the prologue. The orchestra was composed of a double lyre, a harpsichord, a large or double guitar, and two flutes. The composer has left some curious instructions for the performance of his work; among them the following:--

"Pleasure, an imaginary character, with two companions, are to have instruments in their hands, on [15] which they are to play while they sing and perform the ritornels.

"Il Corpo, the Body, when these words are uttered, 'Sí che hormai alma mia,' etc., may throw away some of his ornaments, as his gold collar, feather from his hat, etc.

"The World, and Human Life in particular, are to be gayly and richly dressed; and when they are divested of their trappings, to appear very poor and wretched,