"A teme of Dolphins raunged in aray

Drew the smooth charett of sad Cymoent:
They were all taught by Triton to obay

To the long raynes at her commaundement :
As swifte as swallowes on the waves they went.

"Upon great Neptune's necke they softly swim,
And to her watry chamber swiftly carry him.
Deepe in the bottome of the sea her bowre
Is built of hollow billowes heaped hye."1

The following lines will show Spenser's love for beauty, and at the same time indicate the nobility of some of his ideal characters. He is describing Lady Una, the fair representative of true religion, who has lost through enchantment her Guardian Knight, and who is wandering disconsolate in the forest :

As the great eye of heaven, shyned bright,

And made a sunshine in the shady place;

Did never mortall eye behold such heavenly grace.

"It fortuned out of the thickest wood

A ramping Lyon rushed suddeinly,
Hunting full greedy after salvage blood.
Soone as the royall virgin he did spy,
With gaping mouth at her ran greedily,
To have att once devoured her tender corse;
But to the pray when as he drew more ny,
His bloody rage aswaged with remorse,

And with the sight amazd, forgat his furious forse.

"In stead thereof he kist her wearie feet,

And lickt her lilly hands with fawning tong,

As he her wronged innocence did weet.

O, how can beautie maister the most strong,
And simple truth subdue avenging wrong!" 2

1 Faerie Queene, Book III., Canto 4.

2 Ibid., Book I., Canto 3.

The power of beauty has seldom been more vividly described. As we read the succeeding stanzas and see the lion following her, like a faithful dog, to shield her from harm, we feel the power of both beauty and goodness and realize that with Spenser these terms are interchangeable. Each one of the preceding selections shows his preference for the subjective and the ideal to the actual.

Spenser searched for old and obsolete words. He used "eyne" for "eyes," "fone" for "foes," "shend" for "shame." He did not hesitate to coin words when he needed them, like "mercify" and "fortunize." He even

wrote "wawes in place of "waves" because he wished it to rime with "jaws." In spite of these peculiarities, Spenser is not hard reading after the first appearance of strangeness has worn away.

A critic rightly says that Spenser repels none but the anti-poetical. His influence upon other poets has been far-reaching. Milton, Dryden, Byron, Wordsworth, Keats, and Shelley show traces of his influence. Spenser has been called the poet's poet, because the more poetical one is, the more one will enjoy him.

THE ENGLISH DRAMA

The Early Religious Drama. It is necessary to remember at the outset that the purpose of the religious drama was not to amuse, but to give a vivid presentation of scriptural truth. On the other hand, the primary aim of the later dramatist has usually been to entertain, or, in Shakespeare's exact words, "to please." Shakespeare was, however, fortunate in having an audience that was pleased to be instructed, as well as entertained.

Before the sixteenth century, England had a religious drama that made a profound impression on life and

thought. The old religious plays helped to educate the public, the playwrights, and the actors for the later drama. Any one may to-day form some idea of the rise of the religious drama, by attending the service of the Catholic church on Christmas or Easter Sunday. In many Catholic churches there may still be seen at Christmas time a representation of the manger at Bethlehem. Sometimes the figures of the infant Savior, of Joseph and Mary, of the wise men, of the sheep and cattle, are very lifelike.

The events clustering about the Crucifixion and the Resurrection furnished the most striking material for the early religious drama. Our earliest dramatic writers drew their inspiration from the New Testament.

Miracle and Mystery Plays. A Miracle play is the dramatic representation of the life of a saint and of the miracles connected with him. A Mystery play deals with gospel events which are concerned with any phase of the life of Christ, or with any Biblical event that remotely foreshadows Christ or indicates the necessity of a Redeemer. In England there were few, if any, pure Miracle plays, but the term "Miracle" is applied indiscriminately to both Miracles and Mysteries.

The first Miracle play in England was acted probably not far from 1100. In the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries these plays had become so popular that they were produced in nearly every part of England. Shakespeare felt their influence. He must have had frequent opportunities in his boyhood to witness their production. They were seldom performed in England after 1600, although visitors to Germany have, every ten years, the opportunity of seeing a modern production of a Mystery in the Passion Play at Oberammergau.

The Subjects. Four great cycles of Miracle plays have

been preserved the York, Chester, and Coventry plays, so called because they were performed in those places, and the Towneley plays, which take their name from

Towneley Hall in Lancashire, where the manuscript was kept for some time. It is probable that almost every town of importance had its own collection of plays.

The York cycle contains forty-eight plays. A cycle or circle of plays means a list forming a complete circle from Creation until Doomsday. The York collection begins with Creation and the fall of Lucifer and the bad angels from Heaven, a theme which was later to inspire the pen of one of England's greatest poets. The tragedies of Eden and the Flood, scenes from the lives of Abraham, Isaac, and Moses, the manger at Bethlehem, the slaughter

of the Innocents, the Temptation, the resurrection of Lazarus, the Last Supper, the Trial, the Crucifixion, and the Easter triumph are a few of the Miracle plays that were acted in the city of York.

The Actors and Manner of Presentation. At first the actors were priests who presented the plays either in the church or in its immediate vicinity on sacred ground. After a while the plays became so popular that the laity presented them. When they were at the height of their popularity, that is, during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the actors were selected with great care from the members of the various trades guilds. Each guild undertook the entire responsibility for the presentation of some one play, and endeavored to surpass all the other guilds.

Considerable humor was displayed in the allotment of various plays. The tanners presented the fall of Lucifer and the bad angels into the infernal regions; the ship carpenters, the play of Noah and the building of the ark; the bakers, the Last Supper; the butchers, the Crucifixion. In their prime, the Miracle plays were acted on wooden platforms mounted on wheels. There were two distinct stories in these movable stages, a lower one in which

From a Columbia University Model.

HELL MOUTH

the actors dressed, and an upper one in which they played. The entrance to the lower story, known as Hell Mouth,