and
homes. With these were songs and carols, like that of the Nativity, for
instance:

As I out rode this enderes (last) night,
Of three jolly shepherds I saw a sight,
And all about their fold a star shone bright;
They sang _terli terlow_,
So merryly the shepherds their pipes can blow.
Down from heaven, from heaven so high,
Of angels there came a great companye
With mirth, and joy, and great solemnitye;
They sang _terli terlow_,
So merryly the shepherds their pipes can blow.

Such songs were taken home by the audience and sung for a season, as a
popular tune is now caught from the stage and sung on the streets; and at
times the whole audience would very likely join in the chorus.

After these plays were written according to the general outline of the
Bible stories, no change was tolerated, the audience insisting, like
children at "Punch and Judy," upon seeing the same things year after year.
No originality in plot or treatment was possible, therefore; the only
variety was in new songs and jokes, and in the pranks of the devil.
Childish as such plays seem to us, they are part of the religious
development of all uneducated people. Even now the Persian play of the
"Martyrdom of Ali" is celebrated yearly, and the famous "Passion Play," a
true Miracle, is given every ten years at Oberammergau.

2. THE MORAL PERIOD OF THE DRAMA.[130] The second or moral period of the
drama is shown by the increasing prevalence of the Morality plays. In these
the characters were allegorical personages,--Life, Death, Repentance,
Goodness, Love, Greed, and other virtues and vices. The Moralities may be
regarded, therefore, as the dramatic counterpart of the once popular
allegorical poetry exemplified by the _Romance of the Rose_. It did not
occur to our first, unknown dramatists to portray men and women as they are
until they had first made characters of abstract human qualities.
Nevertheless, the Morality marks a distinct advance over the Miracle in
that it gave free scope to the imagination for new plots and incidents. In
Spain and Portugal these plays, under the name _auto_, were wonderfully
developed by the genius of Calderon and Gil Vicente; but in England the
Morality was a dreary kind of performance, like the allegorical poetry
which preceded it.

To enliven the audience the devil of the Miracle plays was introduced; and
another lively personage called the Vice was the predecessor