ieces renders them easier to read than the long
compositions of the fifteenth century, and the poetical beauty of some
of the legends which they tell is sufficient to furnish them with
interest. Even in these, however, the absence of point and of dignity
in the expression frequently mars the effect; and this is still more the
case with the longer mysteries. Of these latter, however, the work of
the brothers Greban--for there were two, Arnould and Simon,
concerned--contains passages superior to the general run, and in others
lines and even scenes of merit occur.

[Sidenote: Profane Drama.]

[Sidenote: Adam de la Halle.]

Although the existence of the drama as an actual fact was for a long
time due to the performance and popularity of the mysteries and
miracles, specimens of dramatic work with purely profane subjects are to
be found at a comparatively early date. Adam de la Halle, so far as our
present information goes, has the credit of inventing two separate
styles of such composition[126]. In _Li Jus de la Feuillie_ he has left
us the earliest comedy in the vulgar tongue known; in the pastoral drama
of _Robin et Marion_ the earliest specimen of comic opera. Independently
of the improbability that the drama, once in full practice, should be
arbitrarily confined to a single class of subject, there were many germs
of dramatic composition in mediaeval literature which wanted but a
little encouragement to develop themselves. The verse dialogues and
_debats_, which both troubadours and trouveres had favoured, were in
themselves incompletely dramatic. The _pastourelles_, an extremely
favourite and fashionable class of composition, must have suggested to
others besides the Hunchback of Arras the idea of dramatising them; and
the early and strongly-marked partiality of the middle ages for pageants
and shows of all kinds could hardly fail to induce those who planned
them to intersperse dialogue.

The plot of _Robin et Marion_ is simple and in a way regular. The
ordinary incidents of a _pastourelle_, the meeting of a fair shepherdess
and a passing knight, the wooing (in this case an unsuccessful one) and
the riding away, are all there. The piece is completed by a kind of
rustic picnic, in which the neighbouring shepherds and shepherdesses
join and disport themselves. Marion is a very graceful and amiable
figure; Robin a sheepish coward, who is not in the least worthy of her.
In Adam's other and earlier drama he is by no means