"The drama's now a great established fact,
That can't be blink'd, ignored how'er attack'd
By vain abuse or angry prejudice;
The time's gone by when _playing was a vice_;
When bigots mark'd the actor with a ban,
(Tho' saintly crowds to hear his accents ran),
Denied him sacred rite and hallowed grave--
Filching from God the soul he made to save--
And, for the pleasure which his life had giv'n
On earth, refused him dead, a place in heav'n.
No! wiser days bring gentler feelings in,
And 'Nature's touches makes the whole world kin'."

By degrees the _Mimis_, or mummers, with their fellows, spread
themselves all over Europe. The humbler of the craft, in fact it might
be said of them all, as Othello's occupation had (for them) long since
been gone, strolled from castle to castle, from village to town, and
earning their livelihood as best they could. To these wandering
Bohemians we owe such traditions of the drama that survived with them
into succeeding ages; and to them also we are indebted for keeping alive
by inculcating unto others the Art of _Pantomimus_, when in the heyday
of its popularity in the Roman Empire.

CHAPTER VIII.

Pantomime in the English Mystery or Miracle Plays and Pageants--A
retrospect of the Early Drama--Mysteries on Biblical events--Chester,
Coventry, York, and Towneley Mystery Plays--Plays in Churches--Traces of
the Mystery Play in England in the Nineteenth Century--Mystery Plays on
the Continent--The Chester series of Plays--The Devil or Clown and the
_Exodiarii_ and _Emboliariae_ of the Ancient Mimes.

It is presumed that, not only were the early sacred plays acted in
dumb-show, but that the Miracle or Mysteries of Religion series of
plays--which grew out of the sacred play--also the Pageants in the
beginning, and for long afterwards were acted in this wise. Percy, in
his "Reliques of Ancient English Poetry," also takes this view. He
says:--"They were (the Mysteries) probably a kind of _dumb show_,
intermingled, it may be, with a few short speeches, at length they grew
into regular scenes of connected dialogues, formally divided into acts
and scenes." Colley Cibber has: "It has been conjectured that the actors
of the Mysteries of Religion were _mummers_, a word signifying one who
makes and disguises himself to play the fool _without speaking_. They
were dressed in an antic manner, _dancing, mimicking_, and _showing
postures_." Mr. Wright als