circumference of the
plain. When it was well filled, the amphitheatre must have contained
upwards of two thousand people.

Such is this rude, yet extraordinary structure, in our time. It has not
lost its patriarchal simplicity since the far distant period when the
populace thronged its turf steps to welcome the strolling players of
their age. The antiquity of Piran Round dates back beyond the period of
the earliest and rudest dramatic performances on English ground. It was
first used for popular sports, for single combats, for rustic councils.
Then, plays were acted in it--miracle plays--some translated into the
ancient Cornish language, some originally written in it. The oldest of
these are lost; but one of a comparatively late date has been preserved
and translated into English. We will examine this book while we sit
within the deserted amphitheatre; and thus, in imagination at least,
people the simple stage before us with the rough country actors who once
trod it--thus pry behind the scenes at all that is left to us of the
ancient drama in Cornwall.

The play which we now open is called by the comprehensive title of "The
Creation of the World, with Noah's Flood." It was translated in 1611,
from a drama of much earlier date, for performance in Cornish, by
William Jordan; was then rendered into English by John Keygwyn, in 1691;
and was finally corrected and published by Mr. Davies Gilbert, in 1827.
The Cornish and English versions are printed on opposite pages, so we
can compare the two throughout, as we go on.

The play is in five acts, and is written in poetry--in a rambling
octosyllabic metre, often varied by the introduction of longer or
shorter lines, and sometimes interspersed (in the Cornish version) with
a word or two of English. It occupies a hundred and eighty pages,
containing on the average about twenty-five lines each. This would be
thought rather a lengthy manner of developing a dramatic story in our
days; but we must remember that the time embraced in the plot of the old
playwright extends from the Creation to the Flood, and must be
astonished and thankful that he has not been more diffuse.

The _dramatis personae_ muster by the legion. In the first act, we have
the whole heavenly host: in the second, are superadded Adam, Eve,
"Torpen, a devil," Beelzebub, the Serpent, and Michael the Archangel; in
the third, besides these, Death, Cain and his wife, Abel and Seth; in
the fourth, we have the addition