ripture, the Saviour being
one of the characters, the others being five Jews, a bishop, a priest,
a merchant, and a physician and his servant. The merchant, having the
key of the church, steals the Host, and sells it to the Jews, who
promise to turn Christians in case they find its miraculous powers
verified. They put the Host to various tests. Being stabbed with their
daggers, it bleeds, and one of the Jews goes mad at the sight. They
next attempt nailing it to a post, when one of them has his hand torn
off; whereupon the physician and his man come in to dress the wound,
but after a long comic scene are driven out as quacks. The Jews then
proceed to boil the Host, but the water forthwith turns blood-red.
Finally, they cast it into a heated oven, which presently bursts
asunder, and an image of the Saviour rises and addresses the Jews, who
make good their promise on the spot. The merchant confesses his theft,
declares his penitence, and is forgiven, under a strict charge never
again to buy or sell. The whole winds up with an epilogue from the
bishop, enforcing the moral of the play, which turns on the dogma of
transubstantiation.

There are three sets of Miracle-Plays extant, severally known as the
Towneley, Coventry, and Chester Collections; the first including
thirty plays, the second forty-two, and the third twenty-four. Some of
the manuscripts are thought to be as old as the time of Henry VI., who
died in 1471. The three sets have all been recently printed by the
Shakespeare Society. The Towneley set most likely belonged to Widkirk
Abbey: at what time they grew into use there and at Coventry is not
certainly known. At Chester the plays were probably first acted in
1268; after which time they were repeated yearly, with some
interruptions, till 1577. And we have conclusive evidence that such
exhibitions formed a regular part of English life in the reign of
Edward III., which began in 1327. For Chaucer alludes to "plays of
miracles" as things of common occurrence; and in _The Miller's Tale_
he makes it a prominent feature of the parish clerk, "that jolly was
and gay," that he performed in them. And in 1378, which was the first
year of Richard II., the choristers of St. Paul's, London, petitioned
the King to prohibit some ignorant persons from acting plays founded
on Scripture, as conflicting with the interest of the Clergy, who had
incurred expense in getting up a set of plays on similar subjects.
Stowe informs us, als