point onwards the drama rings with the
rough drinking songs, pious hymns, and sweet lyrics of the buffoon, the
preacher, and the lover. Thus, turning haphazard to _The Trial of
Treasure_, the Interlude immediately preceding _Like Will to Like_ in
the volume of Dodsley's _Old English Plays_, we find no less than eight
songs. _Like Will to Like_ has also eight. _New Custom_, the other
Interlude in the same volume, has only two; but it may be added that, as
the author of _New Custom_ was writing with a very special and sober
purpose in view, he may have felt that much singing would be
inappropriate. That these lyrics went with a good swing may be judged
from two of those in _Like Will to Like_.

(1) Tom Collier of Croydon hath sold his coals,
And made his market to-day;
And now he danceth with the Devil,
For like will to like alway.

Wherefore let us rejoice and sing,
Let us be merry and glad;
Sith that the Collier and the Devil
This match and dance hath made.

Now of this dance we make an end
With mirth and eke with joy:
The Collier and the Devil will be
Much like to like alway.

(2) Troll the bowl and drink to me, and troll the bowl again,
And put a brown toast in [the] pot for Philip Fleming's brain.
And I shall toss it to and fro, even round about the house-a:
Good hostess, now let it be so, I brink them all carouse-a.

More than once reference has been made to the lingering religious
element in the Interludes. Probably 'moral element' would describe it
better, though in those days religion and morality were perhaps less
separable than they are to-day. In the midst of so much comical
wickedness and naughty wit, with a decreasing use of the old Morality
Virtues, it might be thought that this element would be crowded out. But
it was not so. The downfall of the unrighteous was never allowed to pass
without the voice of the preacher, frequently the reprobate himself,
pointing the warning to those present. Cuthbert Cutpurse makes a 'godly
end' in this fashion:

O, all youth take example by me:
Flee from evil company, as from a serpent you would flee;
For I to you all a mirror may be.
I have been daintily and delicately bred,
But nothing at all in virtuous lore:
And now I am but a man dead;
Hanged I must be, which grieveth