d so out-herod Herod. He is of old standing, a veteran of the
Church Epiphany plays, and has already learnt 'to split the ears of the
groundlings' with the stentorian sound of his pompous rhetoric. Hear him
declaim:

As a lord in ryalte in non regyon so ryche,
And rulere of alle remys[11], I ryde in ryal aray;
Ther is no lord of lond in lordchep to me lyche,
Non lofflyere, non lofsumere[12],--evyr lestyng is my lay:
Of bewte and of boldnes I bere evermore the belle;
Of mayn and of myght I master every man;
I dynge with my dowtynes the devyl down to helle,
ffor bothe of hevyn and of herthe I am kynge sertayn.

In _Scene 19_ we hear him issuing his cruel order for the killing of the
children. But when the foul deed is done there await the murderer two
kings whom he cannot slay, Death and the Devil. A banquet is in full
swing, Herod's officers are about him, the customary rant and bombast is
on his lips when those two steal in. 'While the trumpets are sounding,
Death slays Herod and his two soldiers suddenly, and the Devil receives
them'--so runs the terse Latin stage-direction.

Of the Devil we have more than enough in _Scene 22_, for it opens with
an infernal council, Sathanas, Belyalle, and Belsabub debating the best
means of testing the divinity of Jesus and of thereby making sure
whether or no another lord has been placed over them. The plan decided
upon is the Temptation. But great is Satan's downfall. 'Out, out,
harrow! alas! alas!' is the cry (one that had become very familiar to
his audience) as he hastens back to Hell, leaving the Heavenly Hero
crowned with glorious victory. This is one of several scenes chosen by
the author for the glorifying of his central character. Perhaps they
culminate in 'The Entry into Jerusalem'.

The scenes that now succeed each other, marking each stage of the
sorrowful descent to death, are notable chiefly for that quality to
which attention has already been drawn, namely, the dignity which
surrounds the character of the Hero. This dignity is not accidental. On
the contrary it would have been easy to fall into the error of exciting
so much compassion that the sufferer became a pitiably crushed victim of
misfortune. With much skill the writer places his most pathetic lines in
the mouths of the two Maries, diverts upon them the sharpest edge of our
pity, and never for a moment allows Jesus to appear overwhelmed. When a
Jew, in 'The Trial of C