their character.] The mystery and miracle plays
were succeeded by the moral play. It has been thought by some, who have
studied the history of the English theatre, that these plays were the
result of the Reformation, with the activity of which movement their
popularity was coincident. But perhaps the reader who is impressed with
the principle of that definite order of social advancement so frequently
referred to in this book, will agree with me that this relation of cause
and effect can hardly be sustained, and that devotional exercises and
popular recreations are in common affected by antecedent conditions. Of
the moral play, a very characteristic example still remains under the
title of "Everyman," It often delineates personification and allegory
with very considerable power. This short phase of our theatrical career
deserves a far closer attention than it has hitherto obtained, for it
has left an indelible impression on our literature. I think that it is
to this, in its declining days, that we are indebted for much of the
machinery of Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress." Whoever will compare that
work with such plays as "Everyman" and "Lusty Juventus," cannot fail to
be struck with their resemblances. Such personages as "Good Council,"
"Abominable Living," "Hypocrasie," in the play, are of the same family
as those in the Progress. The stout Protestantism of both is at once
edifying and amusing. An utter contempt for "holy stocks and holy
stones, holy clouts and holy bones," as the play has it, animates them
all. And it can hardly be doubted that the immortal tinker, in the
carnal days when he played at tipcat and romped with the girls on the
village green at Elstow, indulged himself in the edification of
witnessing these dramatic representations.

[Sidenote: Real plays, Shakespeare.] As to the passage from this
dramatic phase to the real, in which the character and actions of man
are portrayed, to the exclusion or with the subordination of the
supernatural, it is only necessary to allude with brevity--indeed, it is
only necessary to recall one name, and that one name is Shakespeare. He
stands, in his relations to English literature, in the same position
that the great Greek sculptors stood with respect to ancient art,
embodying conceptions of humanity in its various attributes with
indescribable skill, and with an exquisite agreement to nature.

[Sidenote: The pulpit and the stage.] Not without significance is it
that we