Strutt quotes a puppet-showman's bill, in the reign of Anne; at the British Museum, which announces scriptural subjects as follows: "At Crawley's Booth, over against the Crown Tavern, in Smithfield, during the time of Bartholomew Fair, will be presented a little opera, called the Old Creation of the World, yet newly revived ; with the addition of Noah's Flood; also several fountains playing water during the time of the play. The last scene does present Noah and his family coming out of the ark, with all the beasts two by two, and all the fowls of the air seen in a prospect sitting upon trees; likewise over the ark is seen the sun rising in a glorious manner; moreover a multitude of angels will be seen in a double rank, which presents a double prospect, one for the sun the other for a palace, where will be seen six angels ringing of bells. Likewise machines descend from above, double and treble, with Dives rising out of hell, and Lazarus seen in Abraham's bosom, besides several figures dancing jiggs, sarabands, and country dances, to the admiration of the spectators; with the merry conceits of Squire Punch, and Sir John Spendall."

He

Perhaps the adventures of Punch in the common puppet-show, gave rise to dramatic performances of greater celebrity. Punch always comes up gay, heedless, and very well satisfied with himself. is a sensual, dissolute, hardened character, who beats his wife and child, has a thorough contempt for moral reputation, disregards the advice of the priest, knocks him down, dances with his female associates, is a little frightened by a spectre, becomes as bad as ever, does not fear the devil, fights with him, is conquered, and finally carried off to hell. The adventures of Don Juan, or the Libertine Destroyed, of the theatres, and the Don Giovanni of the Italian opera, seem but an amplified representation of the adventures of Punch, the libertine destroyed, in the puppet-show of the streets.

The English puppet-show was formerly called a motion. Shakspeare mentions the performance of Mysteries by puppets; his Autolycus frequented wakes, fairs, and bear-baitings, and "compassed a motion of the Prodigal Son." On a Twelfth

night, in 1818, a man, making the usual Christmas cry, of "Gallantee show," was called in to exhibit his performances for the amusement of my young folks and their companions. Most unexpectedly, he "compassed a motion of the Prodigal Son" by dancing his transparencies between the magnifying glass and candle of a magic lanthorn, the coloured figures greatly enlarged were reflected on a sheet spread against the wall of a darkened room. The prodigal son was represented carousing with his companions at the Swan Inn, at Stratford; while the landlady in the bar, on every fresh call was seen to score double. There was also Noah's Ark, with "Pull Devil, Pull Baker," or the just judgment upon a baker who sold bread short of weight, and was carried to hell in his own basket. The reader will bear in mind, that this was not a motion in the dramatic sense of the word, but a puppet-like exhibition of a Mystery, with discrepancies of the same character as those which peculiarized the Mysteries of five centuries ago. The Gallantee-showman narrated with astonishing gravity the incidents of every fresh scene, while his companion in the room played country-dances and other tunes on the street organ, during the whole of the performance. The manager informed me that his show had been the same during many years, and, in truth, it was unvariable; for his entire property consisted of but this one set of glasses, and his magic lanthorn. I failed in an endeavour to make him comprehend that its propriety could be doubted of: it was the first time that he had heard of the possibility of objection to an entertainment which his audiences witnessed every night with uncommon and unbounded applause. Expressing a hope that I would command his company at a future time, he put his card into my hand, inscribed, "The Royal Gallantee Show, provided by Jos. Leverge, 7, Ely Court, Holborn Hill:" the very spot whereon the last theatrical representation of a Mystery, the play of Christ's Passion, is recorded to have been witnessed in England.

IX. PAGEANTS.

"Not a rack behind."

Shakspeare.

WARTON ARTON thinks that the Pageants, which on civil occasions derived great part of their decorations and actors from historical fact, and consequently made profane characters the subject of public exhibition, dictated ideas of a regular drama much sooner than the Mysteries. (1) Whether this were so or not, the Pageants sometimes partook of the nature of Mysteries, and were of a mixed character. This is particularly exemplified in the prints to the descriptive volume of the great Haerlem show, before mentioned. (2) There were on that occasion personifications of Vanity, Wisdom, War, Cruelty, Faith, Hope, Charity, Learning, Pride, Poverty, Blindness, Drunkenness, Evil Conscience, Wickedness, Despair, Fame, Bad Report, Envy, Hypocrisy, Hunger, Thirst, Pain: personations of Christ, Judas, Ananias, Sapphira, Zaccheus, Cornelius, Tabitha, Tobias, Midas, Mercury, Soldiers, Murderers, Merchants, Priests, &c. Riches is there represented as a man richly habited, accompanied by Covetousness, a female with a high ruff open at the neck in front, from whence springs a large branch that falls horizontally over her shoulder, to Achan, Ahab, and Judas, who follow in the procession, plucking the fruit from the bough. In another of these prints, Christ barefooted and in a close vest, precedes a penitent-looking man, and grasps a sword in his right hand which he turns round and points at the devil, who holds a prong, (3) and is at the man's

(1) Warton, vol. ii., p. 202.

(2) Page 141, ante. (3) This is the prong, a fac simile of that in Hearne's print, p. 138, ante.

heels with Hell and Death following. Hell is denoted by a black monk-like figure walking without a head, flame and smoke issuing forth at the top instead; Death, gaunt and naked, holds a large dart ; the Devil has a human face with horns, and a blunt tail, rather thickened at the end, trailing on the ground like a rope. A procession in one of these plates represents the story of Hatto, Bishop of Mentz, who, in order that a scarcity might the sooner cease, assembled the poor that were suffering by famine, in a barn, and caused them to be burnt alive, saying, that poor people were like mice, good for nothing but to devour corn; wherefore God Almighty raised up an army of mice to do judgment upon him, from whom he escaped to a tower in the middle of the Rhine, whither the mice swam, and miserably devoured him. This story was told in a pageant by a wooden building apparently on fire; people enclosed within, put their hands through the bars of the window imploring relief; a soldier with a torch in one hand, stabs at them with a dagger grasped in the other; the archbishop, robed, mitred and crosiered, follows dignifiedly; while Avarice infuses her thoughts into his ear with a pair of bellows: lastly, a dart from which mice are hung by the back, is uplifted against him by death.1

Strutt remarks that Pageants, though commonly exhibited in the great towns and cities of England on solemn and joyful occasions, were more frequent in London, on account of its being the theatre for the entertainment of foreign monarchs, and for the procession of our own kings and queens to their coronation, or on their return from abroad; besides which, there were the ceremonials incident at stated periods, such as the setting of the midsummer watch, and the Lord Mayor's Show. Accordingly a considerable number of different artificers were kept at the city's expense to furnish the machinery for the Pageants, and to decorate them; and a great part of Leaden Hall was anciently appropriated to painting and depositing them. The fronts of the

1 The story is agreeably versified, by Mr. Southey, in a ballad of God's Judgment on a Bishop.-Minor Poems, 1815, vol. iii. p. 66.

houses in the streets through which the processions passed, were covered with rich adornments of tapestry, arras, and cloth of gold; the chief magistrates and most opulent citizens usually appeared on horseback in sumptuous habits, and joined the cavalcade, while the ringing of bells, the sound of music from various quarters, and the shouts of the populace, nearly stunned the ears of the spectators. At certain distances, in places appointed for the purpose, the Pageants were erected, which were temporary buildings representing castles, palaces, gardens, rocks or forests, as the occasion required, where nymphs, fauns, satyrs, gods, goddesses, angels, and devils, appeared in company with giants, savages, dragons, saints, knights, buffoons, and dwarfs, surrounded by minstrels and choristers; the heathen mythology, the legends of chivalry, and Christian divinity, were ridiculously jumbled together without meaning; and the exhibitions usually concluded with dull pedantic harangues exceedingly tedious, and replete with the grossest adulation.1 Warton is of opinion, that it was not until about the reign of Henry VI. that the performers in the Pageants began to recite. From a few notices some estimate may be formed of the consequence in which they were held and the nature of the exhibition.

Strype says, that Pageants were exhibited in London when Queen Eleanor rode through the city to her coronation in 1236,2 and again in 1298, on the occasion of the victory obtained by Edward I. over the Scots.3 There were Pageants in 1357, when Edward the black prince brought John king of France prisoner through the city: in 1392, when Richard II. passed through London after the citizens, by submission, and the Queen's intercession, had obtained the restoration of their charter; and again, in 1415, upon the entry of Henry V. after the battle of Agin

court.4

In 1431, when Henry VI. entered Paris as king of France, he

1 Strutt's Sports, Introd. p. xxiii. 2 Glory of Regality, by Mr. Arthur Taylor, p. 251. 3 Ibid. p. 236. Jones's Biogr. Dram, art. Pageant.