THE CHESTER MYSTERIES. 187 
very similar in character, to the difference between Gothic 
architecture and Greek architecture—is distinctly traceable to 
that source. 
It is to this literary interest, and to this alone—for the interest 
in the religious aspect of the plays is of much more recent 
origin—that we owe our present facilities for the study of the 
subject. For over 100 years—all through the period of rhymed 
couplets, of classical imitations, and of a debased immoral stage 
—Shakespeare had been entirely neglected and forgotten, 
except, indeed, by unscrupulous playwrights, who borrowed and 
caricatured his personages without the least danger of detection. 
But in 1733, 13,000 copies of Theobald’s newly-published 
edition of Shakespeare were sold, and the revival of a relish 
for our great national poet soon led to a revived interest in the 
history of our national literature. Thomas Warton, Professor 
of Poetry at Oxford in 1756, published a history of English 
Poetry, which is, as far as I know, the very earliest work in 
which the old religious plays are brought forward as worthy of 
the attention of every student who wishes to understand some- 
thing of the origin of the English drama. John Payne Collier, 
who was born in 1781, and published his History of Dramatic 
Poetry in 1834, goes still further, and gives, for the first time, a 
vivid and well-written account of the actual matter of our 
ancient mysteries, illustrated by a comparison of three of the 
most important sets that have been handed down to us in Eng- 
lish, namely —the Chester, Coventry, and Townley mysteries. 
It is to the labour of the Shakespeare Societies, of a somewhat 
later date. that we owe the publication of the actual text of 
these plays, with admirable notes and introductions. 
It seems probable that the words may have been copied out 
afresh every time that a new representation was given, and 
that the well-worn MS., which had already served its turn, was 
then lost or destroyed, for no very early MSS. seem to have been 
preserved. In the case of the Chester plays, and of these 
alone, we have a very interesting account of the actual manner 
of performance, from the pen of a certain Archdeacon Rogers, 
who was Archdeacon of Chester, Vicar of Gawsworth, and ‘‘ Pre- 
bunde” of Chester Cathedral, just about 300 years ago, for he 
died in 1595, and he wrote his account of the plays some time 
subsequently to the year 1574, in which he witnessed their 
performance. 
England, living (till 1588) in perpetual danger of a Spanish 
Invasion, and irritated, by Ridolfi Plots and Jesuit Conspiracies 
within her own borders, into a frenzy of intolerance, was just 
then yielding herself up to a current of feeling which tended to 
make Puritanism dominant in all the larger towns in the country. 
Chester was no exception, and we gather that the Rev. Robert 
Rogers (he does not seem to have been Archdeacon till 1581) 
was in complete sympathy with the strong Puritan party, which 
was gradually getting the upper hand both among the Cathedral 
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