442 Monthly Review of Literature, ^Oct. 



searched and sifted all our materials ; you must be content with the fruits of 

 our labours, for labour can do no more. They have taken credit for consum- 

 mate ability and unsurpassable exertion — for strenuously reaping the scanty 

 harvest, and even for carefully gathering the gleanings. But, luckily, the effects 

 produced by such declarations are usually short-lived — they repress only con- 

 temporaries. With the next age they lose their force ; and the new energies of 

 a fresh generation will scale with ease what the old pronounced unsurmountable. 

 Thus it is that one age surpasses another, and we have little doubt that, though 

 Mr. Collier's researches will appear to his contemporaries to be such as to make 

 further efforts hopeless, another age, another century, will produce new 

 labourers, who will make his discoveries look as little as he makes those of the 

 Stevenses, Malones, and Giffords. 



Mr. Collier's able performance consists in reality of two distinct works — the 

 Annals of the Stage to the closing of the Theatres in the reign of the Puritans ; 

 and a History of Dramatic Literature to the days of Shakspeare. The public 

 offices and receptacles for old records furnished large and valuable additions to 

 the materials, which had been already discovered, but which lay scattered in 

 printed and manuscript volumes. The state -paper department — the privy coun- 

 cil office — the chapter-house of Westminster, have supplied numerous original 

 documents, which throw a fresh, clear, and strong light upon some of the most 

 obscure parts of the history of the stage and drama. Among them, Mr. C. 

 particularizes unopened patents to different companies of players — original 

 accounts of the royal revels from the early part of the reign of Henry VUI. — 

 unexamined books of domestic expenses of our kings and nobility from 

 Edward IV. downwards. These were sources scarcely accessible to general 

 search, and might be expected to present some novelty ; but not less productive 

 have proved the MSS. of the British Museum, which have been long open to 

 every body's scrutiny. Mr. C. wa$ amazed at the substantial materials which 

 he detected there. The Burghley papers, exceedingly voluminous, had been 

 scarcely glanced at ; and even the Harleian, Cottonian, and royal MSS., have 

 never been thoroughly ransacked. In the royal MSS. Mr. C. found two of 

 Ben Jonson's masks in his own hand-writing. In these, too, he met with 

 letters from and concerning our "most notorious poets," the predecessors and 

 contemporaries of Shakspeare ; and especially in a diary, kept by an intelligent 

 barrister, who lived while Shakspeare was in the zenith of his popularity, he 

 found original notices and anecdotes of him, Spenser, Jonson, Marston, &c. 

 Mr. C. spent some years in going through these voluminous collections, but he 

 declares he never had occasion to repent the mis-spending of a single hour while 

 so employed. 



In the history of dramatic poetry Mr. C. begins with the miracles, or miracle- 

 plays, (usually designated by the name of Mysteries,) as the source and founda- 

 tion of the national drama. They appear to have been translations from the 

 French language rather than Latin. The most ancient is that of St. Katherine, 

 acted at Dunstable very early in the twelfth century. It is true the French 

 dramatic records are supposed not to extend beyond the thirteenth century ; but 

 St. Katherine itself was the production of a Norman monk — a member of the 

 university of Paris, though finally abbot of St. Alban's. Mr. C. has examined 

 the whole stock, printed and manuscript, known to be extant ; and the reader 

 will find an analysis of the whole of the Widkirk, Chester, and Coventry series. 

 A new MS. of the Chester series has recently come to light — much superior to 

 those before known — an earlier transcript — more correct, and of course serving 

 to correct the blunders of later ones. It is in the possession of Mr. Nicholls, 

 the printer— himself a diligent collector in matters of archeology. No miracle- 

 plays probably were written after the reign of Henry VIII. , but they continued 

 to be performed till the end of the century. They were acted even so late as 

 1603, at Lancaster, Preston, and Kendall. 



Mr. C. next traces the connection between miracle-plays — which consisted at 

 first solely of Scripture characters — and morals, or moral-plays, (commonly 

 styled Moralities,) which were malde up of allegorical personages. The miracles 



