Charles Davidson — English Mystery Plays. 253 



h) The riming, as in XL VI, where the repetition of ' hym,' * us,' 

 and the frequent use of words ending in *ioun' is a habit unknown 

 to the author of X and XL 



c) The vocabulary of the writer, in cases where there is no ques- 

 tion of the substitution of a more familiar synonym. Examples of 

 such usage are 'bewscheris' and many quasi-French words (cp. line 

 257, XXXI), and the employment of words of Latin origin which 

 were used in riming as an ornament of style,^ especially such as end 

 in 'ioun.' 



These affectations in riming we recognize, from later plays and 

 from other poetical works, as the ornaments of style at a period later 

 than the origin of plays X and XL 



The municipal books of York show that expansion or contraction 

 of the cycle, according to the present needs of the different crafts,^ 

 was of common occurrence. Such changes were made by the inser- 

 tion or excision of whole scenes, or of whole plays, never by the 

 fusion of plays. This will become clear as we proceed to the more 

 minute analysis. 



11. The Woodkirk cycle^ is a collection of plaj^s drawn from 

 various sources. The compiler was a man of small poetical ability. 

 His original verse was confined to couplets, with an occasional at- 

 tempt at quatrains. He did not hesitate to appropriate good work 

 wherever he found it, or to do violence to rime or measure, if he con- 

 sidered the thought unclear or contrary to accepted traditions. 



As illustrations of his methods we cite — 



1. For transition between selected parts of plays, the sixteen 

 verses by cherubim between the first speech of Deus and that of 



1 York plays, pp. XIV to XXVI, notes. 



2 Hall, Engllsche Studien, vol. 9, p. 449, argues that Y is derived from W because it 

 contains more alliteration ! He arrives at this conclusion by trusting implicitly to 

 Skeat's " Law of progress in alliterative poetrJ^"' Preface to Joseph of Arimathea, p. X. 

 If, as Skeat formulates it, the progress is "from lines with two alliterated letters to lines 

 with three, and in very late instances, to lines with four," from irregularity to regular- 

 ity—although he admits that some of the latest examples of allitei'ative verse relapses 

 into irregularity;"— then I do not see how HalPs conclusion can be escaped. But the 

 law seems to run as well from no alliteration to two alliterated words. In that case 

 the re-creation of the old alliteration after the literature containing it had been buried 

 for centuries would be little short of a miracle. 



On the contrary, the old laws of alliteration were preserved by the North in continu- 

 ous tradition. A sharp division must be made between structui'al alliteration, Avhich 

 conforms to ancient law, and alliteration for ornament, which gi-adually broke down 

 the tradition of the fathei-s by swamping the essentials in a multitude of detail. Wo 

 have already traced the progress of demoralization, and need only note that it, in con- 

 formity with other evidences, makes W the later dependent cycle so far as concerns the 

 older plays of the collection. 



