the South- Sea. 189 



cc The Priefts and Clerks went mask'd to the Church, and 

 <c at their Return from thence went about the Streets in 

 <c Carts, and mounted on Stages, performing all the mod 

 " impudent Poftures and Buffoonries with which Water- 

 £C men are wont to divert the foolifh Mobb." ThatFeftival 

 continued in France above 150 Years, from the Twelfth to 

 the Fifteenth Century. Mez. Phil. II. 



Sunday Night they a&ed the Comedy of the Life of S. A- Anothtrvte& 

 lexius, written by the Spanijh Poet Moreto, which I have 

 fince found in the Tenth Volume of the Colle&ion of Spa* 

 nifh Plays, printed at Madrid with Licence, in the Year 1658, 

 by the Name of, Nueuo Teatro de Comedias ^arias de diferentes 

 Autores y or the New Theatre of Variety of Plays by fun- 

 dry Authors. I thought it very ftrange in the firft A&, to 

 fee S. Alexius sGmvdim Angel, and the Devil, difputing a- 

 bout perfuading him to leave or ftay with his Wife : In the 

 fecond, the Devil appears in the Shape of a poor Mar>, or 

 Beggar, and in the third in that of a Sailor; and about the 

 End of the fecond, a Choir of Angels fhut up in an Her- 

 mitage, twice fings the firft Part of the Te Deum, to the 

 Mufick of the Bells. The Extravagancy of thofe Conceits, 

 and of the Perfons the Poet brings upon the Stage, was to 

 us Frenchmen, who happen'd to be prefent at that Specta- 

 cle, a Subject the more ridiculous, in regard that we were 

 ufed to corre& Pieces, and wherein the Refpeit that is paid 

 to Things {acred, admits of do Mixture of what is prophane, 

 as was in this I am fpeaking of, where the Licentioufnefs 

 of Farce intermix' d added to the Prepofteroufnefs. I da 

 not give this Relation as if it were a Thing extraordinary 

 or new in Europe ; there is no Man that has traveFd in Spain 

 but is acquainted with the Tafte of their Dramatkk Poems, 

 in which the Subjeft of Devotion has always fome Part ; fo 

 that we ftill find among them what was ufed at the firft 

 Rife of our French Stage, as is related by one of our Poets> 



Chez mi devots Ayeux le 'Theatre abhorre 



Fat long-temps dans la France un plaijir ignore': 



Pi 



