33 
the companies were dissolved and their muniments and records dis¬ 
persed and lost, these MSS. shared the fate of the rest. In some 
instances they may have been intentionally destroyed, as relics of 
superstition, or as containing (to use the words of Dean Hutton) 
“ many things disagreeing from the sincerity of the gospel.” This 
may account for the circumstance of no more than a single specimen 
having escaped from the general wreck. 
As illustrating the tastes and habits of our mediseval ancestors, and 
as indicating the character of the religious knowledge imparted to 
them by means of these representations, the mysteries or miracle-plays 
are highly interesting. Collections of those which were performed at 
Coventry and at Chester were printed by the Shakespeare Society 
about twenty years ago. A Yorkshire collection, known as the 
Widkirk series, was printed by the Surtees Society in the year 1834, 
under the able editorship of an honorary member of this society, the 
venerable historian of South Yorkshire. It is much to be desired that 
the noble owner of the MS. volume which contains the whole series of 
the York Corpus Christi pageants would allow it to be committed to 
the press under the supervision of an equally competent editor. The 
York plays are supposed to be of greater antiquity than those con¬ 
tained in any of the few collections hitherto brought to light. Mr. 
Collier is of opinion that although the handwriting of the Scriveners 
play may not be of earlier date than the former half of the fifteenth 
century, yet “ from the character of the speeches and the extreme 
simplicity of its construction,” the piece itself “ is one of the oldest 
dramas existing in our languageand that it has come down to us 
in the very shape in which it was presented to the citizens of York at 
least as early as the reign of King Edward III. 
January 1, 1861.— The Rev. J. Kenrick announced the recent 
discovery of a Roman sculptured stone at Dringhouses, near the line 
of the Roman road to Calcaria (Tadcaster), which, as appears from the 
monuments and urns found at the Mount and elsewhere, was bordered 
by sepulchral remains to a considerable distance. The stone in 
question exhibits the figure of a smith, holding in one hand a hammer, 
and in the other a pair of tongs, with a piece of iron which he is 
laying on an anvil. There is no inscription, but little doubt can be 
entertained that it represents an armourer of one of the legions 
stationed at York, probably the Sixth, as the rudeness of the sculpture 
indicates a late period of the Roman occupation. 
c 
