382 
JOUENAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
air gatherings for preaching, <fcc. ; but they are all modern, though 
Longueville Jones 8 speaks of Gwennap Pit as an ancient Plain an 
Guari/, or Playing Place, for which it is not at all adapted. 
There has been also recently, from time to time, an attempt at a 
revival of something like the ancient mysteries. 8 " Joseph in the Pit, " 
"Moses in the Bulrushes," &c, have been acted on stages erected 
in fields near chapels, by Sunday-school teachers and scholars ; 
but however good the object aimed at — the collecting of funds for 
the schools — there is a tendency in them to turn religion into ridi- 
cule. At Ammergau the drama is acted in a religious and solemn 
manner, and the spectators as a rule are seriously impressed 
throughout. The actors also know their parts well. They are 
said to study the plot for two or three years before the decennial 
representation comes round; have their several parts assigned 
months before the performance begins, and each actor is appointed 
to the character for which he is best fitted, and can go through his 
part well. It is, and, according to Carew, also was formerly, far 
otherwise in Cornwall. He says that in his time they did not even 
conne or commit to memory what they had to say, but trusted to 
the prompter, who followed them, to dictate from a book in a 
whisper the words they were to say, which sometimes led the 
facetious to turn the whole thing into ridicule, as was the case in 
the instance related by him, where a substitute purposely repeated, 
not the words intended for him to use, but the private instruction 
to himself. 
Another instance of evil resulting from the practice. At one 
representation of the " Passion," when, as on the Ammergau and 
Cornish stage, the piercing scene took place, the soldier missed the 
bladder containing blood, and pierced the heart of the representa- 
tive of Christ; on which a brother who was present, enraged at 
his death, struck down his murderer, and was himself afterwards 
executed for murder. Such cases are sufficient, however highly 
visitors may speak of the good effect of the Ammergau play on 
spectators, to lead one at least to hope that the success attendant 
on the representation may not lead to a more frequent repetition 
there ; and still further, that it may not be imitated elsewhere, as 
what may be innocent or even instructive on the rude stage at Am- 
mergau, when acted by the serious, simple-minded, and unsophisti- 
cated villagers, while they continue such, might elsewhere become 
positively blasphemous. 
8 " Archseologia Cambriensis," 1862, pp. 224-5. 
