Note 96 — MYSTERIES, MORALITIES, FARCES, AND SOTTIES.

Since this article was written, many of these ancient Mysteries and Moralities have been printed at home and abroad. Hone, in his "Ancient Mysteries Described," 1825, first gave a summary of the Ludus Coventriæ, the famous mysteries performed by the trading companies of Coventry; the entire series have been since printed by the Shakspeare Society, under the editorship of Mr. Halliwell, and consist of forty-two dramas, founded on incidents in the Old and New Testaments. The equally famous Chester Mysteries were also printed by the same society under the editorship of Mr. Wright, and consist of twenty-five long dramas, commencing with "The Fall of Lucifer," and ending with "Doomsday." In 1834, the Abbotsford Club published some others from the Digby MS., in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. In 1825, Mr. Sharp, of Coventry, published a dissertation on the Mysteries once performed there, and printed the Pageant of the Sheremen and Taylor's Company; and in 1836 the Abbotsford Club printed the Pageant played by the Weavers of that city. In 1836, the Surtees Society published the series known as The Towneley Mysteries, consisting of thirty-two dramas; in 1838, Dr. Marriott published in English, at Basle, a selection of the most curious of these dramas. In 1837, M. Achille Jubinal published two octavo volumes of French "Mystères inédits du Quinzième Siècle." This list might be swelled by other notes of such books, printed within the last thirty years, in illustration of these early religious dramas.