At this point the play breaks off, unfinished, the мs. appearing to have lost four leaves. It seems highly probable that the end would have carried us on to the Temptation and Fall of Man.

1

First we have a play called The Annunciation, of which the whole introductory portion-where God decrees and plans the Redemption-is well worth quoting, but of which we have unfortunately room for but a few lines: GOD speaks.

The next two articles must be taken together for illustration-" And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord: Who

The other play from which we shall equality of these poems. The whole of quote concerning our Lord's Incarna- its first part consists of a conversation of tion and birth is a notable instance of the most earthly and disedifying nature what has been said above about the in--forcibly recalling Milton's

Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep,
Was all that did their sely thoughts so busy keep,

-among some shepherds, containing
many local allusions and anachronisms;
which unattractive composition bursts
quite suddenly, with the angels' burst of
song, into the wonderful beauty of
mingled familiarity, reverence, and ten-
derness of the concluding portion here
given. All readers of this will probably
agree that whoever was the old monk, if
monk it was, who penned this fragment,

he was a poet and a humorist (taking humor in its truest and deepest sense), whether he knew it himself or not, as well as an ardent believer.

This play is called in the "Towneley
Mysteries'
Mysteries' Secunda_Pastorum, being
the second of two Pagina Pastorum;
but in an edition of Mr. Collier's it is
called by the title which we prefer to
give it here-

"THE ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS."
(The scene at the beginning lies on a heath or moor.)
The angel sings "Gloria in Excelsis," and afterward says:

SUFFERED UNDER PONTIUS PILATE, WAS CRUCIFIED, DEAD, AND BURIED.
The Crucifixion

My Mother mild, now change thy cheer,
Cease of thy sorrow and sighing sere;
It sits upon my heart full sore.

The sorrow's sharp I suffer here;
But dole thou drees, my Mother dear,
Martyrs me mickle more.

Take there John unto thy child,

Mankind must needs be bought.
And thou her kin now be in thought,
John; lo, there thy Mother mild!

Such life, forsooth, I led, that scarcely may
This thole I for thy need,

To give thee, man, thy meed.
-Now thirst I wondrous sore !

I

more,