Consequently in their transcription of old Latin records many mistakes will be found, and though these may be irritating to the modern student, they can easily be corrected. The opinion passed on the first Randle Holme by the late Mr. W. H. Black, F.S.A., Assistant Keeper of the Public Records, may virtually be applied to them all: “In short, he was an industrious and faithful copyist or collector of historical antiquities, but his philological learning was too scanty for him to use extreme accuracy on the one hand, or to invent any of the documents which he professed to transcribe, extract, or abridge on the other. Therefore his copies may be always relied on as faithfully transcribed in substance.” Though the man of learned leisure has not yet appeared who can wade through these volumes and make us acquainted with the treasures they contain, yet it is true to say that no historian of Chester or of Cheshire can fulfil his purpose who does not either first-hand or second-hand (the former course being the better) derive a great deal of information from these industrious antiquarians of the seventeenth century. They have set an example which has been stimulating and fruitful, and it is only right that in a volume of this character generous and adequate expression should be given to the debt which we owe to them for the preservation of details and information which otherwise would have been irrevocably lost. They have left also in many of the churches in Chester and its neighbourhood many examples of their heraldic knowledge and skill in the memorials of deceased persons. Painted as these were on wood, many have disappeared; those that are still left are full of interest. May we not class these four Randle Holmes as amongst Chester’s most notable worthies? THE CHESTER MYSTERY PLAYS By Joseph C. Bridge, M.A., Mus. Doc. Oxon. et Dunelm., F.S.A. _Introduction._ There is no more interesting study in our early literature than the Mystery Plays which were once so popular throughout the length and breadth of England. It may be well to premise that their proper title is “Miracle” Plays, and no early writer ever alludes to them under any other name; nor was there in this country any difference between “Miracle” and “Mystery,” as stated by some authorities. But custom has now definitely coupled the latter title with those early dramatic efforts of our forefathers, and it will be used in these pages. Excluding odd ones, four great series of plays have come down to us, viz. those of York, Wakefield, Chester, and Coventry, and each place probably served as a centre of dramatic influence. While York acted as a stimulus to Wakefield itself and Newcastle, so Chester supported the dramatic efforts from Kendal in the north to Shrewsbury in the south and Dublin in the west.