The ninth—the birth of Christ, with shepherds, and the three kings of Colen,—was a very common subject. The scenes were, usually:—1st, Mary, Joseph, the child, an ox and an ass, and angels speaking to shepherds.—2nd, The shepherds speaking by turns, the star, an angel giving joy to the shepherds.—3rd, The three kings coming from the East, Herod asking about the child, with the son of Herod, two counsellors, and a messenger.—4th, Mary, with the child and star above, and the kings offering gifts. In the Townley and Coventry Mysteries, the play commences with a ranting speech of King Herod, one of those which gave rise to Shakespeare’s saying of “out-heroding Herod.” In the fifth volume of the Paston Letters, J. Wheatley writes to Sir J. Paston, “and as for Haylesdon, my lord of Suffolk was there on Wednesday; at his being there that day, there was never no man that played _Herod_ in Corpus Christi better, and more agreeable to his pageant, than he.” Most of these pageants were founded upon scripture narrative; while of those of Coventry several are founded on legendary history. The tenth pageant, having for its object the “Baptism of Christ,” was exhibited by the Barbers, &c. The eleventh pageant was the “Resurrection,” brought forward by the Butchers, &c. The twelfth and last pageant was the “Holy Ghost,” and exhibited the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles. In the well-known mystery, entitled _Corpus Christi_, or the Coventry play, the prologue is delivered by three persons, who speak alternately, and are called _vexillators_; it contains the arguments of the several _pageants_ or _acts_ that constitute the piece, and they amount to no less than forty, every one of which consists of a detached subject from scripture, beginning with the Creation of the Universe, and concluding with the “Last Judgment.” In the first pageant or act, the Deity is represented seated on a throne by himself; after a speech of some length, the angels enter, singing from the church service portions of the Te Deum. Lucifer then appears, and desires to know if the hymn was in honour of God or himself, when a difference arises among the angels, and the evil ones are with Lucifer expelled by force. The Reformation had not the effect of annihilating these observances in many places; the Corpus Christi procession was kept up for years after, as in Norwich; and it was not until the beginning of the reign of James I. that they were finally suppressed in all the towns of the kingdom. John Bale, of the Carmelite Monastery, of Whitefriars, Norwich, afterwards a convert to Protestantism, and made successively Bishop of Ossory, Archbishop of Dublin, also a prebend of Canterbury, was a great writer of mysteries; one of his compositions was entitled “The Chief Promises of God to Man,” its principal characters being God, Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Isaiah, and John Baptist.