The term Vice is not used as the designation of a stock dramatic character till the appearance of Heywood's _Play of the Wether_ and _Play of Love_, before or about 1532. It is next employed in _Respublica_, 1553, and _Jacke Jugeler_, 1553-61. These and similar notices of that period, however, occur only on title-pages of plays or in lists or stage directions. The earliest mention of the Vice in the text of a play is found in _King Darius_, 1565. It is not until 1567, with the _Horestes_, that we find the designation "used consistently throughout, in the title, the list of players and the rubric."[49] But whether the generic name of Vice was introduced by the authors of these plays, or, as is more likely, by the actors, it was a well-known designation of a stock figure, especially in the moral drama from 1530 onward; and from that time was used by publishers to advance the interest of certain plays. Since, however, the idea of the Vice seems to be inseparable from that of the moral play, the character had achieved a prominence long before it was listed as a generic designation. Collier defines the moral, or moral interlude, as "A drama the characters of which are allegorical, abstract, or symbolical, and the style of which is intended to convey a lesson for the better conduct of human life." And the differencing quality of the moral is, as Mr. Pollard has said, "the contest between the personified powers of good and evil for the possession of a human soul. As the allegorical representatives of the good were the Seven Cardinal Virtues, so the representatives of the evil were the Seven Deadly Sins and their master the Devil." From these Seven Deadly Sins or Vices, the Vice _par excellence_ of the morals and interludes is without doubt descended. With the opinion of Ward and Douce, however, that he is proved to be of native English origin, I cannot unreservedly concur; nor with a statement in the thesis to which I have already referred, that the Germans and French had no Vice, but used instead the "differentiated" devil. Idleness, a Vice, though not so called, appears in the French _Bien-Avisé et Mal-Avisé_ (_c._ 1439), about as early as any Vice appears in English drama; and the four confederates of the Devil in _L'Homme Pêcheur_, Desperation, etc., perform the office, though they have not the designation, of Vice. The Hypocrisie and Simonie of Gringoire's attack upon _L'Homme Obstiné_ (Julius II.), about 1512, are as true representatives of the Vice as are the corresponding figures in _The Nigromansir_, _Thrie Estatis_, _Kyng Johan_, _Respublica_ and _Conflict of Conscience_.