Coventry is distinguished in the history of the drama, because, under the title of “Ludus _Coventriæ_,” there exists a manuscript volume of most curious early plays, not yet printed, nor likely to be, unless there are sixty persons, at this time sufficiently concerned for our ancient literature and manners, to encourage a spirited gentleman to print a limited number of copies. If by any accident the manuscript should be destroyed, these plays, the constant theme of literary antiquaries from Dugdale to the present period, will only be known through the partial extracts of writers, who have sometimes inaccurately transcribed from the originals in the British Museum.[7] Mr. Sharp’s taste and attainments qualifying him for the task, and his residence at Coventry affording him facility of research among the muniments of the corporation, he has achieved the real labour of drawing from these and other unexplored sources, a body of highly interesting facts, respecting the vehicles, characters, and dresses of the actors in the pageants or dramatic mysteries anciently performed by the trading companies of that city; which, together with accounts of municipal entertainments of a public nature, form his meritorious volume. Very little has been known respecting the stage “properties,” before the rise of the regular drama, and therefore the abundant matter of that nature, adduced by this gentleman, is peculiarly valuable. With “The Taylors’ and Shearemens’ Pagant,” complete from the original manuscript, he gives the songs and the _original music_, engraved on three plates, which is eminently remarkable, because it is, perhaps, the only existing specimen of the melodies in the old Mysteries. There are ten other plates in the work; one of them represents the club, or maul, of Pilate, a character in the pageant of the Cappers’ company. “By a variety of entries it appears he had a club or maul, stuffed with wool; and that the exterior was formed of leather, is authenticated by the actual existence of such a club or maul, discovered by the writer of this Dissertation, in an antique chest within the Cappers’ chapel, (together with an iron cresset, and some fragments of armour,) where it had probably remained ever since the breaking up of the pageant.” The subject of the Cappers’ pageant was usually the trial and crucifixion of Christ, and the descent into hell.