distinguished by the splendour or meanness of their apparel; he was a witness to Satan's overthrow, to Abel's death, and was a spectator at the flogging and crucifixion of Jesus. It is easy for those acquainted with the later drama (of Greene especially) to see the direct line of descent from these Miracles to the Shakespearian stage. One interesting feature of these plays is the frequent appearance of Angels and Devils on the stage. This accustomed the audience to the entrance of the supernatural, in solid form, into the realm of the natural; and paved the way for those most substantial ghosts which showed themselves so much at home on the Elizabethan stage. We should be not far wrong, perhaps, in describing the later introduction of the Senecan Ghost into English drama as an innovation only in name: the supernatural had been a familiar factor in heightening dramatic interest long before _The Misfortunes of Arthur_ or _The Spanish Tragedy_ were written.--Of the Devils even more may be said. Their picturesque attire,[19] their endless pranks (not set down in the text), their reappearance and disappearance at the most unexpected times, their howls and familiar 'Harrow and owt! owt and alas!' were a constant delight, and preserved their popularity unexhausted for two hundred years, securing for them a place in the later forms of drama when the Miracles were supplanted by Moralities and Interludes. The Devil's near cousin, Herod, attained to a similar reputation and longevity. Has even modern melodrama quite lost that immortal type of the ranting, bombastic tyrant and villain? The women in the play deserve notice. With the exception of Noah's wife, who was commonly treated in a broadly humorous vein, the principal female characters possess that sweet naturalness, depth and constancy of affection, purity and refinement which an age that had not yet lost the ideals of chivalry accepted as the normal qualities of a good woman. The mothers, wives, and daughters of that day would appear to have been before all things womanly, in an unaffected, instinctive way. Isaac (in the _Chester Miracle Play_), thinking, in the hour of death, of his mother's grief at home, says, 'Father, tell my mother for no thinge.' When Mary is married (_Coventry Play_) and must part from her mother, they bid farewell in this wise: _Anna._ I pray the, Mary, my swete chylde, Be lowe[20] and buxhum[21], meke and mylde, Sad and sobyr and nothyng wylde, And Goddys blessynge thou have.... Goddys grace on you sprede, ffarewel, Mary, my swete fflowre, ffareweyl, Joseph, and God you rede[22], ffareweyl my chylde and my tresowre, ffarewel, my dowtere yyng.[23] _Maria._ ffarewel, fadyr and modyr dere, At you I take my leve ryght here, God that sytt in hevyn so clere, Have you in his kepyng.