these archaeological _minutiae_. One point, however, seems to deserve another word. Many writers have followed Warton in asserting that Adam and Eve were represented on the stage in actual nakedness[410]. The statement is chiefly based upon a too literal interpretation of the stage directions of the Chester plays[411]. There is a fine _a priori_ improbability about it, and as a matter of fact there can be very little doubt that the parts were played, as they would have been on any other stage in any other period of the world’s history, except possibly at the Roman _Floralia_[412], in fleshings. Jordan is quite explicit. Adam and Eve are to be ‘aparlet in whytt lether,’ and although Jordan’s play is a late one, I think it may be taken for granted that white leather was sufficient to meet the exigencies even of mediaeval realism. The accounts of miracle-plays frequently contain entries of payments for providing copies of the text used. When the stock of the Chelmsford play was dispersed in 1574, the copies were valued at £4. Such copies were naturally of more than one kind. There was the authoritative text kept for reference by the guild or other body of presenters. This is sometimes called the ‘play-book’ or ‘game-book.’ The Cornish term is _ordinale_, a derivative from the _ordo_ of the liturgical drama[413]. That in use elsewhere is more commonly ‘original,’ which appears in a variety of quaint spellings[414]. In the great towns where plays were given by the crafts under the general supervision of the corporation, each craft held the ‘original’ of its own play, but approved transcripts of these were also in the hands of the corporation officers. At Chester this transcript was itself called the ‘original’; at York it was the _registrum_. Most of the extant manuscripts of plays appear to be of the nature of ‘originals.’ From York and probably from Wakefield we have _registra_. The Chester texts are, however, late transcripts due to the zeal of local antiquaries, perhaps in view of some frustrated revival. Specimens exist also of two other kinds of copy. There are single plays from both Chester and York which have all the appearance of having been folded up for the pocket of a prompter. And the nature of the ‘parts’ prepared for individual actors may be seen from the transition example edited by Professor Skeat from a manuscript found at Shrewsbury. They contained the actors’ own speeches, with the ‘cues’ or closing words of the preceding speeches which signalled to him that his turn was at hand[415].