Page:The Library, volume 5, series 3.djvu/185

MIRACLE CYCLES. 173 The youngest manuscript is again in the British Museum, Harley 2124. It is dated 1607 and is perfect. It has some ornament and is the work of two scribes. It is designated H. I had better at once mention two other manu- scripts. One of these is a mere fragment out of a binding, preserved in the Manchester Free Library, and containing the opening of the play of the Resurrection. It is on vellum and has been ascribed to the end of the fifteenth century. This is a mistake. The elaborate writing is deliberately archaistic, and cannot be much earlier than the 1607. H. In the British Museum, MS. Harley 2124. Measures 1 1^ x 7^ inches. Perfect in 142 folios, with the original wrapper, formed of a Latin liturgical manuscript, preserved. The speakers' names are no longer centred, but placed in the left margin. They and the stage directions, Latin quotations, etc., are in red. Quat- rains or half stanzas are divided by rules. The manuscript is in two hands which have not hitherto been correctly distinguished. One is a purely Italian hand, which appears in folios 1-44 only. The other then begins, and writes folios 45-56 and 59-62 in an Italian hand so far as the text is concerned, but with the speakers' names in a curious spiky writing which must be called English, though the forms of many of the letters are in fa6t Italian. In folios 57-8, and from folio 63 onwards, this is used for the text as well. Both Italian scripts are very clear, the English though legible is occasionally misleading. The manuscript is signed at the end, in the second hand: ' 1607 Augusti quarto, per lacobum Miller.' The name < Williame Broome' occurs on the front cover. Fragment c. 1575-1600. M. A fragment, consisting of the upper part of a single leaf, in the Manchester Free Library. It came out of a binding and is much stained ; measures about 6^ x 7^ inches. The full leaf must have measured about 9^ x 7^ inches. It is of stout vellum, and contains 11. 1-13 and 21-41 of the play of the Resurrection, elaborately written in red and black. There is a heading, but neither the number of the pageant (xviii) or the name of the guild performing it (the Skinners) is given. The French verses with which this play opens are in Italian script, the