Page:The Library, volume 5, series 3.djvu/30

1 8 PROBLEMS OF THE ENGLISH Of course, not all the plays a<5ted even in England were of the same type. Some great processional cycles have survived, and others are well known from the records. Some fragmentary cycles are extant. Some isolated plays that have come down to us are known to belong to recorded cycles, as in the case of the Norwich ' Fall,' or conjectured to belong to lost cycles, as in those of two plays on the ' Sacrifice of Isaac.' l Other cycles, however, were not divided into separate pageants at all, but were intended, like those of Cornwall, for con- tinuous performance on a fixed stage. Such were probably two cycles performed at Aberdeen, and such was certainly the intention of the reviser who left the Passion seftion of the c Ludus Couentriae ' in its present form. Saints' plays, again, are well known from records, while a 'Conversion of St. Paul' and avast Magdalen drama are extant in late manuscripts. It is noticeable that no instance of a St. Nicholas play has so far been recorded in England, nor, I believe, has any saint play for which a traditional connexion with the liturgy can be claimed. Several plays of St. George are mentioned, apart from the popular mummings. One curious drama of a miracle of the Host, founded on an incident alleged to have happened in Spain in 1461, is preserved; while a recently discovered manuscript of a single adtor's part out of a very typical Miracle of Our Lady proves that this strange branch of the religious drama, so 1 The so-called Dublin play (MS. at T. C. D.), which may belong to Northampton, and that in the Brome Hall manuscript.