Page:The Library, volume 5, series 3.djvu/409

MIRACLE CYCLES. 395 Perhaps the latest revisional work on the text was done by the author of Contemplatio's speeches. He seems to have been writing while the present manuscript was in course of compilation, and is probably responsible for a good deal of revision throughout. I suspefl that he wrote the four late stanzas of the Prologue, and possibly also the Assumption play. What makes it difficult to recognize his work is that he did not affedt any one stanza particularly. His lines are long and flabby. Closely associated with his work are the portions in long odtaves. That they are revisional work, expressly written for the positions they now occupy, and not borrowed from an independent source, is, I think, clear from the Incredulity episode appended to the Emmaus play. Observe also that the plays on the Conception and Pre- sentation of the Virgin, which are in this metre, appear to be expressly written to lead up to that on the Marriage. It is just possible that these portions were written by the author of the Con- templatio passages, though for my own part I think it unlikely. They are later than the first revision of the Prologue. Another portion which there seems good ground for believing to be revisional is that written in romance stanzas. The introduction to the c Purga- tion,' which must obviously have been written for its present place, is in this metre, and work in it appears to overlie original thirteener composition in the Paradise, Shepherds, Magi, and Innocents plays. That the Prologue takes account of it seems proved by the last of these. Both thirteener