to conclude that the Priests themselves made use even of the images of the Saints and Martyrs, perhaps for this very purpose: it is well ascertained, not only that they did not scruple to employ the churches, but that those sacred edifices were considered the fittest places for our earliest dramatic representations.[1]
"Motion" is the most general term by which they are mentioned by our ancient authors, and especially by our dramatists: thus Shakspeare, in the "Winter's Tale" (Act 4, Scene 2) makes Autolycus say: "Then he compassed a motion of the Prodigal Son, and married a tinker's wife within a mile of where my land and living lies." It would be easy to multiply quotations to the same point from nearly all his contemporaries, but one is as good as a thousand. The nature and one method of their representation at that period, and doubtless long before, may be seen at the close of Ben Jonson's "Bartholomew Fair." He there makes Lanthern Leatherhead convert the story of Hero and Leander (then very popular from Marlow's and Chapman's translation, or rather paraphrase of it), into a "motion" or puppet-play; and he combines with it the well-known friendship of Damon and Pythias, a story long before dramatised. The exhibitor, standing above and working the figures, "interprets" for them, and delivers the burlesque dialogue he supposes to pass between the characters. In the same Poet's "Tale of a Tub," (Act. 5) In-and-in Medley presents a "motion" for the amusement of the company, connecting it with the plot of the comedy itself. Here he explains the scenes as he proceeds, something in the manner of the ancient Dumb-shows before the
- ↑ See the new edition of "Dodsley's Old Plays," vol. 1. p. 43, et seq.
published his edition of "Macbeth," with new notes and various emendations. At his decease, the following lines, never yet printed, were written upon him:—
"When the great Angel blows the judgment trump,
He also must give Harry Rowe a thump:
If not, poor Harry never will awake,
But think it is his own trumpet, by mistake.
He blow it all his life, with greatest skill,
And but for want of breath had blown it still."
