MIRACLE CYCLES. 287 is unnecessary to refer to any other cause. Dr. Charles Davidson, after producing an extensive list of parallels from five plays of the Annuncia- tion, rightly concludes that all such resemblances
- are misleading when used to support a theory of
direft interdependence among the extant plays.' 1 Nevertheless, two fadts remain and have to be taken into consideration namely, that different cycles do agree in following the biblical story more closely in some places than in others, and that similarities of treatment do occur which are not to be explained by the words of scripture. It is evident that in some cases there was a general tradition as to how a story should be treated. That tradition must have had a basis, and the theory most popular among critics has been that the basis was the liturgical drama. Of late, indeed, the liturgical drama has become something of an obsession with critics. Even Hohlfeld, a sensible man who wrote before the fashion became general, went so far astray as to insist on a liturgical basis for the Assumption play of the ' Ludus Coventriae,' 2 which is in fa<5l a very close paraphrase from the c Legenda Aurea.' An American scholar has re- cently made an elaborate attempt to determine the common liturgical cycle out of which, according to him, parts at least of those of York, Wakefield, and Coventry all developed. 3 Now, while firmly 1 * Studies in the English Mystery Plays,' 1892, p. 162. 2 * Anglia,' 1889, xi. 274. 3 F. W. Cady in ' Publications of the Modern Language Association of America,' 1909, xxiv. 1419; see also 'Journal of English and Germanic Philology,' 191 1, x. 573, and 1912, xi. 244, and 'Modern Philology,' 1913, x. 587.
