doctrine of the Romish Church, Heywood never does so. The Pardoner and the Frere, the Curate and Neighbour Pratte satirises the two first named, and arrays against them the parish priest and the parishioners. The piece is flimsy though amusing. The friar and pardoner assert each his own merits until they quarrel, and at last come to blows. The curate enters and bids them hold. Pratte follows and asks what the quarrel means. The curate explains that it is a case of one knave railing at another:

"Wherfore take ye the tone and I shall take the other,

We shall bestow them there as is most convenient."

But the two prove to be tough antagonists. The curate presently calls upon Pratte for help; but Pratte has already more than he can do and in turn asks help which cannot be given:—

Nay by the mas felowe it wyll not be

I have more tow on my dystaff than I can well spyn.
The cursed frere doth the upper hande wyn."

The two champions of peace are glad to let both pardoner and friar go.

The Four P's is a far more noteworthy production, though here too the satire is in that burlesque vein which the interlude encouraged. The dramatis personæ are a Palmer, a Pardoner, a Potycary and a Pedlar. The Palmer recites a long catalogue of the holy places he has visited, and tells how he has seen Noah's ark. The Pardoner retorts that he has laboured in vain and come home as wise as he went, for pardons could have saved him without the trouble of all this pilgrimage. For a penny or twopence he will guarantee that

"In halfe an houre or thre quarters at moste

The soule is in heuen with the holy ghost."

The Potycary declares that they are both false knaves, but in the end admits that he is of the same company: they are "nought all thre." But there are grades in knavery, and in order to determine which of the three is the master-knave, it is resolved that the Pedlar shall be judge, and that the test shall be the telling of the greatest lie. The Pardoner makes a good beginning with a list of relics as spirited as it is absurd. He justly boasts that they are "Of suche a kynde

As in this worlde no man can fynde";

for they include the blessed jaw-bone of All Hallows, a buttock

bone of Pentecost, an eye-tooth of the great Turk, certain humble bees that stung Eve as she was eating the forbidden fruit, and, most wonderful of all, the great toe of the Trinity. The Potycary refuses to kiss this precious collection, with the tart remark:—

"These that stonge Eve shall nat stynge me."

It may be thought that here Heywood has passed the limits even of burlesque. But it must be remembered that the satirists from Chaucer and Piers Plowman downwards are of one consent as to the enormity of the abuse of pardons and relics. The crass ignorance of the bulk of the people made them ready victims to frauds almost incredibly gross. The "pigges bones" of Chaucer are grotesque enough, according to modern ideas; and we are helped towards the more extravagant grotesquerie of that "relic" of the Trinity by calling to mind the medieval piety which framed the petition: Sancta Trinitas, ora pro nobis. Men who could forget that when the Trinity was reached there was nothing else left to pray to, would not be so very much disturbed by the conception of a "relic" of the Trinity. Heywood unquestionably exaggerates; but exaggeration is a legitimate device in satire; and in order to judge whether the exaggeration is legitimate in degree or extravagant, we must first know the point from which we start.

When it comes to the actual lies by which the three rivals hope each to win the palm, the Potycary leads off with a tale of a wonderful cure. The Pardoner, following him, introduces the secondary subject of satire in the piece-the satire on woman. He tells how he descended into hell to rescue a woman, and finds his task unexpectedly easy, because Satan is so glad to get rid of her:

"For all we deuels within thys den

Haue more to do with two women

Then with all the charge we haue besyde."

But the prize is won by the Palmer, who tells how widely he has travelled, and how many women he has seen, and adds:

"I never sawe nor knewe in my consyens

Any one woman out of paciens."

This, the Pedlar declares, is the most excellent lie of all.

As time passed it was to be expected that a more distinctively. Protestant tone would prevail, and this we find to be the case in

John Bale's Kynge Johan, which was written towards the end of the reign of Henry VIII. Bale does not rise to the level of either Heywood or Lyndsay. He is not the equal of Heywood in brightness, nor of Lyndsay either in brightness or in force. His Kynge Johan (the only one of his plays in which the satirical element is strong) is a curious mixture of the morality with the historical play, including among the dramatis persona along with abstract qualities historical characters, such as King John, Langton and Pandulph. The mixture becomes peculiarly intimate when certain of the characters are identified with certain of the qualities. Thus, Langton is also Dissimulation. Dissimulation speaks with scanty respect of Romish ceremonial:

"To wynne the peple I appoynt yche man his place,
Sum to syng latyn, and sum to ducke at grace;

Sum to go mummyng, and sum to beare the crosse;

Sum to stowpe downeward as the beades were stopt with moose;
Sum rede the epystle and gospell at hygh masse,

Sum syng at the lectorne with long eares lyke an asse."

The principal part, however, is played by Sedition, who fills the place of the Vice. He declares that he reigns in every religion and monkish sect. He upholds the Pope and is always his ambassador. Nobility is under his sway, and the lawyers are his secret friends. He much prefers the present state of affairs to the old purity when the most austere of churchmen ruled:

"Here is now gatheryd a full honest company.

Here is nowther Awsten, Ambrose, Hierom nor Gregory,
But here is a sort of companyons moch more mery.
They of the church than were fower holy doctors,
We of the church now ar the iiii generall proctors.
Here ys fyrst of all good father Dyssymulacion,
The fyrst begynner of this same congregacion;
Here is Privat Welthe, which hath the chyrch infecte
With all abusyons, and brought yt to a synfull secte:
Here ys Usurpid Power that all kyngs doth subdwe,
With such autoryte as is neyther good ner trewe,
And I last of all am evyn sance pere Sedycyon."

When the King (Bale's very unworthy hero) is on the point of surrendering his crown, Sedition is naturally overjoyed :—

"Now shall we ruffle it in velvetts, gold and sylke,

With shaven crowns, syde gownes, and rochettes whyte as mylke.
By the messe, Pandulphus, now may we sing Cantate,
And crown Confitebor with a joyfull Jubilate."

The Protestants, however, had it not all their own way. Mary was no sooner on the throne than the anonymous Morality Respub

lica appeared upon the opposite side. It deals by no means exclusively with religion; indeed, the satire is directed first against the misgovernment of Edward's reign; but as the Protestants had held sway, and were therefore responsible for that misgovernment, the criticism necessarily tells against them. Respublica is introduced, bewailing that she has fallen into decay "through default of policy." This puts her in the hands of Avarice, who has already entered and disclosed his desire to creep into the counsels of Respublica. He hopes to get from her all sorts of trifles which to her are nothing. But in order to succeed he requires two thingsa more attractive name, and friends. He therefore proposes to call himself Policy, and, to associate with himself Adulation, Insolence and Oppression, re-christened respectively Honesty, Authority and Reformation. This goodly company enter the service of the distressed Respublica, and for a time all goes as they desire. Oppression, helped by Insolence, wrings their wealth from the bishops :

"To some we lefte one howse, to some we left none.

The beste had but his see place, that he might kepe home.
We enfourmed them and we defourmed theym,

We confourmed them, and we refourmed theym."

Avarice shows his bags filled by usury, perjury, bribes, but above all, by the robbery of Church goods:

"I have a good benefyce of an hundred markes:

Yt is smale policie to give suche to greate clerkes-
They will take no benefice but thei must have all;
A bare clerke canne bee content with a lyving smale.

Therefore, sir John Lacke Latten, my frende, shall have myne,
And of hym maie I ferme yt for eyght powndes or nyne;

The reste maie I reserve to myselfe for myne owne share,

For we are good feeders of the poore, so wee are.

And we patrones are bounde to see (I dooe youe tell)
The church patrimonie to be bestowyd well."

In a dialogue towards the end between Oppression, Respublica and People, the Protestant claims and the Romanist answers to them are compendiously given:

44

Oppr. Firste, your priestes or bisshops have not as thei have had.

Resp. Whan they had theire lyvinges, men were bothe fedde and cladde.

Oppr. Yea, but they ought not by scripture to be calde lordes.

Resp. That thei rewle the churche, with scripture well accordes.

Oppr. Thei were prowde and covetous and tooke muche vppon theim. People. But they were not covetous that tooke all from theym.

Oppr. The coigne eke has chaunged. Peop.-Yea, from 3ilver to drosse; (Twas tolde vs) vor the beste; but poore wee bare the loose."

The closing lines pass from ecclesiastical matters to a notorious abuse of the time, the monstrous debasement of the currency. People's sarcastic remark that it had been changed from silver to dross was not far from the truth; for, in fact, at the close of Edward's reign the pound sterling only contained a small fraction of its value in silver. Other secular matters which are also touched upon are the destruction of woods and the establishment of great grazing farms, which, it is complained, has made meat dear. Such complaints had been current, as we have seen, from the beginning of the century. In the end, Veritas opens the eyes of Respublica, and shows her who her counsellors, Policy and his friends, really are.

The literary memorials left by the Reformation in Scotland were of a superior class. In the northern part of the island Dunbar and Gavin Douglas had raised poetry to a height far above that which it reached in those days in England; and though the Kirk was destined presently to lay a heavy hand upon verse, as well as upon other forms of art, in the days when the Reformers were struggling unequally against the ecclesiastical powers in possession, they received no small help from literary free-lances. The first and greatest of these was Sir David Lyndsay (1490-1555); for, of course, Dunbar was by no means in the ecclesiastical sense a Reformer, even while he was satirising his clerical brethren. The difference in age between the two men had something to do with this. Dunbar, born about 1460, was an old man before the tendency towards reform had gained any strength; while Lyndsay, nearly a generation younger, came under its influence in his susceptible youth. There was, besides, a fundamental and innate difference between them. Dunbar, by far the greater artist, was ethically the slighter character of the two. Lyndsay was essentially seriousminded.

It was not, so far as is known, till 1528, when he was about thirty-eight years of age, that Lyndsay appeared in the character of a poet. The Dreme is a composition essentially didactic, and mildly satirical. Both the Church and the State are criticised. The poet sinks beneath the earth into hell. There, alas, he finds multitudes of churchmen of all sorts. Covetousness, lust, ambition and neglect of their duty of instructing the ignorant are the vices which have brought them there. The corruption of which their presence