allusion, and make some attempt at epigram. Another
type of drama, more ambitious and poetic, was not
hard to come at in Shakespeare's childhood. The
cycles of Miracle Plays were still presented, in the
early summer, by the trade-guilds of many towns; and
it may be that Shakespeare was taken by his father to
see them at Coventry. But this is hardly likely, for
his trivial allusions to them bear no witness to the
deep impression which must have been made upon an
imaginative child by that strange and solemn pageant,
dragging its slow length along, and exhibiting in
selected scenes the whole drama of man, his creation,
his fall, and his redemption.

Spectacles and diversions of this kind belonged to
the age that was passing away, and had in them none
of the intellectual excitement of a new movement.
It was otherwise with the plays and interludes pre-
sented by the companies of travelling players who
certainly visited Stratford. These men belonged to
the new order; their plays savoured of modern wit
and modern classical enthusiasm. The manner of
their performances is very exactly recorded by Shakespeare
in A Midsummer Night's Dream. They would
present themselves to the steward of a great house,
or to the officer of a corporation, and submit a list
of their pieces, with a request to be allowed to
perform. Just as Hamlet compels the actors, on their
arrival, to give him a specimen of their skill, so
Philostrate, who is simply an Elizabethan Master of
the Revels, takes care, when the rustics come with
their play, to hear it over before proposing it to his
master. Then he recites to Theseus a list of the en-
tertainments provided to beguile the time between
supper and bed. The plays are all mythological in
subject, after the newest mode. The battle with the

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