A DRAMATIC RELIC.*

A Conmea poem of considerable length, disinterred by a critical editor like Mr. Stokes from a manuscript of the year 1504, will be welcomed by Celtic philologists as a. valuable repertory of an ex- tinct dialect ; but we may here regard the Life of' St. Meriasek merely as a fair specimen of the miracle-plays with which the Catholic world used formerly to be amused and indoctrinated. The materials of the composition, except when Constantine and Pope Sylvester come into it, will be strange to most of our readers, but it will be convenient to begin our account of it with a. short synopsis of the most important scenes in order. At the outset, M.eriasek (or Mereadocus, as the Latin rubric calls him) is intro- duced to us as the son of the Duke of Brittany, the relative and favourite of King Conan. We see him sent to a schoolmaster, and making great progress under his instruction, though he insists on spending portions of his time in prayer and fasting. After his return to his parents, the King, who has heard much of his virtues * The Life of Si. Meriasek, Bishop and Confessor: a Cornish Drama. Edited. with Translation and Notes, by Whitley Stokes. London: TrUbner and Co. 1872.

and good-breeding, comes forward, and offers to procure him a splendid matrimonial alliance, which he, however, peremptorily refuses, alleging his religious vocation. Expostulations are fruit- less, and be is at last allowed to get ordained by a Bishop, and sail over to Cornwall ; he has, meantime, wrought several miracu- lous cures. He lands near Camborne, on the road from Penzance to Redruth, and rejoices the inhabitants by causing a well to spring up (the bathers in it are still called Merisackers, from a remnant of tradition connected with his name). In this region the saint endeavours to settle, but is hindered by the persecutions of a Pagan or Mohammedan tyrant, Teudar, from whom he escapes, and returns to Brittany. The next act, as we may call it, relates to the legend of Constantine's conversion by Sylvester, and exhi- bits the former's persecutions of the Christians, his leprosy, and

the preparations that he made for the monstrous blood-bath of the well-known tradition, a remedy which is here suggested by a

puzzling personage called Episcopus Poly (perhaps a Bishop of Pola, in Istria, but at all events a Pagan on his first appearance). The scene then shifts back to Brittany, where Meriasek has set up a hermitage. He is visited in it by the Duke of Rohan, and vainly solicited to return to the world. He, however, grants the request of his kinsman to rid the laud of outlaws, and sends a fire into the forest, which makes all its denizens turn to God and to him for rescue. The memory of this event is perpetuated by three fairs, which the Duke establishes in Brittany according to his promise. Meantime, a Duke of Corn- wall, who has heard of Meriasek's sufferings, leads an army to revenge him against Teudar, who is discomfited, in spite of the demons that make common cause with him. In the further course of the play, Meriasek is made Bishop of Vannes, much against his will, but at the unanimous instance of the people in his neighbourhood. He continues to perform miracles of healing for great men and mean men. Then we come to a curious episodical story of a young man who is taken prisoner in a battle, and whose mother, having vainly entreated Mary to liberate him, revenges herself by stealing the child- Christ from the arms of the Virgin's image. Thereupon the Virgin, with Christ's consent, descends from heaven and frees the prisoner ; the restitution of the image ensues as may be expected, and faith is apparently rewarded at the ex- pense of honesty. After this episode, further miracles are attri- buted to Meriasek (who is nourished by angels during a severe fast), and subsequently to St. Sylvester, who has to tame a dragon that is ravaging the country, and causing no small perplexity to Constantine, because many people aver that she has been sent among them by the gods to punish their ruler for renouncing the religion of his forefathers. The play ends with the edifying death of Meriasek, who, with great philanthropy, and in the full uncon- sciousness of approaching saintship, promises the most important favours to all believers who may invoke his mediation :— " Whoever shall honour me in this world, Jesu, Lord, grant to them Power of being confessed here Before dying, readily ; Christ's body likewise to receive, Anointed, therewith certainly, To heaven's kingdom that their soul May go right truly to that joy And be healed of every disease Within the body and the soul.

Sustenance that they may have likewise, And enough pittance for living. In Cornwell I shall have a house By Mary of Camborne.

To see me whoever comes thither, I will absolve him at once Mr. Stokes remarks that this play is founded on three stories "unskilfully pieced together,"—the legend of St. Meriasek, the legend of Sylvester and Constantine, and the story of the Mother and Son (on which the Latin rubric refers us to an unknown work on the miracles of Mereadoc). This account is estheti- cally true ; and the story we have last referred to is

certainly represented in such a way that it might have made a miracle-play by itself. It is a branch of the dramatic tree which

is only prevented from appearing a complete tree by the accident of its position. On the other hand, the two principal legends appear to have been sagaciously combined (though with an ana- chronism of some centuries, by the most favourable accounts) for the purpose of connecting a local tutelary power with a tradition cherished by the entire Roman Catholic Church. In the same manner, and notwithstanding that Meriasek is born, and dies, and has been made a bishop, and wrought most of his mighty works in Brittany, he is ingeniously recommended to the sym- pathies of the Cornish play-goers by the circumstances of his visit to their peninsula, where, if they had to regret that he was perse- cuted, they might also rejoice to think he had been avenged by an indigenous champion of Christianity.

The play is divided into two principal portions, concluding each with an exhortation to the audience—not to imitate the austerities- of the saint—but to eat, drink, and dance, si if in reliance on his vicarious merits. The principal characters introduce themselves with little Euripidean prologues, to which the Latin gloss-writer

has prefixed rubrics like "ho pompabit pater Mereadoci." The "comic element "necessary in all Cornish plays is provided by

Constantine's quack-doctor ; by the tormentors employed by Teudar, Constantine, and another tyrant ; by the Breton out- laws, &c. It is perhaps these parts which are most abundantly and grotesquely interlarded with English words and phrases, especially in the way of vulgar oaths and ribaldries, which

remind us of Jeanne Dares "cent ntille Cottames." But the language is throughout strangely composite, and the orthography,

though irregular enough, has in general a more English than Welsh appearance. The style appears rude, though we are com- pelled to found our judgment of it chiefly on the prevalence of expletives, like "surely," "certainly," or the more Chaucerian "without doubt," "without dread," &c. On the other hand, the versification appears neat and sonorous, and the arrangement of the rhymed stanzas is often such as to remind us rather of the

Troubadours than of the English popular poets of that age, or in particular of our editor's Play of the Sacrament. The translation which accompanies the Cornish text is instructively literal and

etymological, but clear and dexterous notwithstanding ; and the

notes contain candid statements on all conjectural interpretations, and full registers of the rarer grammatical forms. The characters of the dramatis personm are, as we might expect, brought out bluntly, and without any dubious touches. The following extract from the nob o episcopari scene may be found characteristic :—

44 2ND BISHOP. "Thy bulls have come home. In Vannes to consecrate thee Bishop we have power. That is the wish of all the country. Thou mayst in thy days Right truly be bound to them.

" MERIABEK. "Talk ye not of the dignity, For love of Christ above ! Bishop I would never be, Nor certainly do I wish a cure Of a son of any man in this world Save my own soul. Lords, lords, go ye home, Hinder not my devotion.

"BISHOP OF liEnsoN.

"Seek not to talk words, And against us to pull, When it is ordered by the Pope. Though thou wilt, though thou wilt not, Thou shalt go away with us " MERIASEK.

"Blessed Mary, help me Mary, from thee Against my will I am led. Mary, Mother and Virgin, Mary, well thou knowest, With the charge well satisfied I am not.

"THE EARL OF VANNES.

"Meriasek, thou art a wise man, Need is for some to take the cure Here surely of the souls. In the place where there is a soft shepherd The fox right certainly Will lessen the sheep. One-minded as we are, Within the church of St. Sampson Let him be consecrated Mr. Stokes's preface states that this drama was discovered about three years ago among the manuscripts of Mr. Hengwrt, by Mr. Wynne, of Peniarth. The first thirty-six lines have been printed

in the Archmoloyia Cambrensis for 1869, by the Rev. Robert Wil- liams, of Rhydycroesan (who has assisted in the revision of the

present volume), but the remainder is now for the first time published.