Trinity College, Dublin. In the lists of plays performed at Beverley and Newcastle, too, this subject has a place; and there is little doubt that it was a favourite piece, both on account of its human and pathetic interest, and its capabilities of conveying instruction, either of the mystic-typical kind familiar to the early centuries, or of a directly religious and moral nature. When complete in itself, as in the York or Dublin MSS., the play may in some instances have been performed separately, independently of the great cycle of which it formed a part; the fact that it is sometimes found in detached manuscripts would seem to indicate this. Even at Dublin, however, we know from the city records that the play of "Abraham and Isaac, with their offering and altar," was performed by the weavers' company as one of the Corpus Christi plays. [History of Dublin, by Walter Harris, London, 1766, p. 148.] I have found nothing to show that the play in the Brome MS. belonged to such a cycle in any town in East Anglia (traces exist of per|formances of religious plays at Wymondham, Manningtree, and Cambridge, and probably may be found in other places); but though it did, its separate preservation thus, copied among a number of other poems, is a proof that it was held in much estimation. The poet allowed himself space as though for a distinct play; it is nearly one hundred lines longer than the Dublin, and eighty-six lines longer than the York, the longest of the other Abraham plays. And that it may have been performed as an independent piece is confirmed by the analogy of the French Sacrifice d'Abraham out of the collection Le Mistére du Viel Testament, which M. Rothschild says "parait avoir été plus d'une fois représenté comme une mystére distinct." [Vol. ii. pp. 1—3.]
The performers to whom the play of Abraham and Isaac was allotted in various towns did not always belong to the same trade; in Newcastle-upon-Tyne the slaters produced it; in Beverley the
