Page:Grierson Herbert - First Half of the Seventeenth Century.djvu/74

54 North Holland a more potent instrument than the play.

Besides the pure Morality, the "rederijkers" produced plays of the kind which in the Netherlands, as in England, formed a bridge from the abstract Morality to the more concrete history or tragi-comedy—plays which used as a vehicle for moral instruction a story taken from the Bible, from national history, or from classical history and mythology, and brought on the stage together concrete persons and abstractions. Spel van Sinne van Charon, Spel van Jason, Spel van den Koninck van Frankrike, Abraham's Utganck, are examples of plays not unlike Bale's Kyng Johan and Preston's Cambyses. It is perhaps interesting to remember that Bale was for several years an exile in the Low Countries. One well-known and impressive Morality was composed in Holland, Den Spiegel der Salicheit van Elkerlyck (our Everyman), which was possibly the work of a South-Netherland cleric and mystical writer, Pieter Dorland (1454-1507). Many of the clergy were members of the Chambers, some of them holding the post of "facteur" or poet to the Chamber. The literary and dramatic worth of Elkerlyck, however, is far above the average of the usual "Rederijkers'" poetry. The Zinnespelen and Scriptural Moralities are in general, from a dramatic and literary point of view, wearisome and worthless performances. There is more life in the farces such as Cornelis Everaert (1509-1533) produced in abundance. Van den Visscher, van Stout en Onbescaemt, 't Spel van den hoogen Wint