Page:The Library, volume 5, series 3.djvu/308

 296 PROBLEMS OF THE ENGLISH more difficult question, and one which I must leave open. With regard to substantial borrowing there is one further point I wish to notice. It has been repeatedly stated or assumed that such borrowing was oral. I believe it to be far too close and consistent to justify such an hypothesis. We have no evidence whatever that actors in miracle plays learned more than their individual parts and cues, and in any case a text obtained from an ator would almost inevitably betray its origin by preserving some speeches better than others. The remark of a German critic, 1 that the numerous verbal differences that occur in the text even of the ' Exodus ' are inexplicable on the assumption of manuscript transmission, reveals a pathetic innocence of the capacities, or even the normal habits, of medieval scribes. So much for the York and Wakefield cycles. As far as my knowledge extends, there are, outside those cycles, only two instances in which plays exhibit any substantial correspondence of text. One is in the plays of ' Christ and the Doctors ' from the Chester and true Coventry cycles. This involves the York and Wakefield plays as well, and I propose to consider it in detail later on. The other instance is afforded by the plays of the c Sacrifice of Isaac ' from the Chester cycle and the Brome Hall manuscript respectively, and of this a few words must be said in passing. It has been usual, whatever view was taken of the re- spective merits of the two pieces, to suppose that the Chester play, in spite of its being in the same 1 Bunzen, ' Beitrag,' p. 13.