Page:The Library, volume 5, series 3.djvu/408

 394 PROBLEMS OF THE ENGLISH even more cruelly cut down, three stanzas alone remaining, the first of which was strangely mis- printed by the editor. 1 One word of warning I ought to add. Although what remains of these two plays is in thirteener stanzas, these are not of the usual type. The usual formula begins abababab: here we have ababbcbc. It is, therefore, possible that these pieces may not be original. The 'Assumption,' play 41, which follows next, has been already sufficiently described; 2 it is un- represented in the Prologue. The last of all, teener play, and agrees with pageant xl of the Prologue so far as it goes. But it is imperfect owing to the loss of a quire at the end of the manuscript. Now, what conclusions are we to draw from the facts noticed ? A few I have ventured to suggest as we went along, but it remains to formulate some sort of general theory as to the growth of the cycle. To begin with, the Prologue has been revised at two different periods and by two different hands. Four stanzas near the end have been rewritten after the Passion section had assumed more or less its present very late form, and the rewriting was done by one who was unable to imitate the terse short lines of his model. But the two imperfect stanzas inserted earlier prove that there had been a previous revision by a writer whose work is not metrically distinguishable from that of the original author. 1 The curious jumble that appears at the head of this play in the printed text really constitutes the first four lines of the first stanza, the names being those of the speakers. 2 See p. 372 above.
 * Doomsday,' number 42, is again a regular thir-