Excerpt from The Resurrection of Our Lord

The manuscript, here printed for the first time, is a thin folio, measuring 11 x inches, bound in contemporary sheep skin. It is a Resurrection drama, divided into parts or plays' to be performed on different days. Of the entire production only four fragments survive, two belonging to 'the first dayes playe' and two to 'the seconde dayes playe The pagination of these fragments runs: 17 - 28, 37 - 38, 43 - 58, 63 - 66. Thus eight leaves are lost at the beginning, four between pages 28 and 37, two between pages 38 and 43, another two between pages 58 and 6 3, and an unknown quantity at the end, the last remaining leaf being loose. Each page is ruled in black ink, so that the text is enclosed within a rectangular frame, leaving a margin at the top for headline and page number, another at the foot for the catchword, a narrow column on the inside, and a double column on the outside, within which last are generally found stage-directions, Biblical references, and other marginalia. The manuscript is the work of a single scribe, though a few altera tions, indicated in the editorial footnotes, have been made by what are apparently other hands. The handwriting is neat and very legible; but it is clearly that of a copyist, who has found it difficult in many places to follow the sense of his original. This is proved by the presence of several passages which are obviously corrupt, by frequent interlineations, and by the curious use of the query which, though sometimes employed in the normal way and sometimes standing for an exclamation-mark, is more often simply an indication of the scribe's perplexity. The question-mark at the end of the muddle in line 736 is an almost pathetic instance of this.

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