"Shewe ye sume plesur as ye can
In the worship of Jesu, our Lady, and St. Anne."

And thereupon King Herod, Simeon, Joseph, the Virgin Mary, Watkin the
funny man, and the Prophetess well stricken in years, proceed to forward
four, and end with a promenade all around. Indeed, our ancestors seem to
have found it edifying, not to say entertaining, to go to a cathedral to
see Satan and an Archbishop dance a hornpipe with the Seven Deadly Sins
and the Five Cardinal Virtues.

A Morality called "Every Man," written about 1450, has a direct
connection with the subject which we are considering. Every Man, the
principal personage of the piece, is an allegorical representation of
all mankind; and the purpose of the play is told in this sentence, which
introduces it:--

"Here begynneth a Treatyse how the Hye Fader of Heven sendeth Dethe
to somon every creature to come & gyve a count of theyr lyves in this
worlde, & is in maner of a Morall Playe."

On the title-page of an edition printed in 1500, only one copy of which
exists, is a very rude wood-cut, in which an individual, who is labelled
"Every Man," is startled at the sight of Death standing at the door of
a church and summoning him. In this Moral Play, Fellowship, Good Deeds,
Worldly Goods, Knowledge, Beauty, Strength, Discretion, and Five Wittes
are characters; and they cannot interpose between Every Man and the
summons of Death, nor will any of them, except Good Deeds, go with him.
The representation of this play was a kind of Dance of Death, and from
the acting of "Every Man" to the execution of that Dance was but a short
step.