his wife comes nimbly to his aid with the startling explanation that it
is her son without doubt, for she saw him transformed by a fairy into
this misshapen changeling precisely on the stroke of twelve. Not so,
however, are the shepherds to be persuaded to disbelieve their eyes.
Instead Mak gets a good tossing in a blanket for his pains, the
exertion of which sentence reduces the three to such drowsiness that
soon they are fast asleep again. From their slumber they are awakened by
the Angel's Song; upon which follows their journey with gifts to the
newborn King.

Peculiar to the Coventry Miracle Play is the introduction of a new type
of character, unhuman, unreal, a mere embodied quality. In _Scene 9_,
where Mary is handed over by her parents to the care of the High Priest
at the Temple, she finds provided for her as companions the five
maidens, Meditation, Contrition, Compassion, Cleanness and Fruition,
while near by await her seven teachers, Discretion, Devotion, Dilection,
Deliberation, Declaration, Determination and Divination, a goodly
company of Doctors indeed. Of all these intangible figures one only,
Milton's 'cherub Contemplation', speaks, but the rest are quite
obviously represented on the stage, though whether all in flesh and
blood may be matter for uncertainty. Much more talkative, on the other
hand, are similar abstractions in _Scene 11_. Here, in the presence of
God, Contemplation and the Virtues having appealed for an extension of
mercy and forgiveness to man, Truth, Pity and Justice discuss the
question of Redemption from their particular points of view until God
interposes with his decision in its favour. Mention of this innovation
in the Miracle Play seems advisable at this point, though its bearing on
later drama will be more clearly seen in the next chapter.

Little need be said of the verse commonly used in Miracles, save to