Good and Bad Angels, and, against the old names that must still remain,
seems to have jotted for himself this reminder, 'Try human types.' So,
at least, we may imagine him doing. The figures that occupy the stage of
the old Morality are for the most part, like the two Angels, mere
mouthpieces for pious or wicked counsels. Fellowship and his companions,
on the other hand, are selected examples from well-known and
clearly-defined classes of mankind. They are not more than that. All we
know of Fellowship is his ready faculty for excusing himself when help
is needed. He has no traits to distinguish him from others of his kind.
If we describe to one another the men or women whom he recalls to our
memory we find that the descriptions differ widely in all but the one
common characteristic. In other words, he is a type. The step which
brings us to the Interludes is the conversion of the type into an
individual with special marks about him peculiar to himself. It is an
ingenious suggestion, that the idea first found expression in an attempt
to excite interest by adding to a character one or two of the
peculiarities of a local celebrity (miser, prodigal, or beggar) known
for the quality typified. If this was so, it was an interesting
reversion to the methods of Aristophanes. But it is only a guess. What
is certain is that in the Interludes we find the 'type' gradually
assuming a greater complexity, a larger measure of those minor features
which make the ordinary man interesting. Significantly enough, the last
thing to be acquired was a name such as ordinary men bear. A few
characters attained to that certificate of individuality, but even
Heywood, the master of the Interlude, preferred class names, such as
Palmer, Pardoner, or Pedlar. This should warn us not to expect too much
from the change. To the very end some features of the earliest
Moralities are discernible: we shall meet Good Angel and Bad Angel in
one of Marlowe's plays. After all, the interval of time is not so very
great. _The Castell of Perseverance_ was written probably about the