Conscience." The names borne by the different characters are all stated
upon the title-page, with such a distribution of the parts as would
enable six actors to represent the piece; and looking merely at this
list, which we have exactly copied, it does not appear in what way the
performance bears even a remote resemblance to tragedy or comedy. The
names read like an enumeration of such personages as were ordinarily
introduced into the Moral-plays of an earlier period--indeed, one of
them seems to be derived from the still more ancient form of
Miracle-plays, frequently represented with the assistance of the clergy.
We allude to Satan, who opens the body of the drama by a long speech (so
long that we can hardly understand how a popular audience endured it)
but does not afterwards take part in the action, excepting through the
agency of such characters as Hypocrisy, Tyranny, and Avarice, who may be
supposed to be his instruments, and under his influence and direction.

Nevertheless, a real and, as he may be considered, an historical,
personage is represented in various scenes of the play, and is, in
truth, its hero, although the author, for reasons assigned in the
Prologue, objected to the insertion of his name in the text. These
reasons, however, did not apply to the title-page, where the apostacy of
Francis Spira, or Spiera, is announced as the main subject, and of whom
an account may be found in Sleidan's "Vingt-neuf Livres d'Histoire"
(liv. xxi. edit. Geneva, 1563). Spiera was an Italian lawyer, who
abandoned the Protestant for the Roman Catholic faith, and in remorse
and despair committed suicide about thirty years anterior to the date
when "The Conflict of Conscience" came from the press. How long this
event had occurred before Nathaniel Woodes wrote his drama upon the
story, we have no means of knowing; but the object of the author
unquestionably was to forward and fix the Reformation, and we may
conclude, perhaps, that an incident of the kind would not be brought