CHAPTER 13. RENEWAL OF THE LITERARY CONTEST. It was only a temporary truce that the Puritan pamphleteers had signed, and although their cause prospered well in their silence, the armistice was soon broken. The first known work, however, of what we call the period of renewed hostility was not controversial. It was the anonymous sixact comedy of 1610, Histrio-Mastix: or, the Player Whipt, which both for its character and for its name, made famous by a later writer, is noteworthy. The comedy was first written by Peele, and later retouched by Marston; and being in subject an attack on the common players and a vindication of the boys' companies against the men's, it could not have been intended for the common stage.1 As an expression of this professional rivalry, its argument was based entirely on non-moral grounds, which formed only a part of the Puritan cause; and one sees that Histrio-Mastix sprang from the general sentiment of previous years rather than from principles rigidly connected with the dispute. The play is an allegory in the style of the old moralities, showing how both noblemen and citizens, in spite of the warnings of Chrisoganus, the Jonsonian critic, forsake the arts and give themselves up to the luxury of an era of peace and plenty. One of the diversions to which the misguided men yield is patronage of Sir Oliver Owlet's company of actors. "This going to a play is now all in the fashion," they say and although some have misgivings that, compared with the solid mental food offered by Chrisoganus, it is "a deale of prating to so little purpose," the fashion carries the day, and Sir Owlet's men give their performance. Such "lame stuff" it proves to be that soon they are stopped. The satire on the play and the players concerns 1 School of Shakspere, Simpson's Introduction. the warfare of the theaters rather than our struggle; but the strolling band is attacked also on strictly Puritan grounds. The actors, becoming "insolent with glib prosperity," decline to play for less than ten pounds, and even during the ravages of civil war refuse to discontinue.1 They are forced, however, to leave their useless life, and, as recruits impressed for military service, they next appear in the muster stripped of their gaudy costumes, and soundly berated by the drill sergeant for marching like drowned rats, they who had once so proudly played the part of Tamburlaine. As the play proceeds their fortunes still decline. War brings famine to the land, the players' board bills are unpaid, and their clothing is sacrificed to meet the demands of an insistent landlady. Still less easily pacified is the constable who immediately seizes their persons for arrears in taxes. Though they promise him to leave their acting, and, with superhuman effort, return to their old trades-Gut to making fiddle strings, Belch to hair dressing, and Posthaste to ballading, nothing but transportation will satisfy. The ship stands ready, and, with unseamanlike disregard for the wind, the constable's order is, "no matter where it blows, away with them." Soon they are drifting to unknown lands, while Peace and Plenty return to England. The As a private play, Histrio-Mastix can not be said to have reopened the pamphlet warfare. Hence Heywood's Apology for Actors, which was published in 1612, was inspired by no special attack, but rather by the steadily growing opposition during the days when plays and theaters flourished under royal patronage. Nevertheless, it afforded the most elaborate defense then given of the actors' profession. Apology is divided into three brief treatises, which set forth concerning actors "their Antiquity," "their ancient Dignity," and "the true use of their Quality"; and following this outline, rather than the approved arguments of earlier defenders, Heywood offered his vindication of the drama. In the first treatise, Heywood showed the high antiquity 1 Act III, 1. 267. of the stage, and argued that since neither Christ nor his Apostles, not even Paul in his Epistle to the Romans, forbade Christians to attend the Roman games, it was illogical to say that the absence of any favorable mention of plays in the Bible made them unlawful. On the contrary, silence gave assent. In the second part ancient theaters and their various uses are described. Here Heywood, like all other defenders, regretted the sins of his comrades, wishing "that such as are condemned for their licentiousnesse, might by a generall consent bee quite excluded our society; for, as we are men that stand in the broad eye of the world, so should our manners, gestures, and behaviours, savour of such government and modesty, to deserve the good thoughts and reports of all men." Notwithstanding, he proudly asserted, "Many amongst us I know to be of substance, of government, of sober lives, and temperate carriages, housekeepers, and contributory to all duties enjoined them." He begged, therefore, that the body as a whole should not be blamed for the faults of a few. In the third part, which most concerns us, he gave the advantages derivable from the stage. In the first place, it was one of the ornaments of the city of London; for no other nation had finer plays than England, a means both to entertain and to impress foreign dignitaries. It was the drama, moreover, that had given polish and refinement to the language. It had also been such a source of training, not only in the schools, but also to the people, that even the most illiterate could then "discourse of any notable thing" in the glorious course of England's history, and were familiar with its lessons of obedience and loyalty to kings. Such salutary teaching came not alone from historical plays. Though unwilling to defend "any lascivious shewes, scurrelous jeasts or scandalous invectives," Heywood believed that the drama in all its forms could teach nobility and bravery, and disclose the evils of pride, intemperance and lust. As proof, he cited the instance of the murderer who publicly confessed at the 3 p. 54-6. 1 p. 24. 2 p. 43-4. 3 play-house his crime; and, with unconscious humor and an unwitting thrust bred of long practice, narrated the episode of the band of Spaniards which, in its secret advance through London's streets, fled in fear as it heard the tumult of battle upon the stage. Consequently, Heywood was unwilling to sacrifice this wholesome art because some few derived evil from it, and because some actors and some plays failed to fulfill their true mission. With the same arguments from the ideal that Lodge had used, Heywood looked upon plays as a source of good. If they had really instilled a love of virtue and an abhorrence of vice, his position would have been fair. It is certain, however, that the majority of plays did no such thing. Osmund Lake soberly confirmed the assertion of Gosson and all other pamphleteers that the evil scenes were greeted with shouts of delight, rather than with disgust; and we may assume that if the audiences had not wished vice to appear in plays it would never have been found. It is significant that Heywood himself was not wholly free from subjection to the low. Thus the Apology is based only on an ideal of triumphant purity; but this was not Elizabethan England. In connection with the Apology, the commendatory poems written by Heywood's theatrical friends throw an interesting side-light on the quarrel. Some merely restate the author's argument. Hopton, for example, said that plays kept gallants from evil occupations. But in others, the typical actors' conception of the Puritan is revealed. Richard Perkins confessed that although never given to dissipation he was not Puritanical, explaining himself thus: Still when I come to playes, I love to sit Even in the stages front, and not to git Into a nooke, and hood-winke there my face. This is the difference: such would have men deeme 1 In the catch at the end of Act IV of the Rape of Lucrece, and in the comedy, A Maidenhead Well Lost, Heywood clearly pandered to vulgar taste. Another, also, spoke of Puritanical duplicity. However valueless these verses may be, they at least betray the opinions rife among the players in regard to their opponents. 1 Heywood was directly answered by an anonymous Refutation. But before turning to this and the other Puritan tracts that shortly followed, it may be best to consider another defense, written in 1616 by Nathaniel Field, son of John Field, the redoubtable opponent of the stage. This interesting character stood up bravely for his fellows in answer to Dr. Sutton's diatribe against the players of the Globe Theater. In his Remonstrance,2 Field protested that he had always tried to live as a true Christian should, and that he in no wise deserved Sutton's bitter and uncharitable condemnation. His was a personal reply, therefore, to a personal attack, since Sutton had not spared, Field averred, "particularly to point att me and some other of my quallity, and directly to our faces in the publique assembly to pronounce us dampned," as though intending "to send us alive to hell in the sight of many wittnesses." Field reminded his adversary that this was not Christ's way of reproving sinners, who suffered for all men, the player not excluded. He assured Sutton that if he had spoken more charitably and sensibly against the vices of the stage he would have agreed with him. Instead, Sutton had stooped to the absurdest arguments to support his condemnation. Forgetful, as Field pointed out, that "there was a tyme there was noe smith in Israel" he had argued that all players were doomed because none were mentioned in the Bible. Even because Cæsar, who, having lower amusements to follow, banished the stage; or because, according to legend, a certain woman became possessed with a devil at the theater, he had seen fit to condemn them. Such arguments, Field declared, would never move him to be ashamed of a calling sanctioned by his "Cæsar" and by his Christian state, and repined at 1 In 1613 George Wither published his Abuses stript and whipt, which attacked the stage. See pp. 63, 248, 289-91. 2 Reprinted in Halliwell's Illustrations, p. 115-7. Papers, 1616, p. 419. See also State |