custom of measuring gods mouth by their own," the ignorant artificers attempted in turn to expound the Scripture lesson. Such ignorance, the author thought, was largely responsible for the schisms. A minor cause was the Puritan greed for gold. The anti-Martinists commonly regarded their opponents as hypocrites, following really some such base motive,2 who were ready to proclaim with the Cambridge zealot, "I neither respect oath, statute, nor conscience, but only the glory of God." However extreme this may sound, Nashe undoubtedly regarded the Puritans as men who questioned recognized authority in all walks of life.3 With this view, so commonly held by men of his type, and with the tendency of the day to scurrilous pamphlet warfare, it is not strange that the followers of the drama should have played the part they did in the Martin Mar-Prelate Controversy, making of Martin not merely a "may-game" for the stage, but meeting him with his own weapons. And although slight traces are visible of dramatic satire against the Puritan before 1589, the Martin Mar-Prelate Controversy gave the first real opportunity for the pen of the playwright. 1 Ibid., p. 115. 2 Almond for a Parrat, p. 24. 3 Ibid., p. 42–4. CHAPTER 2. MAIN CHARACTERISTICS OF THE DRAMATISTS' REPLY. After the Martin Mar-Prelate Controversy had been quelled, the attack on the Puritans, as far as our evidence indicates, began again but slowly. The Martinists were the extremists of the party, regarded with suspicion and disfavor by the more conservative Dissenters, who till the closing years of the century were not marked off in habits, manners or conversation from ordinary godly men. Their demeanor was more grave, and their view of life more serious than that of others, but these alone offered no room for just ridicule such as had been heaped on Martin.1 The actors, moreover, fearful of offending again, were careful at first not to speak too boldly, and the reappearance of the quarrel, therefore, in regular dramatic literature was mild in spirit. 3 The definite allusions of this mild quality in the early plays are exemplified in Lyly's The Woman in the Moone,2 and in Mucedorus, where mere mention of the word is all that appears in the written copy. At times more notice was taken of their manners of life, but in a way really complimentary to them. For example, in another play of the same period one of the characters who will "swear, drink ale, kiss a wench, go to mass, eat fish all Lent, shrive me of my old sins afore Easter, and begin new before Whitsuntide," called himself in consequence "no Puritan, but of the old church."4 A Puritan could not object to be excluded from that class of men, even though for his preciseness he suffered ridicule. Nor could one have taken as a serious insult Chapman's An Humorous Days Mirth, where a Puritan woman, the wife of Labernele, is given 1 Marsden, Early Puritans, p. 243-45. 2 Printed 1597. 3 Dodsley, VII, 208. 4 First Part of Sir John Oldcastle, IV, 3. a prominent part in the action.1 She first appears troubled in conscience because she has dressed more warmly than health requires; it was vanity at first to put on the superfluous clothing, and to remove it will be to waste time ordained for better use. Thus does "one sin draw another quickly," she sighs. She has further scruples against poetry, and shudders to hear the vain salutation "my ladyship"; and all superstitious belief in fairies and their kin she sees disillusionized in the newly revealed "true, pure light." These were just the points which later satirists were constantly harping on; but the significant thing here is that the Puritan woman is given no worse character. She suffers herself to be tempted by Lemot, for she has been persuaded that in no other way can she prove her virtue; but in the end, with perhaps an unchristian pride in the extraordinary strength of her purity, she returns unchanged to her former secluded life. There is no hint of any vicious trait in her character; her precise way of living and her absurd little scruples, undoubtedly common to many women of the day, alone were ridiculed by Chapman. This is one characteristic type of the Puritan as he was brought upon the stage in these years. Undoubtedly, the magistrates, who had proved themselves the enemies of the players, met their share of attention on the boards. We have seen how the theaters were several times censured for handling matters concerning the city fathers, and there were probably many complaints like that from Cambridge, that the students in their plays and revels were misusing the free burgesses of the city. During Elizabeth's reign, however, dramatists dared not meddle with political matters unless sure, as Dekker was, that their satire would please. Consequently, their ridicule was at first slight, and more often than not left entirely to the inspiration of the clowns. Such restraint being placed on their freedom of speech, and with so little inspiration given them by 2 See Part I, chap. 10, p. 120. 4 In the Whore of Babylon. 1 Especially, pp. 54-60. 4 Puritan character itself, the mildness of the reappearance of the dissension on the stage is sufficiently explained. In this spirit, however, a change was soon to come. The repulse given to Puritan hopes at the Hampton Court Conference; the more depraved state of the new court itself; and the King's own hatred of Puritan principles, had a twofold effect. It developed rapidly the Puritan character in peculiarity and oddity, and gave great freedom to players to use this growing character as they saw fit. The result was that in the first years of the new century literature devoted more attention to the Puritan party, and did its best to ridicule for its scruples, and to make odious for its supposed vices, the men, and particularly the women, of the Puritan persuasion. We have seen how passing allusion could be made to the Puritans and their preciseness with hardly any feeling of censure conveyed. But these allusions were often used in an offensive manner. When Dekker's heroine, for example, calls another an ungodly Puritanical creature, the circumstances would make the use an affront to the Puritan.1 Dekker sinned often in this same way. Once it was the Devil himself who was said to appear in the form of a Puritan; a common association of ideas to Elizabethan dramatists, which, as used by Middleton, "Do you call us divils? You shall find us puritans," has all the strength of a threat. Even more offensive was the application of the word Puritan, Precisian, or the corresponding adjectives to the most degraded mortals." The frequency of such insults to the Puritan character made any reference to it on the stage objectionable, even the notice taken of the Puritanical coyness of Mayberry's wife, or the words of Field, "Precise and learned Princox." In one play are 4 1 Honest Whore, II, 1. 2 Westward Ho, p. 310. A New Way to Pay Old Debts, I, 1; Match Me in London, II, p. 161. 4 A Trick to Catch the Old One, IV, 3. 5 Malcontent, V, 2; Ile of Gulls, III, 1; Westward Ho, p. 292, 307. 6 Northward Ho, p. I. Amends for Ladies, III, 3. 3 found seven such passages,1 and throughout the whole period of our drama these passing allusions to the Puritans2 or Precisians, as they were often called, even though in themselves but slightly tinged with sarcasm, and even though often complimentary to the Puritan character, would bring up associations that would anger any one at all in sympathy with the class, and would delight the godless, who saw in it the bitterest foe to their amusements. In consequence, early Puritanism, though characterized by nothing but dignity and extreme sobriety, was exhibited in scorn for the gratification of its enemies. The dramatists, however, did not confine themselves to these passing allusions. If they early laughed at the seriousness of the Puritan's temper, they gladly seized on the oddities that grew up gradually in his habits of life and manners toward the end of the Queen's reign, and which, becoming more and more pronounced as years went on, were of course legitimate subjects for comedies of character and manners. The main stronghold of Puritanism lay in the middle classes of London society. It was the class of honest, industrious, sober-lived people among whom hostility to the stage had spread so rapidly, and from whom those magistrates were elected who had fought the playhouse so bitterly. For these persons, the actors felt no particular love. Jonson especially liked to slur the city fathers. In the final scene of Every Man in his Humour, Justice Clement defended poetry from the disparagement of Knowwell, urging that poets were not born every year as 1 Westward Ho, pp. 292, 292, 299, 307, 310, 335, 345. 2 Greene's Tu Quoque, I, p. 192; All Fools, Prologue; Northward Ho, III, 1; Match Me in London, II, 161; Roaring Girl, p. 186; If This be not a Good Play, p. 316; Merry Devil of Edmonton, Dodsley, p. 217; Blurt, IV, 1, V, 2; More Dissemblers besides Women, II, 3; The Wits, 3 Malcontent, V, 2; Renegado, I, 3; Gamester, III, 1; City Wit, II, I, V, 1; English Moor, V, 3; Devil's Law Case, II, 3; Family of Love, III, 3; Hey for Honesty, I, I; News from Plymouth, V, p. 185; Duchess of Malfi, II, 3; Atheist's Tragedy, II, 4. |