1

increased, to open condemnation. This is confirmed in the position taken by William Alley, the learned and kindhearted bishop of Exeter, whose genial nature and honest enjoyment of wholesome recreation made his friendship valued by all. In 1560 he delivered at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul lectures which later appeared under the title The Poore Mans Library. In it was included an article on Wanton Bookes. Alley maintained that the evil books so common in England kindled in the minds and hearts of their readers the most unholy passions, and argued that if witches under the Mosaic law were deemed worthy of death, much more deserving of that fate were those defilers of the mind, the vicious authors. He likened the evil to smoke ready to break out into flame. Those who read these works for the sake of knowledge, or to while away the time, he warned of the danger of saluting Venus, even, as they said, from afar. His words were especially serious since he believed that professing Christians erred more often in this respect than many pagans. The connection between such writings and stage-plays, whose plots were drawn very commonly from lewd Italian stories, Alley regarded as obvious. In this respect, also, he felt that Christians had much to learn from Pagans. He cited the case of Marseilles, of which all later Puritans were so fond, which among other good orders for public morality, "made a severe law that there should be no comedy playd within the City, for the argument for the most part of such playes, did contain the actes of dissolute and wanton love." The wisdom of the Athenians, also, he commended, who forbade the Areopagites to write any comedies and tragedies. And the purity of the Lacedemonians he attributed to this"that they were never present at any Comedy, nor any other playes, fearing least they should heare and see those thynges, which were repugnant to their lawes." It is human nature, Alley reasoned, that whatever is willingly and gladly heard is soon embraced and put to use. The great popularity of

1 Praelectio Secunda, fol. 46–48a.

plays in England, therefore, he lamented in the words, "And alas, are not almost all places in these dayes replenished wyth iuglers, scoffers, iesters, players, which may say and do what they lust, be it neuer so fleshly and filthy! and yet suffred and heard wyth laughing and clapping of handes"; to which he added in contrast between England and Athens, "I speake it with sorow of hart, to our vicious ballet makers, and enditers of wanton songes, no reuengement, but rewardes are largely payd and geuen."1 So much importance we give to Alley not merely for the high position held by him in the English church, but also for his early date, and for his evident influence on one usually called the first of the Puritan attackers.2

A similar argument against lewd books and plays was spoken in 1572 by Edward Dering, a Puritan divine whom Archbishop Parker styled "the greatest learned man in England," whose opinion, therefore, in spite of his vehement and impulsive nature, deserves, like Alley's, great weight. In the spirit of his predecessor he attacked in his Brief and necessarie Catechisme or Instruction the extreme licentiousness of the literature of his age, the romances like Guy of Warwick and the lewd songs, the "vnchast fables, & tragedies, and such like sorceries," "our Pallaces of pleasure," as he called them. But it was not the clergy alone who voiced his wish, "O that there were among vs some zealous Ephesians, that books of so great vanity might be burned up." Two years earlier Roger Ascham had attacked in the same spirit the literature, dramatic and otherwise, of his day. He, too, was bitterly opposed to wanton romances such as the Morte D'Arthur, and ten times more opposed to the Italian translations so popular in England.

1 In a second group of Miscellenea, at the beginning of Book 6, there is a short passage headed, Tragedie, in which tragedy and comedy are briefly defined; but this article contains no special criticism of plays.

Northbrooke later used Alley's words, illustrating what we shall again have occasion to notice-the interdependence of the different attacks.

3 Parker Corresp., p. 410.

4 To the Reader.

Even the subject matter of Latin plays, "thoughtes and conditions of hard fathers, foolish mothers, vnthriftie yong men, craftie seruantes, sotle bawdes, and wilie harlots," afforded, he thought, dangerous example to youth. "Here is base stuffe for that scholer, that should be cum hereafter, either a good minister in Religion, or a Ciuill Ientleman in seruice of his Prince and contrie."1 These words refer to the ancient comedies; but their author, who despised so thoroughly the popular Italian literature, must have valued no more highly the productions of his own day.

If in Ascham we find a layman joining in the ministerial censure of the stage, in Grindal we find a divine writing largely from the standpoint of a layman, an illustration of how all sides of the opposition made common cause against the enemy. Grindal was the archbishop removed by Elizabeth for his Puritan leanings in the matter of prophesyings. In 1563 the plague raged in London, and he, though never aggressive, sent this advice to Secretary Cecil:2 "By search I perceive, that there is no thing of late more like to have renewed this contagion, than the practice of an idle sort of people, which have been infamous in all good commonweals; I mean these histriones, common players, who now daily, but specially on holydays, set up bills, whereunto the youth resorteth excessively, and there taketh infection: besides that God's word by their impure mouths is profaned and turned into scoffs. For remedy whereof, in my judgment, ye should do very well to be a mean, that a proclamation were set forth to inhibit all plays for one whole year (and if it were for ever, it were not amiss) within the city, or three miles compass upon paines, as well to the players, as to the owners of the houses where they play their lewd interludes."

These four critics were men of deservedly high and enduring reputation. The attack came also from the younger clergy, and from all classes of the laity. The trend of preceding years had so prepared the soil that even 1 Scholemaster, p. 143. Arber Reprint. 2 Remains, p. 269.

foreign sentiment against the stage grew readily. So Cornelius Agrippa's words against plays, first translated into English in 1569, met with ready acceptance.1 So also both North's Dial of Princes, in censuring playgoers for idleness and extravagance, and in distinguishing between ancient and modern theatrical conditions,2 and the translation from Vives in its advice on the conduct befitting a gentlewoman, caused no discord.

5

3

Further record of the same opinions is not far to seek. As early as 1545, during the investigation into the offense of the play Pammachius at Cambridge, it was testified that a man named Scott, probably Mary's later bishop, "was not agreeable to the playing at the first, nor pleased with it when it was played." This may imply an objection to plays in general. From the laity we find similar expressions. Harrison, in chronicling for the year 1572 the temporary banishment of plays from plague-ridden London, added, "Would to god these comon plaies were exiled for altogether, as semenaries of impiety, & their theaters pulled downe, as no better then houses of baudrie. It is an euident token of a wicked time when plaiers wexe so riche that they can build suche houses. As moche I wish also to our comon beare baitinges vsed on the sabaothe daies. Although entries in the Chronology appear as late as 1592, it is reasonable to suppose that the above extract was written, at least 1 De Incertitudine et vanitate scientiarum, chap. 4, against poetry; chap. 20, against stage dancing and lewd plots; chap. 59, against violation of holy days by plays; and chap. 63, on theatrical vices.

2 Lib. III, c. 43-46, a translation from Guevara.

6

3 A very Fruitful and Pleasant Booke called the Instruction of a christian woman, 1557, Book I, c. xii.

4 Parker Corresp., 21–9.

See also below, p. 50.

5 Arber's reprint of the Stationers' Registers (I, 155, b.) gives under the year 1566-7 a ballad " 'Fayne wolde I have a virtuous wyfe." Collier (S. R., I, 162) quotes one stanza of this, where the man prescribes that his wife should not attend plays to see the "lewde actors." Collier admits, however, that this ballad has been retouched in the parts bearing on smoking, and hence we do not include it in the body of the thesis. Chronology; quoted from the Description, iv.

6

in its first draft, at approximately the date that it bears. At Cambridge the spirit of opposition early took root. In 1564 the Vice-Chancellor replied to Archbishop Parker's request for a report of all irregularities there, that "two or three in Trinity College think it very unseeming that Christians should play or be present at any profane comedies or tragedies." From such testimony we see how widely the Puritan spirit was spreading.

(e) This Sentiment was maturing, but still moderate.

Perhaps we have shown how false it is to suppose that the Puritan attack on stage-plays, to say nothing of the sentiment against them, began in the year 1576. But though we have cited instances of attack much earlier than that, we can also adduce evidence that the attack was not yet completely organized. So gradual was the growth of the new sentiment that Puritanism did not disdain to use the stage as a tool just at the time that sentiment against it was gathering for definite expression. For some time after the Reformation, even into Elizabeth's reign, miracles and moralities were written solely to support the new religious order. Several interludes of this character were written in the reign of Henry VIII; and though none have been preserved, a letter by Thomas Wylley, a clergyman, is extant, complaining of the persecution he had suffered because of his plays against the Papists. From later years we know of many such plays. Bale was prominent as a dramatist in this field; and also Udall and Grimald, the Protestant minister and Latin playwright. True, we must not ascribe all the well-known anti-Catholic plays.to Puritanism. Many staunch Romanists like Heywood, and many non-partisans like Chaucer felt free to lash unsparingly the vices of pardoners and friars; while some strictly doctrinal attacks, written even by the Puritan Bale, were too vulgar to be truly Puritan. Several of the Protestant plays, however, can be fairly identified with Puritanism; for at that time 1 Parker Corresp., p. 226, n. 2 Collier, I, 131.