eration and courtesy as his invective grew. But the truth of his position, and his vivid pictures of the evils he knew so well, make one willing to pardon his faults, and accept his writings as a distinctive and most valuable part of the controversy.

With Gosson's last words, the local debate which his first pamphlet had roused came to an end. Gosson and Lodge, as the champions of their respective causes, had met in single combat; around them their supporters had rallied, while public opinion, as we shall see, grew steadily throughout the country. Hitherto the attack on the stage had been unacrimonious even where extreme. But during the course of this debate, the Puritan temper followed the same unfortunate course that Puritanism in general took as it advanced. Puritanism and Episcopacy at first differed but slightly, both parties showing a disposition to bear and to forbear. Then gradually the Church went to one extreme in enforcing upon all absolute conformity, and the Puritans to the other in making no concessions. Thus the common ground once held by both in mutual good fellowship was left vacant, and the parties were entirely disjoined. So also it befell in the stage quarrel. At first each side had seen good in the other. But the style of bitter denunciation early resorted to made each prone to overlook the truths of the other's position, so that the fundamental discordance between the Puritan hostility to an art from which evil came, and the willingness of their opponents to endure it in the hope of better days, was made so great that all compromise was forbidden.

CHAPTER 5.

PHILIP STUBBES.

While the heated debate described in the last chapter between the parties of Gosson and Lodge was in progress, it must be borne in mind that Puritans in other fields were questioning the lawfulness of stage-plays and urging their total suppression. Gosson himself mentioned the growth of feeling against Sunday performances, as well as the general clerical and academic opposition. This growth of feeling was occasioned in part by the two reformed playpoets. But equal credit must be given to other disputants, among whom no mean position is due to Philip Stubbes for his comprehensive work, The Anatomie of Abuses: Contayning A Discoverie, or Briefe Summarie, of such Notable Vices and Imperfections, as now raigne in many Christian Countreyes of the Worlde: but (especiallie) in a verie famous Ilande called Ailgna: Verie Godly, to be read of all true Christians, euerie where; but most needefull, to be regarded in Englande, etc."2

This Anatomie of Abuses was deservedly the most popular and influential book of its kind ever written, and only for this reason does it deserve the prominence here given it. For in the two hundred and eight pages of the work but six treat of stage-plays. In scope, it is a wholesale revelation of Elizabethan foibles and vices, in which Philoponus carries his interlocutor, Spudeus, from one sin to another, making plain their enormities, and citing instances of God's wrath upon the offenders. Pride was first so exposed, especially pride in apparel-the "monstrous dubblets," the costly nether-stocks and hose, the gowns and scarfs, and above all the "great ruffes and supportasies,'' which, with the "deuils liquore," starch, formed the props and pillars of the nether world. The many pages devoted to this subject have preserved a clear and interest2 Published in August, 1583.

1 Playes Confuted, p. 178, 212.

ing picture of the fashions of Elizabethan society. After pride, Stubbes arrayed the prevalent vices of gluttony, whoredom, covetousness, usury, swearing and the breach of the Sabbath. Only as one form of the many violations of the fourth commandment, such as that "freendly kinde of fight," that "bloody and murthering practise," football, were stage-plays included. But six pages, as has been said, were allowed this subject; yet on that very account its influence moved many whom the pure stage treatise did not reach. Gosson's work, for example, had pictured vividly the evils of the play-house, preëminently, therefore, a tract for London. Moreover, the slashing vigor of his invective must have repelled on the one hand as many of the neutrals as it attracted on the other. The appeal of the Anatomie of Abuses, on the contrary, was to the whole Puritan party in England. It could not be interpreted as an expression of narrow prejudice against any one abuse; on one topic or another, particularly on the matter of extravagant dress, Puritans of all degrees of strictness found their own convictions expressed. Naturally, therefore, they imbibed the author's ideas on other things; and since Stubbes wrote with the serious purpose of reforming England, with a persuasive eloquence born of the conviction of truth, he first interested and then convinced many, who, though not actually Puritans, cared for righteousness.

The Anatomie of Abuses probably carried additional weight with a certain class, because in its attitude toward the drama it took in the first edition a liberal position. The preface of that edition was careful to explain that its author did not condemn all plays. "Who seeth not," it read, "that some kind of playes, tragedies and enterluds, in their own nature are not onely of great ancientie, but also very honest and very commendable exercyses," containing matter "both of doctrine, erudition, good example, and wholsome instruction; And may be vsed, in tyme and place conuenient, as conducible to example of life and reformation of maners." In thus commending "honest &

chast playes" as a "Godly recreation of the mind," and as a "good example of life," Stubbes advanced close to Lodge's position. Yet, strange to say, in all subsequent editions this explanatory preface was left out. Furnivall suggests that it was probably written and even printed before the body of the work, and that the author did not realize at the time how inconsistent it was with the chapters to follow. One might suppose, however, that Stubbes at the outset knew his own mind in regard to plays. Possibly, as he wrote, his convictions deepened, so that whatever predisposition he had once had to meet Lodge and other defenders of the art on their own ground passed away as he thought more of the abuse of plays. Perhaps even in the three and one half months intervening between the first and the second editions, some definite breach of the law by actors, or some signal instance of their evil influence, forced home to Stubbes the issue, and wiped away all previous inclination to liberality.

At any rate, in the second edition this preface was omitted, and the only recognition given to stage-plays was in the body of the work as the most common breach of the Lord's day. Under that abuse Stubbes wrote his chapter on "Stage-playes, and Enterluds, with their wickednes." According to his analysis, stage-plays treat either of profane or sacred matter. If of the latter, they are intolerable because of their sacrilege, the word of God not having been given "to be derided and iested at, as they be in these filthie playes and enterluds on stages & scaffolds, or to be mixt and interlaced with bawdry, wanton shewes, & vncomely gestures." If, on the other hand, they treat of profane matter, they tend to dishonor God and to nourish vice. In almost Gosson's exact words Stubbes enumerated the ordinary themes and persons of tragedy and comedy. Then, like Gosson, he showed how moral instruction could not possibly be given by an art, which, as the drama did, recalled heathen idolatry, which drew people from sermons, 1 p. 140-146. 2 p. 141.

encouraged idleness and incited the lowest passions. He confirmed Gosson's most striking descriptions of play-house manners in the words "For proofe whereof, but marke the flocking and running to Theaters & curtens, daylie and hourely, night and daye, tyme and tyde, to see Playes and Enterludes, where such wanton gestures, such bawdie speaches, such laughing and fleering, such kissing and bussing, such clipping and culling, Suche winckinge and glancinge of wanton eyes, and the like, is vsed, as is wonderfull to behold. Than, these goodly pageants being done, euery mate sorts to his mate, euery one bringes another homeward of their way verye freendly, and in their secret conclaues (couertly) they play the Sodomits, or worse." Confronted by such an evil, Stubbes, like all other Puritans, forgot the good that might in a far different society come of the drama. He utterly renounced stage-plays, and, before passing on to other breaches of the Fourth CommandmentLords of Misrule, Maygames, church-ales, dancing and the like, exhorted all actors to abandon "that cursed kind of life" in which "goe they neuer so braue, yet are they counted and taken but for beggers." This illustrates how purely English was Stubbes' sentiment; and his Puritan bias is well expressed in his closing words: "Auoid all the vanities and deceiuable pleasures of this life; for certenly they tread the path to eternal destruction, both of body and soule for euer, to as many as obey them. For it is vnpossible to wallowe in the delights and pleasures of this World, and to lyue in ioy for euer in the Kingdom of Heauen."

Concerning the character of Stubbes much has been written. The general impression is that expressed by Wood, that he was a rigid Calvinist, a bitter foe of Popery, and a great corrector of the vices and abuses around him. He is known, though, to have studied at both universities, and to have traveled extensively. From these travels his indisputably sharp perceptive faculties, displayed in his keen appreciation of the absurdities of English fashions, 1 p. 144. 2 Athenae Oxon, I, 645.