“ Gosson justified his attack by considerations of the disorder which the love of melodrama and of vulgar comedy was introducing into the social life of London. It was not only by extremists like Gosson that these abuses were recognized. ”

“ Spenser, in his Teares of the Muses (1591) , laments the same evils, although only in general terms. The tract was dedicated to Sir Philip Sidney, who seems not unnaturally to have resented being connected with a pamphlet which opened with a comprehensive denunciation of poets, for Spenser, writing to Gabriel Harvey (Oct. 16, 1579) of the dedication, says the author “was for hys labor scorned.” He dedicated, however, a second tract, The Ephemerides of Phialo . . . ”