E. K. Chambers

“ What coward, to see his countrymen valiant, would not bee ashamed of his owne cowardise? What English prince, should hee behold the true portrature of that famous King Edward the Third, foraging France, taking so great a king captive in his owne country, quartering the English lyons with the French flower-delyce, and would not bee suddenly inflam’d with so royale a spectacle, being made apt and fit for the like atchievement. ”

“ There is much vain repetition in learned controversy, whether literary or ethical. I have attempted, by extract or summary, to indicate the main critical positions taken up by writers of different schools with regard to plays, and at the same time to preserve the incidental information which they furnish on points of stage history. ”

“ He turns on the critic. ‘But, after your discrediting of playmaking, you salue upon the sore somewhat, and among many wise workes there be some that fitte your vaine: The Practice of Parasites is one, which I meruel it likes you so well, since it bites you so sore. But sure in that I like your judgement, and for the rest to, I approue your wit, but for the pigg of your owne sow, (as you terme it) assuredly I must discommend your verdit: Tell me, Gosson, was all your owne you wrote there? did you borow nothing of your neyghbours? Out of what booke patched you out Cicero’s Oration? ”

“ I could wish that players would use themselves nowadays, as in ancient former times they have done, which was only to exercise their interludes in the time of Christmas, beginning to play in the holidays and continuing until twelfth tide, or at the furthest until Ashwednesday, of which players I find three sorts of people: the first, such as were in wages with the king and played before him some time at Hallowmass, and then in the later holidays until twelfthtide, and after that, only in Shrovetide ”

“ Beauty, ‘our fairy Queene’, is said to be ‘Great president of all those princely revells’ in honour of the ‘fairy King’. But the mask is danced by [59] men, not women, which seems to put a Queen’s mask out of the question. No mask has yet been traced in the winter of 1609–10. I am afraid I must leave the date open. If Henry led the dance, his death in Nov. 1612 gives one limit. The ‘antemasque’ is more likely to have been introduced after than before 1608. The use of Pigwiggen as a fairy name recurs in Drayton’s Nymphidia, published in 1627. ”

“ The cuckolding of Brabant Senior is based upon a story narrated by Jonson to Drummond (Laing, 21) as one in which he had played the active, not the passive, part. If he had imparted the same story to Marston, he not unnaturally resented the use made of it. The minor identifications suggested by Fleay, ii. 74, have nothing to commend them, except possibly that of Sir Edward Fortune with Edward Alleyn, who was building the Fortune in 1600. Were not this a Paul’s play, one might infer from the closing line,
Our Fortune laughes, and all content abounds, that it was given at the Fortune. ”

“ The palmer concludes, ‘Thus sir haue you heard my opinion briefly of plaies, that Menander deuised them for the suppressing of vanities, necessarie in a common wealth, as long as they are vsed in their right kind; the play makers worthy of honour for their Arte: & players, men deseruing both prayse and profite, as long as they wax neither couetous nor insolent’. ”

“ Manners should not be rebuked where no reply is possible, or before such judges as ‘the common people which resorte to Theaters being but an assemblie of Tailers, Tinkers, Cordwayners, Saylers, olde Men, yong Men, Women, Boyes, Girles, and such like’. The Roman law of libel restrained ‘the ouer-lashing of players’. P. 185. Criticizes [Wilson’s] The Three Ladies of London [cf. ch. xxiii] for making Love detest and Conscience allow plays; also a rival play of London against the Three Ladies. Denies that intention either of poets or players is to profit those they rebuke. ”

“ If you will learn to play the whore-maister, the glutton, Drunkard, or incestuous person: if you will learn to become proude, hawtie, & arrogant; and, finally, if you will learne to contemne God and al his lawes, to care nither for heauen nor hel, and to commit al kinde of sinne and mischeef, you need to goe to no other schoole, for all these good Examples may you see painted before your eyes in enterludes and playes: wherfore that man who giueth money for the maintenance of them must needs incurre the damage of premunire, that is, eternall damnation, except they repent. ”

“ I also could wish, 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, and to abide [253] the sharpest censures even of those that are the greatest opposites to the quality. ”

“ The Register of the Privy Council records the localities of the meetings of that body, but it must be borne in mind that the registration was not very perfect (cf. ch. ii) , and also that, although the Council ordinarily followed the court, meetings were occasionally held in Westminster or London, either at the Star Chamber or in the house of a councillor or even a citizen, when the court happened to be out of town. (d) Church bells were rung when the sovereign moved into or out of a parish, and the churchwardens entered the ringers’ fees in their accounts. ”

“ For to work a Commedie kindly, grave olde men should instruct: yonge men should showe the imperfections of youth: Strumpets should be lascivious: Boyes unhappy: and Clownes should be disorderly: entermingling all these actions, in suche sorte, as the grave matter may instruct, and the pleasant delight: for without this chaunge, the attention would be small, and the likinge, lesse. But leave I this rehearsall, of the use, and abuse of Commedies: least that I check that in others, which I cannot amend in my selfe. ”

“ The second sort were such as pertained to noblemen, and were ordinary servants in their house, and only for Christmas times used such plays, without making profession to be players to go abroad for gain, for in such cases they were subject to the statute against retainers. The third sort were certain artisans in good towns and great parishes, as shoemakers, tailors, and such like, that used to play either in their town-halls, or some time in churches, to make the people merry ”

“ To play in plagetime is to encreasce the plage by infection: to play out of plagetime is to draw the plage by offendinges of God vpon occasion of such playes.
But touching the permission of playes vpon the fewnesse of those that dye in any weke, it may please you to remember one special thing. In the report of the plage we report only those that dye, and we make no report of those that recouer and cary infection about them either in their sores running or in their garmentes, which sort are the most dangerous. ”

“ To be a player, is to have a mithridate against the pestilence; for players cannot tarry where the plague raignes; and therfore they be seldome infected. [833] He can seeme no lesse then one in honour, or at least one mounted; for unto miseries which persecute such, he is most incident. Hence it proceeds, that in the prosperous fortune of a play frequented, he proves immoderate, and falles into a Drunkards paradise, till it be last no longer. ”

“ I will not particularize those Blitea dramata (as Laberius termes another sort) those Fortune-fatted fooles, and Times Ideots, whose garbe is the Tooth-ache of witte, the Plague-sore of Iudgement, the Common-sewer of Obscaenities, and the very Traine-powder that dischargeth the roaring Meg (not Mol) of all scurrile villanies vpon the Cities face; who are faine to produce blinde Impudence [in margin, ‘Garlicke’] , to personate himselfe vpon their stage, behung with chaynes of Garlicke, as an Antidote against their owne infectious breaths, lest it should kill their Oyster-crying Audience. ”

“ There is no external evidence for Heywood’s authorship, or for any connexion between him and Derby’s men. Moreover, in May 1603, he authorized Henslowe, on behalf of Worcester’s, to pay Chettle and Day for ‘the Booke of Shoare, now newly to be written’, also described as ‘a playe wherein Shores wiffe is writen’. If this was a revision of his own [11] play, he would hardly have left it to others. It is fair to add that in the previous January he had himself received payment with Chettle for an unnamed play, which might be the same (Henslowe, ii. 234) . ”

“ Many amongst us I know to be of substance, of government, of sober lives, and temperate carriages, house-keepers, and contributory to all duties enjoyned them, equally with them that are rank’t with the most bountifull ”

“ For such is our grosse and dull nature, that what thing we see opposite before our eyes, do pearce further and printe deeper in our harts and minds, than that thing which is hard onely with the eares.... ”

“ Youth then raises the question of scholastic plays. These Age admits. ‘I thinke it is lawefull for a schoolmaster to practise his schollers to playe comedies, obseruing these and the like cautions: first, that those comedies which they shall play be not mixt with anye ribaudrie and filthie termes and wordes (which corrupt good manners) . ”

“ Regrets present toleration of ‘these dangerous schools of licentious liberty, whereunto more people resort than to sermons or prayers’. Now ‘rich men give more to a player for a song which he shall sing in one hour, than to their faithful servants for serving them a whole year.... ”

“ For if men will impartially, and not à-squint, looke toward the offices and function of a Poët, they will easily conclude to themselues the impossibility of any mans being the good Poët, without first being a good Man. He that is sayd to be able to informe yong-men to all good disciplines, inflame growne-men to all great vertues, keepe old men in their best and supreme state, or as they decline to child-hood, recouer them to their first strength; that comes forth the Interpreter and Arbiter of Nature, a Teacher of things diuine no lesse than humane, a Master in manners ”

“ It is in vaine for us to take knowledg of great abuses and disorders complayned of and to give order for redresse, if our directions finde no better execution and observation then it seemeth they do, and wee [333] must needes impute the fault and blame thereof to you or some of you, the Justices of the Peace, that are put in trust to see them executed and perfourmed, whereof wee may give you a plaine instance in the great abuse contynued or rather encreased in the multitude of plaie howses and stage plaies in and about the cittie of London. ”

“ Why thus I meane, for now I speake in sobernes. Euery thing hath in it selfe his vertue and his vice: from one selfe flower the Bee and Spider sucke honny and poyson. In plaies it fares as in bookes, vice cannot be reproued, except it be discouered: neither is it in any play discouered, but there followes in the same an example of the punishment: now he that at a play will be delighted in the one, and not warned by the other, is like him that reads in a booke the description of sinne, and will not looke ouer the leafe for the reward. ”

“ Before the Play begins, fall to cardes, you may win or loose (as Fencers doe in a prize) and beate one another by confederacie, yet share the money when you meete at supper: notwithstanding, to gul the Ragga-muffins that stand aloofe gaping at you, throw the cards (hauing first torne foure or fiue of them) round about the Stage, iust vpon the third sound, as though you had lost: it skils not if the foure knaues ly on their backs, and outface the Audience, theres none such fooles as dare take exceptions at them, because ere the play go off, better knaues than they will fall into the company. ”

“ A letter to certaine Justices of the Peace in the county of Middlesex. Wee do understand that certaine players that use to recyte their playes at the Curtaine in Moorefeildes do represent upon the stage in their interludes the persons of some gentlemen of good desert and quallity that are yet alive under obscure manner, but yet in such sorte as all the hearers may take notice both of the matter and the persons that are meant thereby. ”

“ The P. R. O. contains Chamber Accounts in four forms. Original Accounts, as submitted for audit, are in Audit Office, Accounts Various, 3/127–9. These are no doubt the ‘very incomplete’ set from which extracts are given by Cunningham, xxvii. So far as play-payments are concerned, they do not appear to be more detailed than the Declared Accounts annually drawn up from them by the auditors, of which there are duplicate sets, both nearly complete, belonging respectively to the Audit Office and to the Pipe Office in the Lord Treasurer’s Remembrancer’s Department of the Exchequer. ”

“ Editions by J. S. Farmer (1907, T. F. T.) and R. B. McKerrow (1911, Materialien, xxxiii) .
The play has come to light since the issue of The Mediaeval Stage, and I therefore include it here, although it is pre-Elizabethan. The characters are Peace, Envy, Impatient Poverty (afterwards Prosperity) , Conscience, Abundance, Misrule, ‘Collhasarde’, and a Summoner. The drama is a moral, non-controversial, and not even necessarily Protestant in tone. It sets out the mutability of the world and the defects of poverty and prosperity. ”

“ Who in deede, to speake more trulie, are become beggers for their seruants. For commonlie the goodwil men beare to their lordes, makes them drawe the stringes of their purses to extend their liberalitie to them; where otherwise they would not.... Such like men, vnder the title of their maisters or as reteiners, are priuiledged to roaue abroad, and permitted to publish their mametree in euerie Temple of God, and that through England, vnto the horrible contempt of praier. So that now the Sanctuarie is become a plaiers stage, and a den of theeues and adulterers.... ”

“ II to Shakespeare’s play is so close as to make it natural to regard it as having become a Chamberlain’s play, and therefore unlikely to get into the hands of either of these Revels companies. Any company might have a George. ”

“ The date of 1599 would agree well enough with the career of Marston, and with that of the Paul’s boys, to whom the revival was probably due, although I do not agree with Small that it was their court play of 1 Jan. 1601, because I see no evidence that the court ending belongs to the revision. I take it that Histriomastix was one of the ‘musty fopperies of antiquity’ with which we learn from Jack Drum’s Entertainment, v. 112, that the Paul’s boys began. The revision leaves Posthaste untouched, save for the characteristic Marstonian sneer of ‘goosequillian’ (iii. 187) . ”