beastlye playes againste which out of this place [Paul's Cross] every man crieth out?" In his attack he singled out "that gorgeous playing place," the Theater, for its corruption, saying, "Have we not houses of purpose built with great charges for the maintainance of them [plays], and that without the Liberties, as who woulde say,-there, let them saye what they will say, we wil play." But their disregard of the Sabbath was the chief cause of his anger. "Wyll not a fylthye playe," he complained, "wyth the blast of a trumpette sooner call thyther a thousande than an houres tolling of a bell bring to the sermon a hundred," so that on the Lord's day the theaters were thronged, while in some places the actors dared even "in ye time of diuine seruice, to come and daunce aboute the Church." His conclusion was that if Sabbath playing was the Lord's business all right, but if not-and no one, he thought, was so "voide of knowledge" as to think otherwise-it was wrong.

A year later Spark in his Rehearsal Sermon at Paul's Cross called the theater the "sinke of al sinne."2 The next sermon, however, whose substance we know much about was delivered in 1583 by John Field. This Puritanical preacher had once suffered imprisonment, and had been released only through the intercession of Lord Leicester. To his benefactor Field expressed his gratitude, but at the same time could not refrain from warning him to be careful how he patronized plays "to the great griefe of all the godly." If in 1581 his heart was so filled with the subject that he could not write a letter of thanks without uttering it, we need not be surprised that in 1583 he delivered his Godly Exhortation by occasion of the late judgement of God shewed at Paris Garden where were assembled by estimation above a thousand persons, where of some were slain, and of that number at the least, as is credibly reported, the third person maimed and hurt. In connection with this accident at the Bear Garden, Field attacked the play-houses

1 Fleay (p. 50) finds here reference to a specific play.
2 See marginal note on p. 1 of the Third Blast.

in the Liberties, and, after praising the London Corporation for stopping the performances on Sundays, urged their total abolition, lest God should again visit the people, this time at the play-house, and lest their souls as well as their bodies should be lost.1

4

Besides these four sermons many more on the same subject were delivered in these years. Stockwood commented on the frequency of such utterances; Gosson and the author of the Third Blast bore similar testimony;2 Whetstone in 1584 sanctioned them without reserve; and before 1593 the Cambridge pulpits re-echoed the words of the Paul's Cross preachers. Moreover, many another sermon, like that of Knewstubs at Paul's Cross in 1576 against the city's lack of sobriety and temperance, must have been understood by all its hearers to have reference to the stage. We have every reason to believe that the London pulpits uttered constant warnings against the temptations of the play-house; and from the spirit of the times, we know how influential those warnings were.

5

The conception obtained from such sermons of the clerical attitude toward the stage can be supplemented by the books of practical piety written by divines. For if we trust Gosson that men were more willing to speak than to write against the stage, we may fairly assume that those who wrote against the evil denounced it in public. Thus in 1588 Gervase Babington, one of Elizabeth's most prominent and respected bishops, in his work on the Ten Commandments spoke of plays as vanities and venomous corruptions, and of theatricals in private houses as greater temptations to virtue than stage-exhibitions. With recognition and entire approval of the Puritan attack, he referred his readers to those who had written "largely and well" against plays.

1 Prynne, Histrio-Mastix, p. 557, quotes Field's words.

2 Playes Confuted, p. 168, 203, 211; Third Blast, To the Reader; Also The Puritan, Act I, sc. 4.

3 Touchstone for the Time, p. 24.

5 Playes Confuted, p. 212.

4 Overthrow, 40–1.

• Extracts given in Furnivall's edition of the Anatomie of Abuses.

Here we see the alliance between the Puritan pamphleteers and the ministers-how both were fighting for a common

cause.

Another such writer was William Perkins. His Cases of Conscience, in 1595, although written in his quiet, ministerial style, uncolored for the most part by illustrations of the sins mentioned, spoke nevertheless against plays.1 He objected to the use of Bible story on the stage, to the making of amusement of the sins of men, and to the assignment of women's parts to boys. The testimony of this prominent and popular Puritan theologian, whose street name in his wild youth had been "drunken Perkins," may carry some weight. In the same year Nicholas Bownd issued his famous treatise on the Sabbath, which introduced the first point of doctrine to separate the two churches. From his belief there stated, that a seventh part of man's time should be devoted to God's service, he naturally objected to a Sabbath pastime which had been condemned by Henry VIII and also by James (a later edition adds), which had been visited by God's vengeance, and which led to the waste of men's lives. To be sure, he sanctioned lawful recreation on weekdays, and did not specifically exclude stage-plays from their number. It is plain, nevertheless, that the excessive indulgence in them at any time would have met his condemnation. The same objection was made the next year in Norden's Progress of Piety to plays and other diversions where people "lose their time, consume their thrift, and offend the laws of God and her majesty. And the sabbath day, which should be sanctified with prayer and hearing of the word, is profaned with these accustomed evils." We see, then, the influence of the Sabbath question. In the same spirit, Lewis Bayly in the famous Practice of Piety, and Daniel Dyke, expressed their condemnation; and Thomas Beard, after citing instances of God's wrath against playgoers, condemned both public and private plays, "which have no other

4 Practice of Piety, p. 169; Michael and the Dragon, date 1615, p. 216.

use in the world but to deprave and corrupt good manners, and to open a door to all uncleanenesse."1

These references are sufficient to show the attitude which the church at this time maintained against the stage. Their arguments were much the same as those of the Puritan pamphleteers-the social objections against the waste of time and money; the religious objection against the violation of the Sabbath; and preeminently the moral objection. They may have worked often upon the people's fears, in holding up the plague and the Paris Garden disaster as judgments of God upon theater-goers; but they did it honestly and sincerely. Whether in their sermons or their writings, they spoke always as earnest, practical men against a real and growing abuse, and they had, in consequence, great influence on the conduct and character of their many admirers.

1 Theatre of Gods Judgements, 1597, pp. 147, 150; Book 2, chap. 36, pp. 289-90.

CHAPTER 9.

INDICATIONS OF PUBLIC SENTIMENT, WITH FURTHER CAUSES FOR ITS GROWTH.

Thus in addition to what we may call the secular opposition to the stage, and equal in importance with it, must be ranked the opposition of clergymen in their addresses and in their literature. The two parties advanced from different quarters with different weapons, but their motives and their cause were one. The peculiarity, however, of the English movement was the popular support given it. Hence it is not sufficient to study the attitude of the leaders. We must look also for indications of feeling among the people at large, feeling molded by the words of the men already studied, but expressive in itself of the growth and extent of the movement against the English theater.

Although the growth of public feeling against the drama was marked, there were still signs at the close of the 16th century indicating, especially in the country, its tardy diffusion. The records have been preserved of a payment made in 1584 to Sir Thomas Lucy's players, and another record of that nobleman's patronage of players I find under 1633.1 Here we see that even at the time when the attack was well under way, this "grim old Puritan" had under his patronage a company of wandering actors. Furthermore, the good repute in which Henslowe and Alleyn were always held by the people of their vestry in London, Henslowe being elected vestryman in 1607, and both being trusted in the same year to take part in deliberations for the improvement of the parish,2 show that the full hate of Puritanism had not as yet developed. Perhaps this was due somewhat to signs of improvement among the actors. Stowe noted that the players, who "of former times were very poore and ignorant," had in 1583 grown to be so skilled as to win the 1 See Athenaeum, Feb. 12th, 1887, p. 232; for the record of 1633 see State Papers, p. 47. 2 Harrison, Description, II, vi.