(i)
[From Pappe with an Hatchet (1589, end of Oct.) in Bond, Lyly, iii. 408 (Anti-Martinist).]
Sed heus tu, dic sodes, will they not bee discouraged for the common players? Would these Comedies might be allowed to be plaid that are pend, and then I am sure he would be decyphered, and so perhaps discouraged.
He shall not bee brought in as whilom he was, and yet verie well, with a cocks combe, an apes face, a wolfs bellie, cats clawes, &c. but in a cap’de cloake, and all the best apparell he ware the highest day in the yeare....
... Would it not bee a fine Tragedie, when Mardocheus shall play a Bishoppe in a Play, and Martin Hamman, and that he that seekes to pull downe those that are set in authoritie aboue him, should be hoysted vpon a tree aboue all other. [In margin] If it be shewed at Paules, it will cost you foure pence: at the Theater two pence: at Sainct Thomas a Watrings nothing.
(k)
[From G. Harvey, An Advertisement for Papp-Hatchett (1589, Nov. 5), printed with Pierces Supererogation (1593) and in Grosart, Harvey, ii. 131, 213 (Philo-Martinist).]
Had I bene Martin ... it should haue beene one of my May-games, or August triumphes, to haue driuen Officials, Commissaries, Archdeacons, Deanes, Chauncellors, Suffraganes, Bishops and Archbishops, (so Martin would have florished at the least) to entertaine such an odd, light-headded fellow for their defence; a professed iester, a Hickscorner, a scoff-maister, a playmunger, an Interluder; once the foile of Oxford, now the stale of London, and ever the Apesclogge of the presse, Cum Priuilegio perennitatis.... I am threatened with a Bable, and Martin menaced with a Comedie: ... All you, that tender the preseruation of your good names, were best to please Pap-hatchet, and fee Euphues betimes, for feare lesse he be mooued, or some One of his Apes hired, to make a Playe of you; and then is your credit quite vndone for euer, and euer: Such is the publique reputation of their Playes. He must needes be discouraged, whom they decipher. Better, anger an hundred other, then two such; that haue the Stage at commaundement, and can furnish-out Vices, and Diuels at their pleasure.
(l)
[From An Almond for a Parrat, Or Cutbert Curry-knaues Almes (1590, early), in McKerrow, Nashe, iii. 354 (Anti-Martinist).]