The Elizabethan Stage, Vol. 4

by E. K. Chambers

P. 37. To the Gentlemen Readers. ‘About three moneths since died M. Robert Greene, leauing many papers in sundry Booke sellers hands, among other his Groatsworth of wit, in which a letter written to diuers playmakers, is offensiuely by one or two of them taken; and because on the dead they cannot be auenged, they wilfully forge in their conceites a liuing Author: and after tossing it two and fro, no remedy, but it must light on me. How I haue all the time of my conuersing in printing hindered the bitter inueying against schollers, it hath been very well knowne; and how in that I dealt, I can sufficiently prooue. With neither of them that take offence was I acquainted, and with one of them I care not if I neuer be: The other, whome at that time I did not so much spare, as since I wish I had, for that as I haue moderated the heate of liuing writers, and might haue vsde my owne discretion (especially in such a case) the Author beeing dead, that I did not, I am as sory as if the originall fault had beene my fault, because my selfe haue seene his demeanor no lesse ciuill, than he exelent in the qualitie he professes: Besides, diuers of worship haue reported his vprightnes of dealing, which argues his honesty, and his facetious grace in writting, that aprooues his Art. For the first, whose learning I reuerence, and at the perusing of Greenes Booke, stroke out what then in conscience I thought he in some displeasure writ: or had it beene true, yet to publish it, was intollerable: him I would wish to vse me no worse than I deserue. I had onely in the copy this share: it was il written, as sometime Greenes hand was none of the best; licensd it must be, ere it could bee printed, which could neuer be if it might not be read. To be breife, I writ it ouer; and as neare as I could, followed the copy; onely in that letter I put something out, but in the whole booke not a worde in; for I protest it was all Greenes, not mine nor Maister Nashes, as some vniustly haue affirmed.’ Henrie Chettle.... The Dreame. P. 43. ‘There entered at once fiue personages.... The next, by his sute of russet, his buttond cap, his taber, his standing on the toe, and other tricks, I knew to be either the body or resemblaunce of Tarlton, who liuing, for his pleasant conceits was of all men liked, and dying, for mirth left not his like.... With him was the fifth, a man of indifferent yeares, of face amible, of body well proportioned, his attire after the habite of a schollerlike Gentleman, onely his haire was somewhat long, whome I supposed to be Robert Greene, maister of Artes: of whome (howe euer some suppose themselues iniured) I haue learned to speake, considering he is dead, nill nisi necessarium. He was of singuler pleasaunce the verye supporter, and, to no man’s disgrace bee this intended, the only Comedian of a vulgar writer in this country.’ P. 63. To all maligners of honest mirth, Tarleton wisheth continuall melancholy. ‘Now Maisters, what say you to a merrie knaue, that for this two years day hath not beene talkt of. Wil you giue him leaue, if he can, to make ye laugh? What, all a mort? No merry countenance? Nay then I see hypocrisie hath the vpper hand, and her spirit raignes in this profitable generation. Sith it is thus, Ile be a time-pleaser. Fie vppon following plaies, the expence is wondrous; vpon players speeches, their wordes are full of wyles; vppon their gestures, that are altogether wanton. Is it not lamentable, that a man should spende his two pence on them in an after-noone, heare couetousnes amongst them daily quipt at, being one of the commonest occupations in the countrey; and in liuely gesture see trecherie set out, with which euery man now adaies vseth to intrap his brother. Byr lady, this would be lookt into: if these be the fruites of playing, tis time the practisers were expeld. Expeld (quoth you); that hath been pretily performd, to the no smal profit of the Bouling-allyes in Bedlam and other places, that were wont in the after-noones to be left empty, by the recourse of good fellows vnto that vnprofitable recreation of Stage-playing. And it were not much amisse, would they ioine with the Dicing houses to make sute againe for their longer restraint, though the sicknesse cease. Is not this well saide (my maisters) of an olde buttond cappe, that hath most part of his life liu’d vppon that against which he inueighs: Yes, and worthily.’ Suppression of plays to the advantage of bawdy-houses, especially those not near Shoreditch. Discourse with a pander. P. 65. ‘And you, sir, find fault with plaies. Out vpon them, they spoile our trade, as you your selfe haue proued. Beside, they open our crosse-biting, our conny-catching, our traines, our traps, our gins, our snares, our subtilties: for no sooner haue we a tricke of deceipt, but they make it common, singing Iigs, and making ieasts of vs, that euerie boy can point out our houses as they passe by. Whither now Tarlton? this is extempore, out of time, tune, and temper.... Thy selfe once a Player, and against Players: nay, turne out the right side of thy russet coate, and lette the world know thy meaning. 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. Mirth in seasonable time taken, is not forbidden by the austerest Sapients. But indeede there is a time of mirth and a time of mourning. Which time hauing been by the Magistrats wisely obserued, as well for the suppressing of Playes, as other pleasures: so likewise a time may come, when honest recreation shall haue his former libertie. And lette Tarleton intreate the yoong people of the Cittie, either to abstaine altogether from playes, or at their comming thither to vse themselues after a more quiet order. In a place so ciuill as this Cittie is esteemed, it is more than barbarously rude, to see the shamefull disorder and routes that sometimes in such publike meetings are vsed. The beginners are neither gentlemen, nor citizens, nor any of both their seruants, but some lewd mates that long for innouation; & when they see aduantage, that either Seruingmen or Apprentises are most in number, they will be of either side, though indeed they are of no side, but men beside all honestie, willing to make boote of cloakes, hats, purses, or what euer they can lay holde on in a hurley burley. These are the common causers of discord in publike places. If otherwise it happen (as it seldome doth) that any quarrell be betweene man and man, it is far from manhood to make so publike a place their field to fight in: no men will doe it, but cowardes that would faine be parted, or haue hope to haue many partakers. Nowe to you that maligne our moderate merriments, and thinke there is no felicitie but in excessiue possession of wealth: with you I would ende in a song, yea an Extempore song on this Theame, Ne quid nimis necessarium: but I am now hoarse, and troubled with my Taber and Pipe: beside, what pleasure brings musicke to the miserable. Therefore letting songes passe, I tell them in sadnes, how euer Playes are not altogether to be commended: yet some of them do more hurt in a day, than all the Players (by exercizing theyr profession) in an age. Faults there are in the professors as other men, this the greatest, that diuers of them beeing publike in euerie ones eye, and talkt of in euery vulgar mans mouth, see not how they are seene into, especially for their contempt, which makes them among most men most contemptible. Of them I will say no more: of the profession, so much hath Pierce Pennilesse (as I heare say) spoken, that for mee there is not any thing to speake. So wishing the chearefull, pleasaunce endlesse; and the wilfull sullen, sorrow till they surfet; with a turne on the toe I take my leaue. Richard Tarleton.’

l. 1592–9. John Rainolds v. William Gager and Alberico Gentili.

[A controversy arising out of criticism by Rainolds on the legitimacy of academic drama is contained in (a) Gager’s Momus and Epilogus Responsiuus, written c. Jan. 1592, spoken 8 Feb., printed with additional matter c. May (cf. ch. xxiii, s.v. Gager, Ulysses Redux; (b) Rainolds to Thomas Thornton, 6 Feb. 1592; (c) Rainolds to Gager, 10 July 1592; (d) Gager to Rainolds, 31 July 1592; (e) Rainolds to Gager, 30 May 1593; (f) Gentili, Commentatio de Professoribus et Medicis, printed with Ad Titulum de Maleficis et Mathematicis Commentarius (1593, with epistle of 26 June 1593; 1604); (g) Gentili to Rainolds, 7 July 1593; (h) Rainolds to Gentili, 10 July 1593; (i) Gentili to Rainolds, 14 July 1593; (k) Rainolds to Gentili, 5 Aug. 1593; (l) two further letters by Gentili and two by Rainolds, who ends the correspondence on 12 Mar. 1594; (m) Gentili, De Actoribus et Spectatoribus Fabularum non Notandis Disputatio (1599, with epistle of 14 Oct. 1597; reprinted in Gronovius, Thesaurus Antiquitatum, viii); (n) Th’ Overthrow of Stage-Players (1599, no imprint, with epistle from Printer to Reader; 1600; 1629). This is a print of (c), (e), (g), (h), (i), (k). All the twelve letters are in Oxon. C.C.C. MS. 352 and some in Queen’s Coll. MS. 359; a collection in Univ. Coll. MS. 157 is lost, but probably added no more. Rainolds is satirized in the Queen’s College, Cambridge, play of Fucus Histriomastix (1623, ed. G. C. Moore Smith, 1909), probably by Robert Ward.]

The academic controversy is fully summarized by F. S. Boas in Fortnightly Review for August 1907 and University Drama in the Tudor Age (1914), 229, together with the analysis of Gager’s defence by K. Young in An Elizabethan Defence of the Stage (1916, Wisconsin Shakespeare Studies, 103). I only quote the reference in the Epistle to Th’ Overthrow of 1599 to ‘Men ... that haue not been afraied of late dayes to bring vpon the Stage the very sober countenances, graue attire, modest and matronelike gestures, and speaches of men & women to be laughed at as a scorne and reproch to the world’.

li. 1597 (?). John Harington.

[From A Treatise on Playe, printed in Nugae, i. 191. I retain Park’s date of ‘circa 1597’, although I doubt whether it is based on anything but a conjecture that ‘this deere yeer’ (204) may be 1595 or 1597, and the latest definite event referred to is the death of Hatton on 20 Nov. 1591. The treatise deals mainly with gambling.]

One sayd merely that ‘enterludes weare the divells sarmons, and jesters the divells confessors; thease for the most part disgracing of vertue, and those not a little gracinge of vices’. But, for my part, I commend not such sowere censurers, but I thinke in stage-playes may bee much good, in well-penned comedies, and specially tragedies; and I remember, in Cambridge, howsoever the presyser sort have banisht them, the wyser sort did, and still doe mayntayn them.

lii. 1598. Francis Meres.

[From Palladis Tamia: Wit’s Treasury (S. R. 7 Sept. 1598). The general attitude of the treatise is humanist, but it is only of value for the incidental notices and appreciations of contemporary writers given in a rather fantastic series of parallels between classical and Elizabethan literature. Fuller extracts, including some personalia on Shakespeare and other playwrights, not reprinted here, are in C. M. Ingleby, Shakspere Allusion-Books, Part I (1874, N. S. S.), 151, and Gregory Smith, ii. 308.]

Our famous and learned Lawreat masters of England would entitle our English to far greater admired excellency if either the Emperor Augustus, or Octauia his sister, or noble Mecaenas were aliue to rewarde and countenaunce them; or if our witty Comedians and stately Tragedians (the glorious and goodlie representers of all fine witte, glorified phrase, and queint action) bee still supported and vphelde, by which meanes for lacke of Patrones (O ingratefull and damned age) our Poets are soly or chiefly maintained, countenaunced, and patronized....