lviii. 1610. William Crashaw.

[From A Sermon Preached in London before the right honorable the Lord Lawarre, Lord Gouernour and Captaine Generall of Virginea ... Feb. 21, 1609 (1610).]

P. 57. ‘We confesse this action hath three great enemies: but who be they? euen the Diuell, Papists, and Players.’ P. 62. ‘3. As for Plaiers: (pardon me right Honourable and beloued, for wronging this place and your patience with so base a subiect) they play with Princes and Potentates, Magistrates and Ministers, nay with God and Religion, and all holy things: nothing that is good, excellent or holy can escape them: how then can this action?... But why are the Players enemies to this Plantation and doe abuse it? I will tell you the causes: First, for that they are so multiplied here, that one cannot liue by another, and they see that wee send of all trades to Virginea, but will send no Players, which if wee would doe, they that remaine would gaine the more at home. Secondly ... because wee resolue to suffer no Idle persons in Virginea, which course if it were taken in England, they know they might turne to new occupations.’

lix. 1615. I. H.

[From This World’s Folly. Or A Warning-Peece discharged vpon the Wickednesse thereof. By I. H. (1615).]

Bv-B2. ‘What voice is heard in our streetes? Nought but the squeaking out of those τερετίσματα, obscaene and light Iigges, stuft with loathsome and vnheard-of Ribauldry, suckt from the poysonous dugs of Sinne-sweld Theaters.... More haue recourse to Playing houses, then to Praying houses.... 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. Vos quoque [in margin, ‘Or Tu quoque’], and you also, who with Scylla-barking, Stentor-throated bellowings, flash choaking squibbes of absurd vanities into the nosthrils of your spectators, barbarously diuerting Nature, and defacing Gods owne image, by metamorphising humane [in margin, ‘Greenes Baboone’] shape into bestiall forme. Those also stand within the stroke of my penne, who were wont to Curtaine ouer their defects with knauish conueyances, and scum off the froth of all wanton vanity, to qualifie the eager appetite of their slapping Fauorites.’

lx. 1615. J. Cocke.

[The variant texts of this character are here given from the two editions of John Stephens’ essays, in each of which it is Bk. ii, char. 4, viz. (A) Satyrical Essayes Characters and Others (1615) and (B) Essayes and Characters, Ironical and Instructive. The second impression (1615), of which a reprint is in J. O. Halliwell, Old Books of Characters (1857), 131. Between A and B had appeared the sixth edition of The Wife, with the character of An Excellent Actor and the reference to a rival as ‘the imitating Characterist’ (v. No. lxi). To this the additions in B are a rejoinder, and they are reinforced by two epistles. One is ‘To the namelesse Rayler: who hath lenghthened his Excellent Actor, a most needy Caracter following the wife with a peece of dog-skin witt; dressed ouer with oyle of sweaty Posthorse’. Here the writer, I. S., says he did ‘admit a friends Satyre’. The other epistle, ‘To the nameles Author of a late Character entituled, an Excellent Actor, following The Wife’, is signed by ‘I. Cocke’, who says, ‘witnes your gross mistaking of approued and authorised actors for counterfeit Runagates, or country Players, inueighed against by the Characterist’. Some appended verses claim for Cocke the authorship of the Tinker, Apparator, and Almanac-maker in The Wife. It seems clear that Cocke and not Stephens wrote the present character, and that An Excellent Actor was a reply to it. It is true that Stephens only speaks of it as ‘lenghthened’ by the attack on himself, but ‘lenghthened’ may mean ‘pieced out’, and there is no version, long or short, in any of the five first editions of The Wife, while a reference to ‘the sixt impression of S. Thomas Overburyes wife’ on p. 434 of B shows this was before its writers. John Stephens (cf. ch. xxiii) was a Lincoln’s Inn dramatist. I cannot find a likely Cocke in the Lincoln’s Inn Admission Books; there is an Isaac Cox, admitted 10 Jan. 1611 (i. 154), and a John Cookes on 6 June 1614 (i. 166). Can the satirist be the John Cooke (cf. ch. xxiii) who wrote Greene’s Tu Quoque?]

A common Player

Is a slow Payer, seldom a Purchaser, never a Puritan. The Statute hath done wisely to acknowledg him a Rogue errant[824], for his chiefe essence is, A daily Counterfeit[825]: He hath beene familiar so long with out-sides, that he professes himselfe (being unknowne) to be an apparant Gentleman. But his thinne Felt, and his silke Stockings, or his foule Linnen, and faire Doublet, doe (in him) bodily reveal the Broker: So beeing not sutable, hee proves a Motley: his mind observing the same fashion of his body: both consist of parcells and remnants: but his minde hath commonly the newer fashion, and the newer stuffe: hee would not else hearken so passionately after new Tunes, new Trickes, new Devises: These together apparrell his braine and understanding, whilst he takes the materialls upon trust, and is himself the Taylor to take measure of his soules liking. Hee doth conjecture somewhat strongly, but dares not commend a playes goodnes,[826] till he hath either spoken, or heard the Epilogue[827]: neither dares he entitle good things Good, unlesse hee be heartned on by the multitude: till then hee saith faintly what hee thinkes, with a willing purpose to recant or persist: So howsoever hee pretends to have a royall Master or Mistresse, his wages and dependance prove him to be the servant of the people.[828] When he doth hold conference upon the stage; and should looke directly in his fellows face; hee turnes about his voice into the assembly for applause-sake, like a Trumpeter in the fields, that shifts places to get an eccho.[829] The cautions of his judging humor (if hee dares undertake it) be a certaine number of sawsie rude[830] jests against the common lawyer; hansome conceits against the fine Courtiers; delicate quirkes against the rich Cuckold a cittizen; shadowed glaunce[831] for good innocent Ladies and Gentlewomen; with a nipping scoffe for some honest Justice, who hath[832] imprisoned him: or some thriftie Trades-man, who hath allowed him no credit: alwayes remembred, his object is, A new play, or A play newly revived. Other Poems he admits, as good-fellowes take Tobacco, or ignorant Burgesses give a voyce, for company sake; as thinges that neither maintaine nor be against him. 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. Otherwise when adversities come, they come together: For Lent and Shrovetuesday be not farre asunder, then he is dejected daily and weekely: his blessings be neither lame nor monstrous; they goe upon foure legges, but moove slowly, and make as great a distance between their steppes, as between the foure Tearmes. Reproofe is ill bestowed uppon him; it cannot alter his conditions: he hath bin so accustomed to the scorne and laughter of his audience, that hee cannot bee ashamed of himselfe: for hee dares laugh in the middest of a serious conference, without blushing.[834] If hee marries, hee mistakes the Woman for the Boy in Womans attire, by not respecting a difference in the mischiefe: But so long as he lives unmarried, hee mistakes the Boy, or a Whore for the Woman; by courting the first on the stage, or visiting the second at her devotions. When hee is most commendable, you must confesse there is no truth in him: for his best action is but an imitation of truth, and nullum simile est idem. It may be imagined I abuse his carriage, and hee perhaps may suddenly bee thought faire-conditioned; for he playes above board.[835] Take him at the best, he is but a shifting companion; for hee lives effectually by putting on, and putting off. If his profession were single, hee would think himselfe a simple fellow, as hee doth all professions besides his owne: His own therefore is compounded of all Natures, all humours, all professions. Hee is politick also[836] to perceive the commonwealth[837] doubts of his licence, and therefore in spight of Parliaments or Statutes hee incorporates himselfe by the title of a brotherhood. Painting and fine cloths may not by the same reason be called abusive, that players may not be called rogues: For they bee chiefe ornaments of his Majesties Revells.[838] I need not multiplie his character; for boyes and every one, wil no sooner see men of this Facultie walke along but they wil (unasked) informe you what hee is by the vulgar title.[839] Yet in the generall number of them, many may deserve a wise mans commendation: and therefore did I prefix an Epithite of common, to distinguish the base and artlesse appendants of our citty companies, which often times start away into rusticall wanderers and then (like Proteus) start backe again into the Citty number.[840]