Moreover, the cunning stationers had their own men, to whom they lent 'a dossen groates worth of ballads.' If these hucksters—as Henry Chettle relates—proved thrifty, they were advanced to the position of 'prety (petty) chapman,' 'able to spred more pamphlets by the State forbidden, then all the bookesellers in London; for only in this Citie is straight search, abroad smale suspition, especially of such petty pedlars.' [2]
Chettle speaks strongly against these 'intruders in the printings misserie, by whome that excelent Art is not smally slandered, the government of the State not a little blemished, nor Religion in the least measure hindred.'
Besides the profit to be derived from the Press by the malcontent travelling scholars, there was yet another way of acquiring the means of sustenance and of making use of mental culture; and in it there existed the further advantage of independence from grumbling publishers. This was the Stage. For it no great preparations were necessary, nor was any capital required. A few chairs, some boards; in every barn there was room. Wherever one man was found who could read, there were ten eager to listen.
A most characteristic drama, 'The Return from Parnassus,' depicts some poor scholars who turn away from pitiless Cambridge, of which one of them says—
For had not Cambridge been to me unkind,
I had not turn'd to gall a milky mind. [3]
After having long since completed their studies, they go to London to seek for the most modest livelihood. Bitter experience had taught these disciples of learning that the employment for which they waited could only be gained by bribery; and bribe they certainly could not, owing to their want of means. Some of them already show a true Werther-like yearning for solitude:—
We will be gone unto the downs of Kent….
STUDIOSO.
So shall we shun the company of men,
That grows more hateful as the world grows old.
We'll teach the murm'ring brooks in tears to flow,
And sleepy rocks to wail our passed woe. [4]
Another utters sentiments of grief, coming near the words of despair of Faust. There is a tone in them of what the Germans call Weltschmerz:—