In the mean time, however, they were becoming, through the dissoluteness of their manners, obnoxious to government, and contemptible in the public estimation. Stubbes, in the first edition of his Anatomie of Abuses, 1583, terms them a parcel of drunken sockets, and baudy parasites, that "raunge the countries," he observes, "riming and singing of unclean, corrupt, and filthy songs in tavernes, ale-houses, innes, and other publike assemblies.—There is no ship," he exclaims, "so laden with merchandize, as their heads are pestred with al kinds of baudy songs, filthy ballades, and scurvy rymes, serving for every purpose, and for every company. For proof whereof," he subjoins, "who bee baudier knaves than they? who uncleaner than they? who more licentious, and looser minded than they? and brieflie, who more inclined to all kind of insolency and leudness than they?—I think that al good minstrels, sober and chast musitions, may dance the wild Moris through a needles eye."
He subsequently adds that, notwithstanding their immorality, "every toune, citie, and countrey, is full of these minstrelles to pipe up a daunce to the devill."
That this description is not much exaggerated by the puritanical severity of its author, is evident from the language of Puttenham, a courtier and polite writer, who calls this degraded race "cantabanqui," singers "upon benches and barrels heads—minstrels that give a fit of mirth for a groat—in taverns and ale-houses, and such other places of base resort[560:A];" a picture corroborated by the authority of Bishop Hall, who a few years afterwards, speaking of the exhilarating effect of his own satirical poetry, says it is
"Much better than a Paris-garden beare,
Or prating poppet on a theater,
Or Mimœ's whistling to his tabouret,
Selling a laughter for a cold meal's meat."[560:B]
The character which Shakspeare attributes to the minstrel race of this period, is in accordance with the preceding passages. In the original edition of his Rape of Lucrece, which appeared in 1594, he draws his heroine exclaiming,
"Feast-finding minstrels, tuning my defame,
Will tie the hearers to attend each line."[560:C]