True. Yes, and his opposers'.
Love. And what think you?
True. In my mind, Mr Collier's reflections are pertinent, and true in the main; the book ingeniously wrote, and well intended; but he has overshot himself in some places, and his respondents perhaps in more. My affection inclines me not to engage on either side, but rather mediate. If there be abuses relating to the stage—which, I think, is too apparent—let the abuse be reformed, and not the use, for that reason only, abolished. 'Twas an old saying, when I was a boy—
Absit abusus, non desit totaliter usus.
I shall not run through Mr Collier's book; I will only touch a little on two or three general notions, in which, I think, he may be mistaken. What he urges out of the primitive councils and fathers of the Church seems to me to be directed against the heathen plays, which were a sort of religious worship with them, to the honour of Ceres, Flora, or some of their false deities. They had always a little altar on their stages, as appears plain enough from some places in Plautus. And Mr Collier himself, p. 235, tells us out of Livy that plays were brought in, upon the score of religion, to pacify the gods. No wonder, then, they forbid Christians to be present at them, for it was almost the same as to be present at their sacrifices. We must also observe that this was in the infancy of Christianity, when the Church was under severe and almost continual persecutions, and when all its true members were of most strict and exemplary lives, not knowing when they should be called to the stake, or thrown to wild beasts. They communicated daily, and expected death hourly; as their thoughts were intent upon the next world, they abstained almost wholly from all diversions and pleasures (though lawful and innocent) in this. Afterwards, when persecution ceased, and the Church flourished, Christians, being then freed from their former terrors, allowed themselves, at proper times, the lawful recreations of conversations, and among other, no doubt, this of shows and representations. After this time, the censures of the Church indeed might be continued or revived upon occasion against plays and players; though, in my opinion, it cannot be understood generally, but only against such players who were of vicious and licentious lives, and represented profane subjects, inconsistent with the morals and probity of manners requisite to Christians, and frequented chiefly by such loose and debauched people as were much more apt to corrupt than divert those who associated with them. I say, I cannot think the canons and censures of the fathers can be applied to all players, quatenus players; for if so, how could plays be continued among the Christians, as they were, of divine subjects and scriptural stories? A late French author, speaking of the Hotel de Bourgogne, a play-house in Paris, says that the ancient dukes of that name gave it to the Brotherhood of the Passion, established in the church of Trinity Hospital, in the Rue St Denis, on condition that they should represent here interludes of devotion; and adds, that there have been public shows in this place six hundred years ago. The Spanish and Portuguese continue still to have, for the most part, such ecclesiastical stories for the subject of their plays; and if we may believe Gage, they are acted in their churches in Mexico and the Spanish West Indies.
Love. That's a great way off, Trueman; I had rather you would come nearer home, and confine your discourse to Old England.
True. So I intend. The same has been done here in England; for otherwise, how comes it to be prohibited in the 88th Canon, among those passed in convocation, 1603? Certain it is that our ancient plays were of religious subjects, and had for their actors, if not priests, yet men relating to the Church.
Love. How does that appear?
True. Nothing clearer. Stow, in his "Survey of London," has one chapter Of the Sports and Pastimes of old time used in this City; and there he tells us, that in the year 1391, which was 15 Richard II., a stage-play was played by the parish clerks of London, at the Skinner's Well beside Smithfield, which play continued three days together, the king, queen, and nobles of the realm being present. And another was played in the year 1409, 11 Henry IV., which lasted eight days, and was of matter from the creation of the world, whereat were present most part of the nobility and gentry of England. Sir William Dugdale, in his "Antiquities of Warwickshire," p. 116, speaking of the Grayfriars or Franciscans at Coventry, says: "Before the suppression of the monasteries, this city was very famous for the pageants that were played therein upon Corpus-Christi Day; which pageants, being acted with mighty state and reverence by the friars of this house, had theatres for the several scenes very large and high, placed upon wheels, and drawn to all the eminent parts of the city, for the better advantage of the spectators, and contained the story of the New Testament, composed in old English rhyme." An ancient manuscript of the same is now to be seen in the Cottonian Library, Sub Effig. Vesp. D. 8. Since the Reformation, in Queen Elizabeth's time, plays were frequently acted by quiristers and singing-boys; and several of our old comedies have printed in the title-page, "acted by the children of Paul's" (not the school, but the church); others, "by the children of her majesty's chapel:" in particular, "Cynthia's Revels" and "The Poetaster" were played by them, who were at that time famous for good action. Among Ben Jonson's epigrams you may find an epitaph on S. P. (Sal. Pavy), one of the children of Queen Elizabeth's chapel, part of which runs thus—
Years he counted scarce thirteen,
When fates turn'd cruel,
Yet three fill'd zodiacs he had been
The stage's jewel;
And did act (what now we moan)
Old men so duly,
As, sooth, the Parcæ thought him one,
He play'd so truly.