effects of admiration and commiseration teacheth the uncertainty of this world, and upon how weak foundations gilden roofs are builded'. So, too, the work of the comic poet is 'an imitation of the common errors of our life which he representeth in the most ridiculous and scornful sort that may be, so as it is impossible that any beholder can be content to be such a one'. The Defence was not published until 1595, but it must have been well known in private before that, since, itself founded on such Italian writers as Scaliger, Minturno, and Castelvetro, it in turn furnished inspiration for William Webbe's Discourse of English Poesie (1586), Puttenham's Arte of English Poesie (1589), and Sir John Harington's Apologie of Poetrie (1591). All these three writers emphasize the moral lessons of tragedy and comedy on the familiar humanist lines.
It must be admitted that the humanist theory was not altogether conclusive as an answer to the Puritans. These were not prepared to accept the authority of Horace as making delight, even in conjunction with the useful, a legitimate end, when, as they pointed out, the delight was a carnal and not a spiritual one.[1] Nor could the arguments in favour of decorum, which were wholly of a literary and not an ethical nature, be expected to appeal to them. And as to the moral lessons to be learned by witnessing plays, whether tragedies or comedies, they were entirely sceptical. They return again and again, with obvious irritation, to the probably mythical story of a good woman who swore by her troth that she had been as much edified at a play as at any sermon.[2]
If, says Northbrooke, you will learne howe to bee false and deceyue your husbandes, or husbandes their wyues, howe to playe the harlottes, to obtayne ones loue, howe to rauishe, howe to beguyle, howe to betraye, to flatter, lye, sweare, forsweare, howe to allure to whoredome, howe to murther, howe to poyson, howe to disobey and rebell against princes, to consume treasures prodigally, to mooue to lustes, to ransacke and spoyle cities and townes, to bee ydle, to blaspheme, to sing filthie songes of loue, to speake filthily, to be prowde, howe to mocke, scoffe and deryde any nation . . . shall not you learne, then, at such enterludes howe to practise them.[3]
And if sometimes notorious evil-doers are held up to reprobation on the stage, it seems to the preachers that such rebuke might more suitably come from the pulpit, since in a theatre the appeal must needs be made to an audience hardly fit to be judges in any man's cause.[4] Gosson and Munday, having
