APPENDIX C
DOCUMENTS OF CRITICISM
[There is much vain repetition in learned controversy, whether literary
or ethical. I have attempted, by extract or summary, to indicate the
main critical positions taken up by writers of different schools with regard
to plays, and at the same time to preserve the incidental information
which they furnish on points of stage history. It does not seem to me
necessary to do more than cite, as of minor importance, and practically
adding nothing, T. Becon, The Catechisme (1564, Works, i, f. cccccxxxii);
E. Hake, Merry Maidens of London (1567), A Touchstone for this Time
(1574), sig. G 4^v; E. Dering, Catechisme for Householders (1572); T. Brasbridge,
Poor Man's Jewel (1578); R. Crowley, Unlawful Practises of
Prelates (> 1583), sig. B 3^v; N. Bownde, Doctrine of the Sabbath (1595),
211; J. Norden, Progress of Piety (1596, ed. Parker Soc.), 177; T. Beard,
Theatre of God's Judgments (1597), 193, 197, 374; W. Vaughan, The
Golden Grove (1600), i. 51; F. Hering, Rules for the Prevention of the
Sickness (1603), sig. A 4^v; R. Knolles, Six Books of a Commonweal (1606,
from J. Bodin, Six Livres de la République, 1576-8, 1601), vi. 1; W. Perkins,
Cases of Conscience (1608, ed. T. Pickering), 118; R. Bolton, Discourse
of True Happiness (1611), 73; L. Bayly, Practice of Piety (c. 1612, ed.
Webster, 1842), 182, 190; O. Lake, Probe Theologicall upon the Commandments
(1612), 267; J. Dod and R. Cleaver, Exposition of the Ten Commandments
(1612); G. Wither, Abuses Stript and Whipt (1613), ii. 3;
D. Dyke, Michael and the Dragon (1615), 216. Probably such references
could be multiplied indefinitely; they show how dread of the stage became
a commonplace of pastoral theology. Thomas Spark's Rehearsal Sermon
(1579) is only known from the citation of it by Munday (cf. No. xxvii,
infra).]
i. 1489 (?). Desiderius Erasmus.
[From Epistola 31, to an unnamed friend (P. S. Allen, Opus Epistolarum
Des. Erasmi Roterodami, i. 123), conjecturally dated by Mr. Allen in 1489.
Erasmus more briefly commends the educational use both of Terence and
Plautus in De Ratione Studii (1511, Opera, i. 521). In 1532 he edited
Terence, and to the same year belongs Epist. 1238 (Opera, iii. 2, 1457),
which praises the comedies without re-arguing at length the ethical controversy;
cf. W. H. Woodward, Desiderius Erasmus concerning the Aim
and Method of Education (1904), 28, 39, 113, 164.]
Est enim in his Terentianis comoediis mirifica quaedam sermonis
puritas, proprietas, elegantia ac, vt in tam antiquo comico, horroris
minimum; lepos (sine quo rustica est omnis, quantumuis phalerata,
oratio) et vrbanus et salsus. Aut hoc igitur magistro aut nemine
discere licebit quo pacto veteres illi Latini, qui nunc vel nobis peius
balbutiunt, locuti sint. Hunc itaque tibi non modo etiam atque etiam
lectitandum censeo, verumetiam ad verbum ediscendum.
Caue autem ne homuncionum istorum imperitulorum, imo liuidulorum garritus te quicquam permoueant, qui vbi in ineptissimis authoribus Florista, Ebrardo Graecista, Huguitione se senuisse viderunt, nec tantis ambagibus ex imperitiae labyrintho potuisse emergere, id vnicum suae stulticiae solatium proponunt, si in eundem errorem suum iuniores omnes pelliciant. Nefas aiunt a Christianis lectitari
