[Only known to me from the entry in Catalogue of Chatsworth Library, iv. 49.]
A Treatise of Daunses, wherein it is showed, that they are as it
were accessories and dependants (or things annexed) to whoredom:
where also by the way is touched and proved, that Playes are ioyned
and knit together in a ranck or rowe with them.
xxix. 1581. John Rainolds.
[From Praefatio ad Academiam Oxoniensem, dated 'Febr. 2. 1580', to
Sex Theses de Sacra Scriptura et Ecclesia (1580), 30. A translation is on
p. 678 of The Summe of the Conference between John Rainolds and John
Hart (1584). Rainolds was Fellow of C.C.C., Oxford, 1566-86, then retired
to Queens, became Dean of Lincoln in 1593 and President of C.C.C. in
1598; for his share in later stage controversy cf. No. 1.]
Excitate studia, paene dixeram iacentia, sed spero meliora. Extinguite
Sirenes a studiis auocantes, desidiam, dulce malum: delicias,
escam Veneris: conuiuiorum luxum, vanitatem vestium, ludos
illiberales, symposia intempestiua, pestes scenicorum, Theatralia
spectacula.
xxx. 1582. Stephen Gosson.
[From Playes Confuted in fiue Actions, Prouing that they are not to be
suffred in a Christian common weale, by the waye both the Cauils of Thomas
Lodge, and the Play of Playes, written in their defence, and other obiections
of Players frendes, are truely set downe and directlye aunsweared (N.D.;
S. R. 6 Apr. 1582), reprinted by Hazlitt, E. D. S. 157.]
[Summary and Extracts.] Epistle to Sir Frances Walsingham.
'So fareth it this present time with me, which giuing forth my
Defiaunce vnto Playes, am mightily beset with heapes of aduersaries. . . .
I thought it necessarye to nettle one of their Orators aboue the
rest, not of any set purpose to deface hym, because hee hath dealt
very grossely, homely, and vncharitably with me, but like a good
Surgeon to cut, & to seare, when the place requireth, for his owne
amendment. Which thinge I trust shall neither displease your honor,
nor any of the godly, in the reading, so long as the person whom
I touch is (as I heare by hys owne frendes, to hys repentance if he
can perceiue it) hunted by the heauy hand of God, and become little
better than a vagarant, looser than liberty, lighter than vanitie it
selfe.' Plays are an Augean stable to be cleansed. 'If euer so
notable a thinge bee brought to passe it must bee done by some
Hercules in the Court, whom the roare of the enimy can neuer daunt.'
Hints that this should be Walsingham. 'The Gentlemen Players
in the citie of London, are growen in such a heate, that by their
foming, their fretting, their stampinge, my frendes do perceiue how
their harts woorke, and enforce me to bring to your honor no common
fraighte, but as much as my life and securitie hereafter shall be
woorth. If the prouidence of God, who many times scourgeth a man
