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with the sinne that he loued, haue ordeined those players whom I fed with fancies, to be a whippe to my back, and a dagger to my brest, the fault is mine owne, the punishmente due.' Epistle to the Universities and Inns of Court. P. 165. 'I was very willing to write at this time, because I was enformed by some of you which heard it with your ears, that since my publishing the Schole of Abuse, two Playes of my making were brought to the Stage: the one was a cast of Italian deuises, called, The Comedie of Captaine Mario: the other a Moral, Praise at parting. These they very impudently affirme to be written by me since I had set out my inuectiue against them. I can not denie, they were both mine, but they were both penned two yeeres at the least before I forsoke them, as by their owne friends I am able to proue: but they haue got suche a custome of counterfaiting vpon the Stage, that it is growen to a habite, & will not be lefte. God knoweth, before whom to you all I doe protest, as I shall answer to him at the last day, when al hidden secrets shal be discouered, since the first printing of my Inuectiue, to this day, I neuer made Playe for them nor any other. . . . I departed from the City of London, and bestowed my time in teaching yong Gentlemen in the Countrie, where I continue with a very worshipfull Gentleman, and reade to his sonnes in his owne house. . . . As sonne as I had inueighed against Playes, I withdrewe my selfe from them to better studies, which so long as I liue I trust to follow.' The Confutation of Playes. The First Action. The Efficient Cause of Plays. Defends his own change of mind. P. 167. 'When I firste gaue my selfe to the studie of Poetrie, and to set my cunning abroache, by penning Tragedies and Comedies in the Citte of London: perceiuing such a Gordians knot of disorder in euery play house, as woulde neuer bee loosed without extremitie, I thought it better with Alexander to draw y^e sword that should knappe it a sunder at one stroke, than to seeke ouernisely or gingerly to vndoe it, with the losse of my time and wante of successe. This caused mee to bidde them the base at their owne gole, and to geue them a volley of heathen writers: that our diuines considering the danger of suche houses as are set vp in London against the Lord, might better them thoroughly with greater shotts.' An incomplete remedy. 'Acknowledging the mischiefe bred by playes wee hope to auoid yt by changing their day yet suffer them still to remaine amonge vs. . . . The abhominable practises of playes in London haue bene by godly preachers, both at Paules crosse, and else where so zealously, so learnedly, so loudly cried out vpon to small redresse; that I may well say of them, as the Philosophers reporte of the moouing of the heauens, we neuer heare them, because we euer heare them.' Notes an answer to him. P. 169. 'Amongest all the fauorers of these vncircumcised Philistines, I meane the Plaiers, whose heartes are not right, no man til of late durst thrust out his heade to mayntaine there quarrell, but one, in witt, simple; in learning, ignorant; in attempt, rash; in name, Lodge: whose booke, as it came not to my handes in one whole yeere after the priuy printing thereof, so I confesse, that to it, before this time, I aunswered nothing,