l. 1592-9. John Rainolds v. William Gager
and Alberico Gentili.
[A controversy arising out of criticism by Rainolds on the legitimacy
of academic drama is contained in (a) Gager's Momus and Epilogus Responsiuus, written c. Jan. 1592, spoken 8 Feb., printed with additional
matter c. May (cf. ch. xxiii, s.v. Gager, Ulysses Redux; (b) Rainolds to
Thomas Thornton, 6 Feb. 1592; (c) Rainolds to Gager, 10 July 1592;
(d) Gager to Rainolds, 31 July 1592; (e) Rainolds to Gager, 30 May 1593;
(f) Gentili, Commentatio de Professoribus et Medicis, printed with Ad Titulum de Maleficis et Mathematicis Commentarius (1593, with epistle of
26 June 1593; 1604); (g) Gentili to Rainolds, 7 July 1593; (h) Rainolds
to Gentili, 10 July 1593; (i) Gentili to Rainolds, 14 July 1593; (k) Rainolds
to Gentili, 5 Aug. 1593; (l) two further letters by Gentili and two by
Rainolds, who ends the correspondence on 12 Mar. 1594; (m) Gentili,
De Actoribus et Spectatoribus Fabularum non Notandis Disputatio (1599,
with epistle of 14 Oct. 1597; reprinted in Gronovius, Thesaurus Antiquitatum,
viii); (n) Th' Overthrow of Stage-Players (1599, no imprint, with
epistle from Printer to Reader; 1600; 1629). This is a print of (c), (e),
(g), (h), (i), (k). All the twelve letters are in Oxon. C.C.C. MS. 352 and
some in Queen's Coll. MS. 359; a collection in Univ. Coll. MS. 157 is
lost, but probably added no more. Rainolds is satirized in the Queen's
College, Cambridge, play of Fucus Histriomastix (1623, ed. G. C. Moore
Smith, 1909), probably by Robert Ward.]
The academic controversy is fully summarized by F. S. Boas in
Fortnightly Review for August 1907 and University Drama in the Tudor Age (1914), 229, together with the analysis of Gager's defence by
K. Young in An Elizabethan Defence of the Stage (1916, Wisconsin Shakespeare Studies, 103). I only quote the reference in the Epistle
to Th' Overthrow of 1599 to 'Men . . . that haue not been afraied of
late dayes to bring vpon the Stage the very sober countenances,
graue attire, modest and matronelike gestures, and speaches of men
& women to be laughed at as a scorne and reproch to the world'.
li. 1597 (?). John Harington.
[From A Treatise on Playe, printed in Nugae, i. 191. I retain Park's
date of 'circa 1597', although I doubt whether it is based on anything
but a conjecture that 'this deere yeer' (204) may be 1595 or 1597, and
the latest definite event referred to is the death of Hatton on 20 Nov. 1591.
The treatise deals mainly with gambling.]
One sayd merely that 'enterludes weare the divells sarmons, and
jesters the divells confessors; thease for the most part disgracing of
vertue, and those not a little gracinge of vices'. But, for my part,
I commend not such sowere censurers, but I thinke in stage-playes
may bee much good, in well-penned comedies, and specially tragedies;
and I remember, in Cambridge, howsoever the presyser sort have
banisht them, the wyser sort did, and still doe mayntayn them.
