learned physitian, thus speaketh in the Seuenth Booke and seuenteenth chapter of his Politikes: Aristoteles suum Theodoretum laudauit quendam peritum Tragœdiarum actorem, Cicero suum Roscium: nos Angli Tarletonum, in cuius voce et vultu omnes iocosi affectus, in cuius cerebroso capite lepidae facetiae habitant. And so is now our wittie Wilson, who for learning and extemporall witte in this facultie is without compare or compeere, as, to his great and eternall commendations, he manifested in his challenge at the Swanne on the Banke Side.
liii. 1603. Henry Crosse.
[From Vertues Common-wealth: Or The High-way to Honour, reprinted in A. B. Grosart, Occasional Issues, vii (1878), 111.]
Must the holy Prophets and Patriarkes be set vpon a Stage, to be derided, hist, and laught at? or is it fit that the infirmities of holy men should be acted on a Stage, whereby others may be inharted to rush carelessly forward into vnbrideled libertie?. . . Furthermore, there is no passion wherwith the king, the soueraigne maiestie of the Realme was possest, but is amplified, and openly sported with, and made a May-game to all the beholders. . . . If a man will learne to be proud, fantasticke, humorous, to make love, sweare, swagger, and in a word closely doo any villanie, for a two-penny almes hee may be throughly taught and made a perfect good scholler. . . . And as these copper-lace gentlemen growe rich, purchase lands by adulterous Playes, & not fewe of them vsurers and extortioners, which they exhaust out of the purses of their haunters, so are they puft vp in such pride and selfe-loue, as they enuie their equalles, and scorne theyr inferiours. . . . But especially these nocturnall and night Playes, at vnseasonable and vndue times, more greater euils must necessarily proceed of them, because they do not onely hide and couer the thiefe, but also entice seruants out of their maisters houses, wherby opportunitie is offered to loose fellowes, to effect many wicked stratagems. . . . To conclude, it were further to be wished, that those admired wittes of this age, Tragædians, and Comædians, that garnish Theaters with their inuentions, would spend their wittes in more profitable studies, and leaue off to maintaine those Anticks, and Puppets, that speake out of their mouthes: for it is pittie such noble giftes, should be so basely imployed, as to prostitute their ingenious labours to inriche such buckorome gentlemen.
liv. 1604-5 (?). Ben Jonson.
[Prologue to Every Man In His Humour, first printed in Folio of 1616,
and possibly written for a Jacobean revival.]
Though neede make many Poets, and some such
As art, and nature haue not betterd much;
Yet ours, for want, hath not so lou'd the stage,
As he dare serue th'ill customes of the age:
Or purchase your delight at such a rate,
As, for it, he himselfe must iustly hate.
