a toy you waxe proud'. Publius Seruilius also bade a player 'bee not so bragge of thy silken roabes, for I sawe them but yesterday make a great shew in a broakers shop'. The palmer concludes, 'Thus sir haue you heard my opinion briefly of plaies, that Menander deuised them for the suppressing of vanities, necessarie in a common wealth, as long as they are vsed in their right kind; the play makers worthy of honour for their Arte: & players, men deseruing both prayse and profite, as long as they wax neither couetous nor insolent'.
xliv. 1591. Samuel Cox.
[This letter of 15 Jan. 1591 to an unknown correspondent, brother of
one Mr. Lewin, occurs with other letters by Cox in the letter-book of Sir
Christopher Hatton (Nicolas, Hatton, xxix), to whom he was secretary.]
Has his letter 'reprehending me in some sort for my sharpness
against the use of plays'. Cites view of Fathers, especially Chrysostom.
Regrets present toleration of 'these dangerous schools of
licentious liberty, whereunto more people resort than to sermons or
prayers'. Now 'rich men give more to a player for a song which
he shall sing in one hour, than to their faithful servants for serving
them a whole year. . . . I could wish that players would use themselves
nowadays, as in ancient former times they have done, which
was only to exercise their interludes in the time of Christmas, beginning
to play in the holidays and continuing until twelfth tide, or at the
furthest until Ashwednesday, of which players I find three sorts of
people: the first, such as were in wages with the king and played
before him some time at Hallowmass, and then in the later holidays
until twelfthtide, and after that, only in Shrovetide; and these men
had other trades to live of, and seldom or never played abroad at
any other times of the whole year. The second sort were such as
pertained to noblemen, and were ordinary servants in their house,
and only for Christmas times used such plays, without making profession
to be players to go abroad for gain, for in such cases they
were subject to the statute against retainers. The third sort were
certain artisans in good towns and great parishes, as shoemakers,
tailors, and such like, that used to play either in their town-halls, or
some time in churches, to make the people merry; where it was
lawful for all persons to come without exacting any money for their
access, having only somewhat gathered of the richer sort by the
churchwardens for their apparel and other necessaries.'
xlv. 1591. Sir John Harington.
[From A Preface, or rather a Briefe Apologie of Poetrie, and of the Author
and Translator, prefixed to Harington's translation of Ariosto's Orlando
Furioso (1591), reprinted in Gregory Smith, ii. 194.]
Harington upholds poetry on humanist lines, and answers the
objections of Cornelius Agrippa. P. 209. 'The last reproofe is lightnes
& wantonnes. . . . First, the Tragicall is meerly free from it, as representing
onely the cruell and lawlesse proceedings of Princes, mouing
