abusive epithets, and retailer of the anathemas of the puritans.

MORTON. If he only goes over the old grounds in the old style, we need not bestow much time upon him.

BOURNE. From beginning to end I do not think he introduces a single new argument, or one new fact; indeed, all his illustrations are professedly taken from Stubbes.

ELLIOT. And how he, and others like him, got their perfect insight into all these horrid vices of players and theatres, must remain a secret, unless we conclude that their fathers were of Parmeno's opinion in Terence's Eunuch.

MORTON. That is, that frequenting their haunts, and joining in all their enormities, was the best mode of giving his son a disgust for them.

BOURNE. J. G. in his prefatory matter, and, indeed, throughout, treats Heywood with infinite hauteur, never condescending to name him, but always terming him Mr. Actor, and telling him, that he means "to give his Apologie such a Blurre, that it shall not be able, after never so much washing, to show a cleane face againe." His first book, if we may so call it, opens with an assertion (for mere assertions are as useful to J. G. as to his predecessors), that God having created certain things for man's delight, Sathan stepped in and perverted them to unlawful pleasures, one of which was " vngodly and obscoene

stage-playes, the most impious and most pernitious of all other vnlawfull and artificial pleasures."

ELLIOT, Exactly the old strain: I can see no reason why we should trouble ourselves with redigesting these crudities.

BOURNE. I will not require your patience for more than a few sentences from the second division, where a reply is attempted to the denial by Heywood of the evil manners and vicious habits of all actors. "And, therefore, (J. G. says) in vaine afterwards doth M. Actor intreat for excuse, not to misdeeme all for the misdeeds of some, seeing it is the generall carriage of them all. It is a rule in Diuinity to know a man's conditions and what hee is, by the company hee doth vsually keepe. Now, if the best of them were not licentious, why do they liue and louc, accompany and play together with them which are? Were it not madnesse for a man to be his companion which is his daily reproch? But Players all of them are licentious, for the proverb is Birds of a feather flye together. And therefore if they were not they would not associate them which are, whom the Syteresis of their own consciences, and the conscience of all men willeth to auoyd."

ELLIOT. "There is an air of plausibility (says Burke in his Vindication of Natural Society) which accompanies vulgar reasonings and notions taken from the beaten circle of ordinary experience, that is

admirably suited to the narrow capacities of some, and to the laziness of others."

BOURNE. In the third part is an attempt at logic in a direct syllogism-nothing less than a syllogism, stated thus. "Whatsoeuer is the Image of truth is like vnto truth, for Images are said to be like what they represent

"But a Comedie is not like truth:

Ergo-It is not the Image of truth."

MORTON. There the whole question is assumed: he takes it for granted that a Comedy is not like truth.

BOURNE. I beg your pardon; he says, that he establishes his assumption that a comedy is not like truth, because "it is wholly composed of Fables and Vanities-and Fables and Vanities are lyes and deceipts, and lyes and deceipts are cleane contrary to truth."

ELLIOT. A most sagacious and infallible reasoner! Comedies are like truth precisely for the cause he urges against them, for if they were not fables, but realities, they would not be like truth, but truth itself; nullum simile est idem. You may very safely close the book.

MORTON. J. G.'s syllogism reminds me of a ludicrous one I saw in that tract you showed us called "Pap with a Hatchet" against Martin Marprelate and his friends.

"Tiburn stands in the cold,

But Martins are warm fur;

Therefore Tiburn must be furred with Martins."

BOURNE. One is as incontrovertible as the other; only the last is intended for a joke, and the first for a serious argument. As you are tired of J. G.'s answer already, I may here just refer you, for I will do very little more, to two or three books, where indeed stage-plays are spoken of incidentally, but which ought not to be wholly passed over in silence.-I know that this is in some degree breaking through our rule, but Heywood and his antagonist have occupied less time than I expected, and what I am going to offer will most likely not require more than a few minutes.

MORTON. At your discretion.

BOURNE. The first book I shall mention is called "A Sixe-fold Politician; together with a Sixe-fold Precept of Policy," 1609, which, perhaps, I should have omitted, but that it is attributed by Warton to Milton's father; but this is denied by Dr. Farmer and others. The initials I. M. are subscribed to the prefatory matter.

ELLIOT. There is surely some other ground on which to rest so important a conclusion.

BOURNE. There is, though it has never appeared to me very satisfactory, and I apprehend you will think the same. The commendatory poems are by Io. Dauis, Gent., by I. S. Gent., and by T. P.: now

VOL. II.

X

the second of these opens with a pun upon the name of the author

"Thy tun (deare friend) of wit & hony nows brok vp,"

meaning Mel-tun or Milton; and if something of the kind were not intended by I. S. Gent., it is not easy to see why he begins with a line so uncouth.

MORTON. I think I remember to have seen a tract about that date, by a man of the name of Melton, which comes nearer the pun of I. S.

BOURNE. There was a very inferior writer of that name, and he was also called John; but he was quite incompetent to the work before us, which possesses force, originality, and some learning. If it be true that Milton's father was really the author of this 4to volume (the only 4to copy I have seen, though it is met with in 8vo.), it gives an additional interest to what he says in his third chapter "Of Poets."

ELLIOT. It seems probable that Milton's father was no contemptible scholar, as his son addresses him in one of his Latin poems. Does he speak in favour of or against poets?

BOURNE. Strongly against the lower order of poets "who fashion their wits to the pleasing of a vaine multitude and rabble of loose liuers," though he introduces a salvo, in parenthesis, in favour of true" poetry and judicial poets." He is sufficiently strenuous in his attack upon theatrical representa

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