In the case of the Clergie and Cavaltry , reduced to beggary by Loyalty , we cannot expect less then the fashions of Beggars , howling noise , sores , and sufferings ; the least necessity attended on by the greatest pretences , Impudence and Ignorance , the old pass-ports for preferment seldom miss , like some rapacious and counterfeit Beggars in the dealing of the dole of state a treble share , while unserved virtue silently bewails the real want of merit in others ; and perhaps her own nor less real necessitie If the streams issuing from the Fountain of all Honor intended to fructifie Loyalty , be perverted , to water the plants of rebellion , the fault is not in the Fountain , but in the perverter . If exhalation are raised which produce Comets and Meteor , portentuous to Kingdoms , or they descend in Thunder , Storms and Lightning , which render a Land Barren , instead of those benigner showrs , which make all things fertile ; the fault is not in the Sun , but in the corruption of our prutred climate . Our ROYAL SUN doth good to all , Good and Bad , Friend and Enemy , shines upon Dunghills as well as Gardens . It can be no wonder , if a stench be returned for beams , as well as those Odours of virtue , which may perfume the higher Region of the Court . All things are not patent to his beams . Though the Sun is intituled to an all-seeing-eye , to gratify our phancies ; we cannot believe all affairs unobscur'd to Majesty . Kings may be therefore allowed the liberty of Looking-Glasses , and even those of the Muses at the sight of which no one is affrighted , except he resembles the deformed fellow in that of Tom Randolph , at the uglines of his own shape . The aspiring Minion may be seen in A Sejanus ; Conspirators in A Cataline , Every man in his Humor , and every man out of his Humor , is Personated in Iohnsons Works ; even from the perfumed Court Gull to the City Widgin . The zeal of the Land , brought in for a Puppet to adorn Bartholomew Fair , may show the Whimzies of ours . Tribulation & Ananias in the Alchymist these Saints , who had got a stone in their noddles , which might renew a Golden Age , and introduce the fifth Monarchy for the Rule of such Utopian Zealots .

Here are great accusations against Players . The old Spirit of Histriomastix is conjur'd up , to be troublesom and petulant against these fellows , who ( as some affirm ) can represent nothing so vile , as what they really are in their own persons . If so , it would not be amiss , while playes are used as Mr. Busbie used Martial ( who gelt him for his Obscenity ) that Actors may be castrated , to take away the occasions of Scandal . If this Turkish mode could not preserve the chastity at the one , it might rarely advantage the voyces ar the other Theatre , where some say they are kept bare ; sure they must ow it to their Ingenuity , which bestows no greater badge then that of beggary on her Servants . None can deny them the most lively Representations , Else the Siedge of Rhodes so frequently seen before our City Gates , could not perswade some it must be as long in acting here , as before that City . Their Neighbours Lord it like those of the other House , those former Pig-wiggins of State : But with the Cat in the Fable discover themselves still in their beloved Beggars Bush , or Iovial Crew , and have the advantage only of Will and the Wits with Scenes , that they can be bold with an Alchymist of Bens , who can give a reputation to the worst of mettals , while the worst of his works can excell the whole Opera of others . These are the the quibbles of some Dablers in wit or slight Freshmen in Poesy .

The Ladies ( those she Critiques , who by relation of Sex pretend affinity to the Muses ) will have their concerns , though their judgements , like their beauties , is but skin deep , and as many patches may be required to make up the defects of the one , as the ruins of the other : inconcern'd in the Players Girls patches ( which the Zealots call Lusts Idols , the spotted Calves of Aegypt , set up in such Idolatrous houses to be worshipped ) can be troubled to see a Lady translated into a Beggar , and that Ioan which used to be as good as my Lady , in the dark only , a Lady now must represent before the eyes of all people , to the disgrace of Mercenary honour , which cost their Husbands so dear to Courtiers , to gratify their idler humours .

The City zeal flyes high , and taking an Arise from the Pulpit , will allow Theaters only Nests of Prophaneness , and a brand of Levity must be affix'd to the Visitants . Men of the same profession are seldom friends . The pulpit & Stage are in competition . The Pulpit pleads Custome , two or three Apprentiships served , the Votes of two Houses , and what is most obsetvable , Bishops and Stage Playes were voted down on the same day , that the Mime and Satyre might be both confined thither ; The Church having no grave Fathers to reprehend , and the Muses wanting a Looking Glass to represent their Vice , made a whole Land the Stages of Rapine and Blood ; The Tragedies which came from the Pulpit carrying alwayes the most danger . They have spoak their Prologues , but we need not fear the silencing of them before they re-act their bloody Scenes .

Good Iosias , nor Good Hezekiah ever went to see Stage Playes ; belch'd out one of the Shimeis , who will not leave rayling , not throwing stones against David ; but let them take heed lest the Inquisition for blood find them out , and they descend not into their Graves with peace , as the little and contemptible Person Iohn Iames ( as the Saints will have it , Another Zachaeus ) hath climb'd up a Tree to see Christ . And God grant none of these Ambitious Pablers , or Bable-builders , may so climb , & instead of seeing a Savior , or reaching of heaven break their necks & fall down into a Pit of Eternal destruction , & make some neither dis-ingenious , nor dis-loyal , accuse Laws made ad terrorem Populi , of harshness , while they take hold on such Ideots and Lunaticks as may be allow'd favourable constructions in the most enormous transgressions of the Law .

The Presbyter in his own defence can scarce produce a Council or Father ; yet against stage Playes may muster up an Army to fight against this Bell and the Dragon set up in High places . But the good minded man , Histriomastix , may onely swell himself in a volume , to instruct the World , onely he is mistaken , as the rest of his brethren , whose valour onely proceeds of their Ignorance , who ( More Andabitarum pugnant ) fight alwayes blind-fold . Logomachies , Sciamachies , Homonyma's and Circulations are befitting such Champions , who have nothing beside the Chymara's of their own vertiginous noddles to combate with . St. Cyprian , Isidore , Haymo , Anselm ▪ &c. might couple Players and Whores , Playhouses and Brothers , as Tacitus rankes stews and Theaters . Prosper truely name them Mimical uncleanesses , Damascen and Eusebius call them Schools of Lusts . But sure we have no Heliogabulus , who will have Whores introduced , not to Personate but really do the act of sin upon the Stage . No Roman Theatre styled by Tertullian the Temple of Venus , where Whoredoms were priviledged , and Adulteries not numbred among Vices . No Grecian Actors to introduce swimming Whores in Cisterns , with Postures , more sinfull then those of Lust-provoking Aretines Pictures . We have no Tragedies dedicated to Bacchus , not Comedies to Priapus . Drunkenness and Lust are not the only Ingredients in Playes , where instead of representing the follies of others , they Acted their ownshames . If Vice is introduced , she is attended by Punishment . Who could love a dirt besmear'd Whore made black as her own guilt , or be enamor'd of her naked exposure , when it is only for the Beadles Whip ? Pillory'd Ears never rendered Cheating Amiable , nor a turn at Tyburn , ever made Villany counted precious . He who flyes a Sermon , may be over-taken at a Play , while a delight may be translated into a Sacrifice .

No Sempronius Sophus need give a Bill of divorce to his Wife , for visiting Stage Playes , nor do we want the Constitutions of Iustinian to make it Lawfull . St. Cyprian need not fear Virgins made Mothers without Husbands &c. The Fathers might write Books of Retractations ; And St. Cyprian himself might cry out , as some did of him , Lactantius , Victorinus , and Hilarius , Quanto auro & argento & veste exiit ex Aegypto ? While the Wine or Devils Poesy becomes the scourge of them in their Members , lashing them out of their follies , inriching Christianity with the Ornaments of Aegypt , which St. Austin applyes to Arts and Sciences ; Heathen Inventions , but taken from them , as Aegyptian spoyls , and translated to the use of the Church . The Rich Gluttons care for his Bretheren , may not now seem fruitless , while the Grave makes her returns upon the Stage , which his Alliance in Bestiality may hear , could they neglect Moses and the Prophets . Could Cato survive , he would not only enter to go out , but sit and be delighted ; where he might hear more Wisdom then he was intituled to . The greatest Philosophers might rejoyce to find here their Long dreamed on Elixir , while Ben the onely true Alchymist Converts all Metalls into Gold by the advantage of the Laboratory , of whose brain the Wisdom of Greece and Rome the Riches of all Ages became tributary to ours , and inriched the English Tongue . Playes of less value then his , have furnished out a Statesman : his very scraps gleaned up by other , have made a competent stock of wit to drive a Trade in Poetry , and taught the Courtly Thing without the addition of prophaner Damme's discourse enough , to make a Complement . Had he not been an Age from being understood , one Play of his , might have laught more into Wit and Virtue , then twenty tedious Lectures , ( as it was not long ago ) who to the eternal dishonour of the Pulpit , took more vains in a single one , then most in twenty Sermons . Impertinent and unnecessary School Questions ( which King Iames complained of to the Arch-Bishop ) with some insignificant scraps of Greek and Latine tortured in , tormented some Pulpits . Invectives against Church and State , Whimzies about Antichrist , the accomplishment of Bright mans Melancholly Dreams , and such stuff as was to be studyed only in Bethelem Colledge ; laid siege to others , while mouth Granado's were vented to raise Combustions in three Kingdoms . Neither were the unpolitick and dis-ingenious discourses of Religion better managed ( except in the incomparable Bishop Laud , the Reverend Hooker , Chillingsworth , and some few ; as since in the most excellent Dr. Hammond Dr. Sanderson Thorndike , &c. ) These loose and loop hol'd Phancies , onely served to multiply Words , and the Itch of dispute proved only instrumental to produce ( what the Ingenious Sir Henry Wooton would have inscribed on his Tomb ) The Scab of the Church ; and thence gave occasion to the distemperature , which so many years hath discomposed the State . It hath been the unhappy fault of some Priests , most Actors , and not a few Poets , by evil lives to have scandalized the best of Doctrines . The Troubles which poor Ben indured for his Labours to reclaim Ignorance and Atheism in Court , City , Countrey , might have intituled him to a State Martyr , could he have been guilty of so much Hypocrisy , as might have made him capable of the name of a Saint . No man can misdoubt him , what every Poet calls himself , a Prophet , since a fatal experience hath found verified the discoveries in Iohnsons Plays have proved of greater Truth and more Consequence , then the Phanatique Notes , licensed to the disparament and ruin of a Church , affixed to Evangelical Revelations . It is great pitty he should hear ill of all , who taught all , who were capable , to speak so well . This makes me inlarge of him , who , Homer like , comprehends all Poets , and though some intitle him a drunken one , no vomit could be so bad as might not be lick'd up — and , even at a third hand , seem excellent to those Ideots , who have Ignorance and Impudence enough to dispise his works . If there be any Play made up of a Cupid and a Fidle , or such as our French Comedians Act , the Machines of Diana and Endimion , or Orpheus descending into Hell , according to the description of the pious and chast Ovid , in his eleventh Book of his Metamorphosis , let them fall into the hand of the Executioner , the zealous Histriomastrix . I could wish every Roscius a Cicero ; Poesy will never want a Sir Philip Sidney , and Ben . Iohnson will be precious to Ages , while Histriomastix ( like the Flatterers in Adrians time , fume punitur fumos vendens ) who vents smoak is punished with it , and serves only to light Tobacco .

The Use of Playes is lawfull , but the Abuse , like the Corruptions of best things , proves of worst Consequence . I could wish every Gentleman would learn his Calling , by a Treatise so intituled , and written by the sober and learned Pen of an excellent Prelate . He who affects Musick may hear it employed in a Diviner Service , and need not expend his Money for the loss of Time . If this take not , may the Elder Brother ( like him in Fletcher ) traverse the Stories of the Ancient Heroes , read over the Lives of the Great & Good-men , distil the sweetness from the Poets spring , and digest all into manners ; and not , like his Spruce Courtier , know no use of the Moon , beside the lighting him from Taverns , Playes and Brothels ; or the benefit of the Sun , except to wear slashed Doublets . May no Fools be ready to Sacrifice on the Altar of Fortune in a Shop of deceit ; A Gaming House . No Knights mis-employ their Swords ( as some report ) in that dishonorable piece of Knight Errantry , to relieve the distressed Ladies of the Stews , nor suppose the Emblem of Chevalry is only to be made use of like a Scotch Spur , while Noble Families are swallowed up in Solomons deep Pit ( so he calls a Whore ) Rottenness siezing upon Bodies , Estates and Names for ever . If the printed Catalogue of Whores , Bawds , Pimps , scandalize not our City , Rome and Naples , nay , all Italy and Spain cannot outvie us for Brothels . His pious Majesty spoil'd their Mart at St. Iameses , where meazled Swines flesh , and the flesh of such Asses was exposed to sale , as from an Itch might produce a Neopolitan Scab , to indanger a whole Nation . Neither could such Nests of Vermine be tolerated ( against his Command ) to fructify only for the Gallows , if negligent and corrupt Officers did not put in for half sharers with them , in the hire of Iniquity . I heard his late Majesty tell an Officer , the Old Earl of Nottingham , when he hear'd a Servant swear , swore two or three great Oaths , that if he did so again , he should be lay'd by the Heels : and how a swearing Earl intreated his Royal Father ; every Prophaner of Gods Name might have his Tongue bored through with in hot Iron . Thus this Most Excellent Prince intimated how his Officers , instead of reforming others , instructed Sin by their Examples , and most like the Earl , who threw Squibs , Crackers , and Wildfire in his Oathes , and broke wiser heads then his own at Masks , would be numbred among the Saints ; yet to the dishonour of God , his Royal Master , and Himself , could gratifie the Devil with such mouth Granado's , as might indanger Church and State . Our ROYAL MARTYR , ( whose pious foot-steps our Gracious Soveraign follows ) in a Proclamation before our Army at Doncaster used these ( or not unlike ) words ? If any one cannot leave his Drunkenness , his Swearing and Prophanness , we command him to depart our Army , being confident God will bless us with a fewer , if a more Religious number . Thus , could either example or precept have prevail'd , the best of Princes ( like him whose foot-steps he followed in the Red way of the Cross ) should not have been scandaliz'd by our Pharisees , for conversing with Publicans and Sinners ; nor could the People have been raised up by them against their King ; to cry , Crucify him , Crucify him : The greatest Victime which suffered in so unworthy a way since our Saviour , for the Sins of a Prophane , and by the Sins of an Hypocritical Generation . Prophaneness and Hypocrisy have been the twin Devils who have troubled Church and State ; but the Devil when he appears in the shape of an Angel of Light , alwayes carryes the most danger ; Thus Lucifer can draw the Stars into a Conspiracy against God himself , and what he could not arrive to in Heaven can attain to in Earth by dethroning Gods Vicegerents . But though the Diseases seem as dangerous as ever , and there may be some new , we need not be discouraged , while the Head and Body afford mutual Assistance to Master , with Gods blessing ( as his Majesty hints ) all difficulties . The good Physitians of the House of Commons at the first Consultation strook at the Root , enervated all the Kings and their own Enemies , while they supplyed him with the Sinews of War , which may give security at home , and reputation abroad . They who adorn their Princes with Crowns and Scepters of Gold , and deny them it in their Revenue , Crown them only for Sacrifice , resemble those who put a Crown and Purple on our Saviour ; cry , hail King , and intend to Crucify , and can never want means . A Court will supply a Iudas ; who , having bought a place , rather then want something to sell , will sell his Master .

Weak-sighted Parliaments by unseasonable prying into Sun-beams , the Princes Actions , have made them selves blind and giddy : but here are no prejudiced Phancies to mispresent Objects , no Icterick or bloodshot Eyes , which apprehend nothing beside their own Colours ; no one so ignorant as to ascribe twinckling to the Stars , when the defect is in his own weak sight . And though as in all Bodies , some Members are more honourable then others , and some cannot be named without scandal in any body , yet ( to use his Majesties Words ) the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons of England met together to consult for the Peace and Safety of Church and State , by which Parliaments are restored to their Lustre and Integrity ) we cannot doubt any Member may be useless by not holding a Correspondence with the Head , or not Contributing to the good of the Body , by which only he may hope for preservation . Experience verifying his Gracious Speech , Who loves not the Head , cannot love the Body politick : and whosoever doth not reverence this Parliament , can have little love for his Majesty . Here is no danger of dismembring by partial Votes ; rendring useless by seditious Tumults . Reason will not be condemned for an evil Councellor , or a Loyal Conscience , called a malignant Disease in the Heart , till desperation or want of opportunity to depart , or fear of certain plunder must be the only bonds to hold a little Remnant together from dissipation . No Venerable name of Parliament is made a Stale to Countenance pernicious Councils , and acts of a close Committee . No Mountebanck of State by printed Papers which canting Tearms will cheat the Vulgar of their Coyn , and by unseasonable Purgings , Vomitings , and Blood letting , bring the whole Body Politick into an Atrophy , or Consumption ; we need not fear a stranger Monster , who can survive the loss of an Head of the constitution of a Turkish Sheep , who runs all into Rump .