Page:The Elizabethan stage (Volume 4).pdf/222



[From Stationers' Register, 8 April 1580 (Arber, ii. 368). This is one of a number of ballads and pamphlets entered in April-June 1580 as a result of the earthquake on 6 April; Abraham Fleming, in his ''A Bright Burning Beacon'', names eight writers on the subject besides himself, including Thomas Churchyard and Richard Tarlton. It may be that several of these improved the occasion by reproving bear-baitings and plays, as did Arthur Golding in his A Discourse Upon the Earthquake, but it does not appear from Golding's 'reporte' that any play-houses suffered serious damage, although Halliwell-Phillipps, i. 369, quotes Munday, ''View of Sundry Examples'' (1580), 'At the play-houses the people came running foorth, supprised with great astonishment', and S. Gardiner, ''Doomes-day Booke'' (1606), 'The earthquake shaked not only the scenicall Theatre, but the great stage and theatre of the whole land'. On the contrary, the only deaths were those of two children killed 'while they were hearing a sermon' at Christ Church, Newgate, a detail which is omitted in the reprint of the 'reporte' and of some of Golding's moralizing, with an official Order of Prayer issued for use in parish churches (Liturgical Services, Parker Soc., 573).]

H. Carr, 'a ballat intituled comme from the plaie, comme from the playe: the house will fall, so people saye: the earth quakes, lett us hast awaye'.

xxvi. 1580. (?).

[Entry in S. R. for Edward White on 10 Nov. 1580 (Arber, ii. 381). Collier, S. R. ii. 125, prints a ballad, probably forged, 'which has come down to us in MS.', and suggests that it may be the one in question. Fleay, 52, Thompson, 86, and J. D. Wilson in M. L. R. iv. 486, suppose the entry to refer to the 'balat against plays' ascribed to Munday (cf. ch. xxiii).]

A Ringinge Retraite Couragiouslie sounded, wherein Plaies and Players are fytlie Confounded.

xxvii. 1580. (?).

[From ''A second and third blast of retrait from plaies and Theaters: the one whereof was sounded by a reuerend Byshop dead long since: the other by a worshipful and zealous Gentleman now aliue'': Set forth by Anglo-*phile Eutheo (1580; S. R. 18 Oct. 1580) in Hazlitt, E. D. S. 97. It bears the City arms. The title recalls that of No. xxvi. J. D. Wilson (M. L. R. iv. 484) supports the conjectural attribution of Fleay, 51, to Munday, on the ground that the author is a converted playwright, probably identical with the one referred to in Gosson, P. C., in terms resembling those applied to Munday in A True Report of M. Campion (cf. ch. xxiii).]

[Summary and Extracts.] Anglo-phile Eutheo to the Reader P. 99. 'The first blast in my compt is The Schoole of abuse: a title not vnfitlie ascribed vnto plaies. For what is there which is not abused thereby? that not vnfitlie they are tearmed, as of late The schoole of abuse, by one; The schoole of Bauderie, by another; The nest of the Diuel, and sinke of al sinne, by a third' [in margin, 'M^r Spark in his rehersal sermon at Paules Crosse, 29 of April, Ann. 1579'] 'I cal them, A second and third blast in respect of