corps dramatique_. In this
little history of plays and players, like more important history, we
perceive how all human events form but a series of consequences, linked
together; and we must go back to the reign of Elizabeth to comprehend an
event which occurred in that of Charles the First. It has been perhaps
peculiar to this land of contending opinions, and of happy and unhappy
liberty, that a gloomy sect was early formed, who drawing, as they
fancied, the principles of their conduct from the literal precepts of
the Gospel, formed those views of human nature which were more
practicable in a desert than a city, and which were rather suited to a
monastic order than to a polished people. These were our puritans, who
at first, perhaps from utter simplicity, among other extravagant
reforms, imagined that of the extinction of the theatre. Numerous works
from that time fatigued their own pens and their readers' heads, founded
on literal interpretations of the Scriptures, which were applied to our
drama, though written ere our drama existed: voluminous quotations from
the Fathers, who had only witnessed farcical interludes and licentious
pantomimes: they even quoted classical authority to prove that a
"stage-player" was considered infamous by the Romans; among whom,
however, Roscius, the admiration of Rome, received the princely
remuneration of a thousand denarii per diem; the tragedian, AEsopus,
bequeathed about L150,000 to his son;[148] remunerations which show the
high regard in which the great actors were held among the Roman people.

A series of writers might be collected of these anti-dramatists.[149]
The licentiousness of our comedies had too often indeed presented a fair
occasion for their attacks; and they at length succeeded in purifying
the stage: we owe them this good, but we owe little gratitude to that
blind zeal which was desirous of extinguishing the theatre, which wanted
the taste also to feel that the theatre was a popular school of
morality; that the stage is a supplement to the pulpit; where virtue,
according to Plato's sublime idea, moves our love and affections when
made visible to the eye. Of this class, among the earliest writers was
Stephen Gosson, who in 1579 published "The School of Abuse, or a
Pleasant Invective against Poets, Players, Jesters, and such like
Caterpillars." Yet this Gosson dedicated his work to Sir Philip Sidney,
a great lover of plays, and one who has vindicated their morality in hi