were opened soon afterwards.  Probably to avoid the penalties of the Act of Elizabeth, all strolling and unattached players made haste to join regular companies, or to shelter themselves under noble patronage.  And now the Church raised its voice, and a controversy which still possesses some vitality touching the morality or immorality of playhouses, plays and players, was fairly and formally entered upon.  A sermon preached at Paul’s Cross, November, 1577, “in the time of the plague,” by the Rev. T. Wilcocks, denounced in strong language the “common plays” in London, and the multitude that flocked to them and followed them, and described “the sumptuous theatre houses” as a continual monument of London’s prodigality and folly.  Performances, it seems, had for a while been forbidden because of the plague.  “I like the policy well if it hold still,” said the preacher; “for a disease is but bodged and patched up that is not cured in the cause, and the cause of plague is sin, if you look to it well; and the cause of sin are playes; therefore, the cause of plagues are playes.”  It is clear, too, that the clergy had become affected by a certain jealousy of the players, the sound of whose trumpet attracted more attention than the ringing of the church-bells, and brought together a larger audience.  John Stockwood, schoolmaster of Tunbridge, who preached at Paul’s Cross on St. Bartholomew’s Day, 1578, demanded, “will not a filthy play, with the blast of a trumpet, sooner call thither a thousand than an hour’s tolling bring to the sermon a hundred?” It was, moreover, an especial grievance to the devout at this period that plays were represented on a Sunday, the church and the theatre being thus brought into positive rivalry and antagonism.  The clergy saw with dismay that their own congregations were thin and listless, while crowded and excited audiences rewarded the exertions of the players.  Mr. Stockwood, declining to discuss whether plays were or not wholly unlawful, yet protested with good reason that in a Christian commonwealth they were intolerable on the seventh day, and exclaimed against the “horrible profanity” and “devilish inventions” of the lords of misrule, morrice, and May-day dancers, whom he accused of tripping about the church, even during the hours of service, and of figuring in costumes which, by their texture and scantiness, outraged ordinary notions of decency.

But notwithstanding this old-established opposition to the theatres on the part of both Churchmen and Puritans, and the severe oppression of the players by the authorities, it is yet indisputable that the English were essentially a playgoing people; proud, as well they might be, of the fact that they possessed the finest drama and the best actors in the world.  And, allowing for the licence and grossness which the times permitted if they did not encourage, and a certain liberty of speech and action allowed time out of mind to the clowns of the stage, the drama suppressed by the Puritans was of sound and wholesome