Th'overthrow of stage-plays, by the way of controversy betwixt D. Gager and D. Rainoldes…Th'overthrow of stage-playes, by the way of controversie betwixt D. Gager and D. Rainoldes…

But be it as be may, for the forcible operation and working of the poison, which neither I affirmed to be altogether so quick in every branch of the minor, concerning your players, as in some alleged for proof of the major; nor do you rightly judge of, who acknowledging it to be as poison in the major for bad effects of such plays, would have it ⟨p. 106⟩treacle in the minor for good effects of yours: the minor of mine argument, as I said, is certain and true in every branch thereof. One alone, amongst all that I specified, you take exception at; which is the Nymphs part. And therein I mistook a circumstance, I grant. How be it I must tell you withal that I mistook it so, and such a circumstance, that the righting of it doth not only not diminish the certainty and truth of my minor, but rather much increaseth it. For when the grave and godly man, whom I spake of, had showed me his mislike of amorousness and drunkenness expressed in your plays; and namely, for the former, had noted the mischief of the representing those pangs so effectually by the Nymph, a new part inserted into Seneca: I not being further inquisitive thereof, did think that you supposing the person of a bawd was not set forth lively and skilfully enough by Seneca in Phaedra's Nurse, had brought in a Nymph to persuade Hippolytus that which the Nurse could not; and thereupon I mentioned the Nurses and the Nymphs bawdry. Now, by your publishing of that which you inserted, I perceive you added a new bawd in deed, but a man bawd, Pandarus; and gave the Nymph an other part almost as shameful: so that, I confess, I was, through some negligence, doubly overseen; first, in naming Titius, or rather Titia, for Seius; again, in imagining one naughty part added by you unto Seneca, whereas you added two. For, whatsoever you say of your Nymphs wooing and proffer to Hippolytus: S. ^cAmbrose, on the ^dScripture touching Rebecca's spousals, saith that a woman should give unto her parents the choice of her husband, ¹least she be reputed too malapert and wanton, if she take upon her to make her own choice: ²for she must rather seem to be desired by a man, then to desire a man her self. And you should have noted, that