A10335:170
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…
Th'overthrow of stage-plays, by the way of controversy betwixt D. Gager and D. Rainoldes wherein all the reasons that can be made for them are notably refuted; th'objections answered, and the case so cleared and resolved, as that the judgement of any man, that is not froward and perverse, may easily be satisfied. Wherein is manifestly proved, that it is not only unlawful to be an actor, but a beholder of those vanities. Whereunto are added also and annexed in th'end certain latin letters betwixt the said Master Rainoldes, and D. Gentiles, reader of the civill law in Oxford, concerning the same matter.Th'overthrow of stage-playes, by the way of controversie betwixt D. Gager and D. Rainoldes wherein all the reasons that can be made for them are notably refuted; th'objections aunswered, and the case so cleared and resolved, as that the iudgement of any man, that is not froward and perverse, may easelie be satisfied. Wherein is manifestly proved, that it is not onely vnlawfull to bee an actor, but a beholder of those vanities. Wherevnto are added also and annexed in th'end certeine latine letters betwixt the sayed Maister Rainoldes, and D. Gentiles, reader of the civill law in Oxford, concerning the same matter.
Middelburg: printed by Richard Schilders, 1599
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
If Gryllus should reply that the word is used in xOvid for 1all things that have life and sense, not for men only, and therefore he might use it indifferently for beasts in a general acceptation: would not they, who see, that belike he meant to comprehend men also under that general word, thereby the more closely to fetch in beasts with them; and that, restraining it to beasts, his question must be, Think you that beasts want reason? which were an idle question, and openly implying a begging of the point in controversy; would they not, I say, condemn him as a wrangling and contentious Sophister? Now, if in the same vain, or rather in a worse, he should add moreover, that as yHorace and zPersius speak scoffingly of mad men too, and the alaw appointeth gar• •s for idiots, that is properly, for men wanting the use of re•; so the grave Athenian bench of Areopagus would judge it more absurd to say that men have reason, then that beasts have it, chiefly certain beasts, as 2horses and ⟨p. 141⟩oxen dancing upon stages in a more exquisite manner then men are lightly able: would not this speech of Gryllus show that he deserveth a sharper commendation, then Plutarch by praising 3his sophistry meant unto him? Here your usual dealing causeth me to fear that you will ask whether I make you a Gryllus. As bwhen a Catholic Bishop, being rebuked by an Arian Emperor for standing alone with Athanasius against the whole world, said that the doctrine of faith was not impeached though he alone maintained it, seeing that of old time