f'2 DIARY OF WILLIAM WHITEWAY. 



1630. " The sickness began to increase in London and Cambridge 

 and some other places. . . . An entry under date July 5 

 states that a collection was made in Dorchester for Cambridge, 

 where the plague continued " very hot." 



June 1. "This day was a private fast kept by certain persons 

 for the turning away of the danger threatened narrowly the 

 removing of Mr. White." 



July 5. " This day the puppet players craved leave to play here 

 in this town and had a warrant under the King's hand, yet were 

 refused." 



Was this the party of puppet players who got into trouble at 

 Beaminster and were charged at the Michaelmas session at Bridport in 

 this year with "wandering up and down the country with certain 

 blasphemous shows and sights which they exercise by way of puppet 



playing to the great disturbance of the townsmen ? 



(1.) If so (and it seems probable from the date) their warrant 

 under the King's hand did not prevent them from being ordered out 

 of the county. 



The influence of Master White and the Puritan party was increasing 

 in the town. The Puritans held all stage plays and dramatic representa- 

 tions in abhorrence; hence this refusal. Dorchester was not more 

 favourably disposed towards puppet players after the Restoration, for, 

 according to Mr. T. Hearn on " May 17, 1661, Richard Pavey, of London, 

 of St. Giles-in-the-Fields, coming to town this day to shew a motion of 

 the witches of the North, is told that we have noe waste money for such 

 idle things and is denied to shew here at this perill." These puppet show 

 plays were very favourite spectacles with our ancestors. They are of 

 very early origin, and were at first exhibited by the priests and monks ; 

 they were confined to religious subjects, being nearly allied to the 

 "mysteries and pageants," notices of which so frequently occur and the 

 history of which is so full of curious interest. During the rule of the 

 Commonwealth they were strictly forbidden, but they sprang again into 

 active existence immediately after the Restoration under the counten- 

 ance and authority of the Master of the Revels an office created by 

 Henry VIII. * 



(1.) Social history of the Southern Counties, Roberts. 



* Andrews' " Curiosities of the Church," Roberts' " History of Southern 

 Counties," and " Archaeological Journal." 



