626 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 
weare so careles, that when one of owre actors should have made 
a Conge like a woman, he made a legg like a man. in summ; owre 
spectators could not gretely charge owre actors with any such 
diligence in medytation and care to imprynt any passions; and so 
neyther of them coulde receyve any hurt therby. no not the nwe 
Nymphe in Hyppolitus whom you so muche note, was any wittye 
wanton, or any so dangerous a woman, as that she brought fewelJS 
inoughe to heate a harte of yse or snowe 1 2 . the poore wenche I per- 
ceyve hathe byn hardely reported of to you, and worse a greate 
deale then she deserved, as you and the worlde shall one day see. 
in whose person the devyse was, partly to sett owte the constant 
chastetye or rather virginytye of Hippolytus, whoe neyther with 
honest love made to hym in the woods, nor with vnhonest attempts 
in the cyttye could be overcumme; partly to expresse the affection 
of honest, lawfull, vertuous, marriage meaninge love; for no other 
did she profer, and therfor me thinkes she is not, vnharde, to be 
reproched with the brode name of bawderye, wherof there is no 
one syllable in worde or sense to be founde in all her speches. 
Erasmus in that epistell wherin he shewethe the generall vse of 
his Colloquia, <!p. 57> defendethe them, to be voyde of scurrylytye 
and obscenytye, wherwith amonge other thinges, thay weare 
charged, and yet that Colloquye which he entytlethe Proci et 
Puellse, is all together of this argument, lyvely to expresse, as it 
weare in an image or picture, the affections of honest wooinge, 
to speake nothinge of other places. Si res honesta est matrimonium , 
sayth he, et procum agere honestum est. quid facias istis ingenijs 
tetricis, et ab omnibus Gratijs alienis, quibus impudicum videtur , 
quiquid amicum est ac festinun 1 ? this he thought, beinge nowe an 
owlde man, and, I thinke, a trwe bachiler. not unlike my answere 
to Momus , Qui turpe, laetum; ludicrum , petulans vocat. 3 Neyther 
doe I see what evill affections could be stirred vp by owre playes, 
but rather good, for in Vlysse Reduce , whoe did not love the 
fidelytye of Eumseus, and Philxtius , towardes their Master; and 
hate the contrary, in Melanthiusl whoe was not moved to com¬ 
passion, to see Vlysses a greate Lorde, dryvne so hardly, as that 
he was fayne to be a begger in his owne house? whoe did not 
wisshe hym well, and all ill to the wooers, and thinke them worthely 
slayne, for their bluddye purpose agaynst Telemachus, and other 
dissolute behaviour, not so muche expressed on the Stage, as 
imagined to be done within? whoe did not admyre the constancye 
of Penelope , and disprayse the lytenes, and bad nature in Melantho , 
and thinke herjiustly hanged for it? whoe did not prayse the 
1 MS. swell. 
2 See above, p. 624, note 1. 
3 Momus , 1. 110. 
