Note 215 — XIII—MATURITY OF GENIUS

At the moment offensive personalities seemed to have infected all the London theatres. On May 10, 1601, the Privy Council called the attention of the Middlesex magistrates to the abuse covertly levelled by the actors of the ‘Curtain’ at gentlemen ‘of good desert and quality,’ and directed the magistrates to examine all plays before they were produced (Privy Council Register). Jonson subsequently issued an ‘apologetical dialogue’ (appended to printed copies of the Poetaster), in which he somewhat truculently qualified his hostility to the players: