Note 43 — Front matter
Reading edition
That Sir Thomas Moore was written for a political purpose was dearly felt by Professor Ashley H. Thorndike; in 1916 (Shakespeare's Theater, p. 213), when we knew a great deal less about this play than we now know, he expressed surprise that Tyllney "should have permitted in any form a play intended to excite feeling against the foreigners dwelling in London." That the drama was 'universally used for political purposes' in Shakspere's time is convincingly shown in Richard Simpson's paper, "The Political Use of the Stage in Shakspere's Time," in The Transactions of the New Shakspere Society, 1874, part II, pp. 371-95.