writes in a rage, it is true; foaming, stamping, and vapouring too
much to escape the suspicion of exaggeration; yet he dared not have
published the things which he does, had he not fair ground for some
at least of his assertions. And Marston, be it remembered, was no
Puritan, but a playwright, and Ben Jonson's friend.

Bishop Hall, in his 'Satires,' describes things bad enough, though
not so bad as Marston does; but what is even more to the purpose, he
wrote, and dedicated to James, a long dissuasive against the fashion
of running abroad. Whatever may be thought of the arguments of 'Quo
vadis?--a Censure of Travel,' its main drift is clear enough. Young
gentlemen, by going to Italy, learnt to be fops and profligates, and
probably Papists into the bargain. These assertions there is no
denying. Since the days of Lord Oxford, most of the ridiculous and
expensive fashions in dress had come from Italy, as well as the
newest modes of sin; and the playwrights themselves make no secret of
the fact. There is no need to quote instances; they are innumerable;
and the most serious are not fit to be quoted, scarcely the titles of
the plays in which they occur; but they justify almost every line of
Bishop Hall's questions (of which some of the strongest expressions
have necessarily been omitted):-


'What mischief have we among us which we have not borrowed?

'To begin at our skin: who knows not whence we had the variety of
our vain disguises? As if we had not wit enough to be foolish unless
we were taught it. These dresses, being constant in their
mutability, show us our masters. What is it that we have not learned
of our neighbours, save only to be proud good-cheap? whom would it