pedlar, eager for profit, offered the new and much-desired achievements
of the Muse to the dwellers in the smallest village, in the loneliest
farm.

Moreover, the cunning stationers had their own men, to whom they lent
'a dossen groates worth of ballads.' If these hucksters--as Henry
Chettle relates--proved thrifty, they were advanced to the position
of 'prety (petty) chapman,' 'able to spred more pamphlets by the
State forbidden, then all the bookesellers in London; for only in
this Citie is straight search, abroad smale suspition, especially
of such petty pedlars.' [2]

Chettle speaks strongly against these 'intruders in the printings
misserie, by whome that excelent Art is not smally slandered, the
government of the State not a little blemished, nor Religion in the
least measure hindred.'

Besides the profit to be derived from the Press by the malcontent
travelling scholars, there was yet another way of acquiring the means
of sustenance and of making use of mental culture; and in it there
existed the further advantage of independence from grumbling
publishers. This was the Stage. For it no great preparations were
necessary, nor was any capital required. A few chairs, some boards;
in every barn there was room. Wherever one man was found who could
read, there were ten eager to listen.

A most characteristic drama, 'The Return from Parnassus,' depicts
some poor scholars who turn away from pitiless Cambridge, of which
one of them says--