THE ACTORS REMONSTRANCE, OR COMPLAINT: FOR The silencing of their profession, and banishment from their several Play houses.  
In which is fully set down their grievances, for their restraint; especially since stageplays, only of all public recreations are prohibited; the exercise at the bear's college, and the motions of Puppets being still in force and vigour.  
As it was presented in the names and behalfs of all our London Comedians to the great God PHOEBUS-APOLLO, and the nine Heliconian Sisters, on the top of Parnassus, by one of the Masters of Requests to the MUSES, for this present month.  
And published by their command in print by the Typograph royal of the Castalian Province. 1643.  
LONDON, Printed for EDW. NICKSON. Ianuar. 24. 1643.   

The actor's Remonstrance or Complaint, for the silencing of their Profession, and banishment from their several playhouses.  
OPpressed with many calamities, and languishing to death under the burden of a long and (for aught we know) an everlasting restraint, we the Comedians, Tragedians and Actors of all sorts and sizes belonging to the famous private and public Houses within the City of London and the Suburbs thereof, to you great Phoebus, and you sacred Sisters, the sole Patronesses of our distressed Calling, do we in all humility present this our humble and lamentable complaint, by whose intercession to those powers who confined us to silence, we hope to be restored to our pristine honour and employment.  
First, it is not unknown to all the audience that have frequented the private Houses of Blackfriars, the cockpit and Salisbury-Court, without austerity, we have purged our Stages from all obscene and scurrilous jests; such as might either be guilty of corrupting the manners, or defaming the persons of any men of note in the City or kingdom; that we have endeavoured, as much as in us lies, to instruct one another in the true and genuine Art of acting, to repress bawling and railing, formerly in great request, and for to suit our language and action to the more gentile and natural garb of the times; that we have left off for our own parts, and so have commanded our servants, to forget that ancient custom, which formerly rendered men of our quality infamous, namely, the inveigling in young Gentlemen, Merchants Factors, and prentices to spend their patrimonies and Masters estates upon us and our Harlots in taverns; we have clean and quite given over the borrowing money at first sight of puny gallants, or praising their swords, belts and beavers, so to invite them to bestow them upon us; and to our praise be it spoken, we were for the most part very well reformed, few of us keeping, or being rather kept by our Mistresses, betook ourselves wholly to our wives; observing the matrimonial vow of chastity, yet for all these conformities and reformations, we were by authority (to which we in all humility submit) restrained from the practice of our Profession; that Profession which had before maintained us in comely and convenient Equipage; some of us by it merely being enabled to keep Horses (though not Whores) is now condemned to a perpetual, at least a very long temporary silence, and we left to live upon our shifts, or the expense of our former gettings, to the great impoverishment and utter undoing of ourselves, wives, children, and dependants; besides which, is of all other our extremest grievance, that plays being put down under the name of public recreations; other public recreations of far more harmful consequence permitted, still to stand in statu quo prius, namely, that Nurse of barbarism and beastliness, the Bear●-Garden, whereupon their usual days those Demy-Monsters, are baited by bandogs, the Gentlemen of Stave and tail, namely, boisterous Butchers, cutting cobblers, hardhanded Masons and the like, rioting companions, resorting thither with as much freedom as formerly, making with their sweat and crowding, a far worse stink than the ill formed Beasts they persecute with their dogs and whips, pickpockets, which in an age are not heard of in any of our Houses, repairing thither, and other disturbers of the public peace, which dare not be seen in our civil and well-governed Theatres, where none use to come but the best of the Nobility and Gentry; and though some have taxed our Houses unjustly for being the receptacles of Harlots, the exchanges where they meet and make their bargains with their frank chapmen of the Country and City, yet we may justly excuse ourselves of either knowledge or consent in these lewd practices, we having no prophetic souls to know womens' honesty by instinct, nor commission to examine them; and if we had, worthy were these wretches of Bridewell, that out of their own mouths would convince themselves of lasciviousness: puppet-plays, which are not so much valuable as the very music between each Act at ours, are still up with uncontrolled allowance, witness the famous motion of Bell and the Dragon, so frequently visited at H●lbourne-bridge; these passed Christmas holidays, whither Citizens of all sorts repair with far more detriment to themselves then ever did to plays, Comedies and Tragedies being the lively representations of men's actions, in which, vice is always sharply glanced at, and punished, and virtue rewarded and encouraged; the most exact and natural eloquence of our English language expressed and daily amplified; and yet for all this, we suffer, and are enforced, ourselves and our dependants, to tender our complaint in doleful manner to your great Phoebus, and you inspired Heliconian Virgins: First our housekeepers, that grew wealthy by our endeavours, complain that they are enforced to pay the grand landlords rents during this long Vacation, out of their former gettings; in stead of ten, twenty, nay, thirty shillings shares which used nightly to adorn and comfort with their harmonious music, their large and Well-stuffed pockets, they have shares in nothing with us now but our misfortunes; living merely out of the stock, out of the interest and principal of their former gotten moneys, which daily is exhausted by the maintenance of themselves and families.  
For ourselves, such as were sharers, are so impoverished, that were it not for some slender helps afforded us in this time of calamity, by our former providence, we might be enforced to act our Tragedies: our Hired-men are dispersed, some turned soldiers and trumpeters, others destined to meaner courses, or depending upon us, whom in courtesy we cannot see want, for old acquaintance sakes. Their friends, young Gentlemen, that used to feast and frolic with them at taverns, having either quitted the kin in these times of distraction, or their money having quitted them, they are ashamed to look upon their old expensive friends. Nay, their very Mistresses, those buxom and bountiful Lasses, that usually were enamoured on the persons of the younger sort of Actors, for the good clothes they wore upon the stage, believing them really to be the persons they did only represent, and quite out of sorts themselves, and so disabled for supplying their poor friends necessities. Our fools, who had wont to allure and excite laughter with their very countenances, at their first appearance on the stage (hard shifts are better than none) are enforced, some of them at least to maintain themselves, by virtue of their babbles. Our boys, ere we shall have liberty to act again, will be grown out of use like cracked organ-pipes, and have faces as old as our flags.  
Nay, our very doorkeepers, men and women, most grievously complain, that by this cessation they are robbed of the privilege of stealing from us with licence: they cannot now, as in King Agamemnon's days, seem to scratch their heads where they itch not, and drop shillings and half Crowne-pieces in at their collars. Our music that was held so delectable and precious, that they scorned to come to a tavern under twenty shillings salary for two hours, now wander with their Instruments under their cloaks, I meant such as have any, into all houses of good fellowship, saluting every room where there is company, with Will you have any music Gentlemen? For our Tire-men, and other that belonged formerly to our wardrobe, with the rest, they are out of service: our stock of clothes, such as are not in tribulation for the general use, being a sacrifice to moths. The Tobacco-men, that used to walk up and down, selling for a penny pipe, that which was not worth twelvepence an horseload; Being now bound under Tapsters in Inns and Tippling houses. Nay such a terrible distress and dissolution hath befallen us, and all those that had dependence on the stage, that it hath quite unmade our hopes of future recovery. For some of our ablest ordinary Poets, in stead of their annual stipends and beneficial second-dayes, being for mere necessity compelled to get a living by writing contemptible penny-pamphlets in which they have not so much as poetical licence to use any attribute of their profession; but that of Quid libet audendi? and feigning miraculous stories, and relations of unheard of battles. Nay, it is to be feared, that shortly some of them; (if they have not been enforced to do it already) will be encited to enter themselves into Martin Parker's society, and write ballads. And what a shame this is, great Phoebus, and you sacred Sisters; for your own Priests thus to be degarded of their ancient dignities. Be yourselves righteous Judges, when those who formerly have sung with such elegance the acts of Kings and Potentates, charming like Orpheus the dull and brutish multitude, scarce a degree above stones and forests into admiration, though not into understanding with their divine raptures, shall be by that tyrant necessity reduced to such abject exigents; wandering like grand children of old Erra Paters, those learned almanac-makers, without any Maecenas to cherish their lofty conceptions, prostituted by the misfortune of our silence, to inexplicable miseries, having no heavenly Castalian Sack to actuate and inform their spirits almost confounded with stupidity and coldness, by their frequent drinking (and glad too they 'gan get it) of fulsome Ale, and heretical beer, as their usual beverage.  
To conclude, this our humble complaint great Phoebus, and you nine sacred Sisters, the Patronesses of Wit, and Protectresses of us poor disrepected Comedians, if for the present, by your powerful intercessions we may be re-invested in our former Houses, and settled in our former Calling, we shall for the future promise, never to admit into our sixpenny-roomes those unwholesome enticing Harlots, that sit there nieerely to be taken up by prentices or Lawyers Clerks; nor any female of what degree soever, except they come lawfully with their husbands, or near allies: the abuses in Tobacco shall be reformed, none vended, not so much as in threepenny galleries, unless of the pure Spanish leaf. For ribaldry, or any such paltry stuff, as may scandal the pious, and provoke the wicked to looseness, we will utterly expel it with the bawdy and ungracious Poets, the authors to the Antiodes. Finally, we shall hereafter so demean ourselves as none shall esteem us of the ungodly, or have cause to repine at our action or interludes: we will not entertain any Comedian that shall speak his part in a tone, as if he did it in derision of some of the pious, but reform all our disorders, and amend all our amisses, so prosper us Phoebus and the nine Muses, and be propitious to this our complaint.  
FINIS.