Although the theatres were prosperous, their existence was often imperilled by the action of the city magnates, who forbad the acting of plays within their own jurisdiction. They viewed with annoyance the crowds that came from north and south to bring money to the playhouses, and they disliked the inducements these afforded to their sons and apprentices to neglect their occupations. No opportunity was lost by the Corporation of urging the Sovereign to abolish the theatres. The Puritans, also, if not influential at Court, were still potent in affecting public opinion against stage-plays, in the pulpit and by means of the Press; while playwrights were even more violently attacked by them than were the actors. The sonorous and majestic verse of the Elizabethan poets, that has become the pride of our country, appeared in the eyes of the "godly" but as an invention of Satan to entice the unwary into his "chapel." "Because the sweete numbers of Poetrie flowing in verse do wonderfully tickle the hearers eares, the devill hath tyed this to most of our playes, that whatsoever he would have sticke fast to our soules might slippe down in sugar by this intisement; for that which delighteth never troubleth our swallow. Thus when any matter of love is interlarded, though the thinge it selfe bee able to allure us, yet it is so sette out with sweetnes of wordes fitness of Epithites, with Metaphors, Alegories, Hyperboles, Amphibologies, Similitudes: with Phrases so pickt, so pure, so proper; with action so smothe, so lively, so wanton, that the poyson creeping on secretly without griefe chookes us at last and hurleth us downe in a dead sleepe."