Indeed, it is not unlikely that these performances in the inns caused a good deal of noise and disturbance in the quarters where they took place, and that the joyous, but by no means refined or quiet, "pit," when going home, excited by one of Tarlton's jigs and by the strong ale of the inn, was not animated by very respectful feelings toward their sour Puritan fellow-citizens, who were scandalized as they watched "merry London" crowding past their windows. Nor is it improbable that these anything but respectful feelings vented themselves in some of the coarse expressions in which the plays of those times abound, where Puritanism, the sworn enemy, is concerned; "this barbarous sect," as it is called by a modern English author, "from whose inherited and contagious tyranny this nation is as yet but imperfectly released." It is certain, at any rate, that the Puritan citizens entertained a deep and sincere hatred of anything connected with plays and actors, and if it had been in their power to do what they liked, the world would once for all have been relieved of such pernicious and wicked vagabonds as William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, and Ben Jonson. Fortunately, however, this power did not lie with the Puritans only. Luckily, this sect, which like a malicious growth seemed to have gathered to itself all the stubbornness, insensibility, and rude obstinacy of the nation, was counterbalanced by a refined and intellectual nobility, which was inspired by the new artistic and philosophical thought of the Renaissance, and seemed to foresee, if not fully to recognize, what a mine of poetry the English theatre of those times was destined to be. Thanks to men like Sir Francis Walsingham, Lords Leicester, Nottingham, Strange, and Sussex, the drama resisted for a time the violent and unwearied attacks of the Puritans. Most fortunately for the actors also, Queen Elizabeth, as well as her successors, James I and Charles I, was fond of plays and favorably inclined toward their performers. Elizabeth rendered a great service to the actors by placing them under the patronage of the nobility. The municipal authorities, who were frequently Puritan, considered neither dramatic art nor dramatic poetry as an acceptable means of livelihood; consequently, those who cultivated these noble arts easily exposed themselves to being treated as "masterless men," unless they could give a reference to some distinguished aristocratic name.