Let us now return to the year of Shakspeare's birth. The great poet came into the world when the English portion of it was deafened with the thunder of Archbishop Grindal, who flung his bolts against the profession which the child in his cradle at Stratford was about to ennoble for ever. England had been devastated by the plague of 1563. Grindal illogically traced the rise of the pestilence to the theatres; and to check the evil he counselled Cecil to suppress the vocation of the idle, infamous, youth-infecting players, as the prelate called them, for one whole year, and--"if it were for ever," adds the primate, "it were not amiss." Elizabeth's face shone upon the actors, and rehearsals went actively on before the Master of the Revels. The numbers of the players, however, so increased and spread over the kingdom, that the government, when Shakspeare was eight years of age, enacted that startling statute which is supposed to have branded dramatic art and artists with infamy. But the celebrated statute of 1572 does _not_ declare players to be "rogues and vagabonds." It simply threatens to treat as such all acting companies who presume to set up their stage _without_ the license of "two justices of the peace at least." This was rather to protect the art than to insult the artist; and a few years subsequent to the publication of this statute, Elizabeth granted the first _royal_ patent conceded in England to actors--that of 1576.[6] By this authority Lord Leicester's servants were empowered to produce such plays as seemed good to them, "as well," says the Queen, "for the recreation of our loving subjects as _for our solace and pleasure_, when we shall think good to see them." Sovereign could scarcely pay a more graceful compliment to poet or to actor. This royal patent sanctioned the acting of plays within the liberties of the city; but against this the city magistrates commenced an active agitation. Their brethren of Middlesex followed a like course throughout the county. The players were treated as the devil's missionaries; and such unsavoury terms were flung at them and at playwrights, by the city aldermen and the county justices, that thereon was founded that animosity which led dramatic authors to represent citizens and justices as the most egregious of fools, the most arrant of knaves, and the most deluded of husbands. Driven from the city, Burbage and his gay brotherhood were safe in the shelter of Blackfriars, adjacent to the city walls. Safe, but neither welcome nor unmolested. The devout and noble ladies who had long resided near the once sacred building, clamoured at the audacity of the actors. Divine worship and sermon, so they averred, would be grievously disturbed by the music and rant of the comedians, and by the debauched companions resorting to witness those abominable plays and interludes.