of view of the spirit and manners of the
people. Amusement was sought for its own sake, without regard to
its character or quality. The spirit of enjoyment was hearty and
unrestrained, and lacked discrimination and refinement. The society
of the age, like its culture, was a reflex of the personality of the
powerful queen, who stamped her character and her tastes upon her
people. The queen, as well as her courtiers, could restrain herself
upon occasion; but neither she nor her subjects felt that there was
any moral or conventional need to place a check upon the expression
of their emotions, and in consequence their manners were often
unbecoming. It did not offend the sense of personal dignity of
Elizabeth to spit at a courtier, the cut or color of whose coat
displeased her, just as she might box his ears or rap out at him
a flood of profanity. When Leicester was kneeling to receive his
earldom, the dignity of the occasion was entirely destroyed by the
volatile queen bending over to tickle his neck. As it was a case of
like queen, like people, a man who could not or who would not swear
was accounted "a peasant, a clown, a patch, an effeminate person."
The _sine qua non_ for obtaining the queen's favor was to be amusing.
It mattered nothing at all at whose expense, or how personal
the witticism, or how sensitive the one who was made the butt of
amusement; if the queen enjoyed it, and the boisterous laughter of the
court sycophants was evoked, the sufferer had to appear gratified at
the honor of his selection for his sovereign's entertainment. Coarse
manners were but the expression of coarser morals; even men of the
cleanest characters and highest intelligence did not shrink from any
allusion, however gross, and felt no impulse to check their words
either in speech or in writing. Nor were women a whit more regardful
of the proprieties of expression. Ascham blamed the degradation of
English morals in part on the custom of sending abroad young men to
Italy to finish their education, and alleged that the corruption which
they underwent at the "court of Circe" was responsible for the spread
of vicious manners in English society. He writes: "I know divers that
went out of England, men of innocent life, men of excellent learning,
who returned out of Italy, not only with worse manners, but also with
less learning." He complains of the introduction of Italian books
translated into English, which were sold in every shop of London, by