Heywood, Thomas -- Apology for Actors, “The Author to his Booke” (1612)

Dave — Sun, 21 Sep 2025 00:38:42 +0000

The world’s a theatre, the earth a stage,
Which God and Nature do with actors fill.
Kings have their entrance in due equipage,
And some there parts play well, and others ill.

The best no better are (in this theater),
Where every humor’s fitted in his kinde;
This a true subiect acts, and that a traytor,
The first applauded, and the last confin’d;

This plays an honest man, and that a knave,
A gentle person this, and he a clowne,
One man is ragged, and another brave:
All men have parts, and each man acts his own.

Thomas Heywood (1570s-1641) English playwright, actor, author
Apology for Actors, “The Author to his Booke” (1612)
(Source)

See Cicero (44 BC), Shakespeare (1599), Billings (1877), O'Casey (c. 1940), Brooks (1970), Watterson (1993).

Heywood, Thomas -- The Hierarchie of the Blesed Angells (1635)

Dave — Wed, 08 Apr 2015 12:52:11 +0000

Seven cities warr’d for Homer, being dead;
Who, living, had no roof to shroud his head.

Thomas Heywood (1570s-1641) English playwright, actor, author
The Hierarchie of the Blesed Angells (1635)

WIST Quotations

Heywood, Thomas -- Apology for Actors, “The Author to his Booke” (1612)

Heywood, Thomas -- The Hierarchie of the Blesed Angells (1635)