_Was Hugh Peters ever on the Stage?_ (Vol. iii., p. 166.).--I possess
"A Dying Father's last Legacy to an Onely Child, or Hugh Peter's Advice
to his Daughter. Written by his own Hand during his late Imprisonment
in the Tower of London, and given her a little before his Death.
London, 1660:"
which advice he ends, p. 94., with--
"The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ preserve you to his Heavenly
Kingdom, my poor child.
"To ELIZABETH PETERS."
And then, after a poem at p. 97., he commences a short sketch of his life
with--
"I shall give you an account of myself and dealings, that (if possible)
you may wipe off some dirt, or be the more content to carry it."
That part of his life which would bear upon this subject reads thus, p.
98.:--
"When (at Cambridge) I spent some years vainly enough, being but
fourteen years old when thither I came, my tutor died, and I was
exposed to my shifts. Coming from thence, at London God struck me with
the sense of my sinful estate by a sermon I heard under Paul's."
The wonderful success of his lecture at Sepulchre's caused it to be
asserted by his enemies, that his enthusiastic style of preaching was but
stage buffoonery. (See p. 100.)
"At this lecture the resort grew so great, that it contracted envie and
anger ... There were six or seven thousand hearers ... and I went to
Holland:"
thereby leaving his character to be maligned. I do not believe, from the
tone of the condemned man's _Legacy_, that he would purposely avoid any
mention of the stage, had he appeared on it, and "usually performed the
part of a clown;" in fact it appears, that immediately on his coming into
London he was awakened by the "sermon under Paul's, which stuck fast:" he
almost directly left for Essex, and was converted by "the love and labours
of Mr. Thomas Hooker. I there preacht;" so that he was mostly preaching
itinerantly in Essex, when it is asserted that he was "a player in
Shakespeare's company." That _Legacy_ in question, and a book autograph of
Hugh Peters, are at the service of DR. RIMBAULT.