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audience: the house was "full of citizens-there hardly being a gallant man or woman present!" And it was so on New Year's Day, 1663: "the house was full of citizens, and so the less pleasant." But on this occasion, to make some amends, Mrs. Davenport, the actress, was there, in the chief box, radiant in a velvet gown, which was then "the fashion."

At the Cockpit, on the 5th, the Duke and Duchess of York were present, and before all the audience "did show some impertinent, and methought, unnatural dalliances, such as kissing of hands, and leaning upon one another." But these great people seldom manifested much respect for the audience-or for themselves. What a scene is that which Pepys sketches for us as having occurred at the King's Theatre one day in January, 1664:-"How the King, coming the other day to his Theatre to see 'The Indian Queen,' my Lady Castlemaine was in the next box before he came; and leaning over other ladies awhile to whisper with the King, she rose out of the box and went into the King's, and set herself on the King's right hand, between the King and the Duke of York; which put the King himself, as well as everybody else, out of countenance "-this impertinent feat being intended to prove to the world that she had not, as was supposed, lost the royal favour.

On the 4th of October Pepys went to see a foolish play called "The General," and happened to sit near to Sir Charles Sedley, who "at every line did take notice of the dulness of the part and badness of the action, and that most pertinently."

Another time he sees among the company Cromwell's daughter, Mary, with her husband, Viscount Falcon

bridge, and is much pleased by her gracious looks and modest dress, and by the timidity with which she shrinks from the gaze of curious spectators, putting on her vizard, and keeping it on all the play. But he is more gratified, we fancy, by the sight of laughing Nell Gwynn, who, with her fair locks and bright eyes, shines conspicuous in the front of the house, sometimes filling the soul of Pepys with exultation by condescending to chat with him, and sometimes moving his admiration by the sharp repartees she fearlessly exchanges with the most celebrated wits of the time.

On the 5th of June, 1665, he attends the performance at the Duke's Theatre of Lord Orrery's play of "Mustapha;" but "all the pleasure of the play was" that the King and Lady Castlemaine were present, "and pretty witty Nell Gwynn and the younger Marshall sat next us; which pleased me mightily."

There is a curious entry in the Diary for December 21st, 1668. The King and his Court went to see "Macbeth" at the Duke's Theatre, and Pepys sat just under them and Lady Castlemaine, and "close to a woman that comes into the pit, a kind of a loose gossip that pretends to be like her, and is so, something. The King and Duke of York minded me, and smiled upon me, at the handsome woman near me, but it vexed me to see Moll Davies, in a box over the King's and my Lady Castlemaine's, look down upon the King, and he up to her; and so did my Lady Castlemaine once, to see who it was; but when she saw Moll Davies, she looked like fire, which troubled me."

We have remarked that, on the restoration of the Theatres, their performances began at three in the after

noon; but later hours came afterwards to be the fashion. Pepys notes, on one occasion, that the play was not over until eleven, and that he walked home by moonlight. And in Evelyn's correspondence, when complaining of the frequency of "our theatrical pastimes during the season of Lent," when, he says, there are more wicked and obscene plays permitted in London than in all the world besides, he remarks "that the ladies and the gallants come recking from the play late on Saturday night to their Sunday devotions; and the ideas of the farce possess their fancies to the infinite prejudice of devotion, besides the advantages it gives to our reproachful blasphemers.'

Strange and exciting was the scene, on the evening of February 2nd, 1679, at the Duke's Theatre, where, blazing with diamonds, and conspicuous by her painted doll-like beauty, sat Louise de Queronaille, Duchess of Portsmouth. Some roisterers, informed of her presence, were seized with a frenzy of morality, and with drawn swords and flaming torches made their way into the pit, shouting curses upon the Duchess of Portsmouth and other persons of honour. A general melée ensued, in which the intruders hurled their firebrands among the affrighted actors on the stage, while they pricked and slashed the limbs and bodies of the audience, until they were overpowered and driven out. Instead of punishing the rioters, Charles punished the unoffending actors, and closed the house during the royal pleasure.

Here is another curious incident, recorded by Pepys in 1667-"how a gentleman of good habit, sitting just before us, cutting of some fruit in the midst of the play, did drop down as dead; but with much ado, Orange Moll

did thrust her finger adown his throat, and brought him

to life again."

It was at the Duke's Theatre in Dorset Gardens, on an April evening in 1682, that Charles, the son of Sir Edward Dering, quarrelled with a choleric young Welshman, named Vaughan, and not having room in the pit to fight it out, climbed on the stage, and exchanged thrust and pass before the excited audience. Dering got the worst of it, and was carried home, bleeding with a wound in the side; and Vaughan was detained a prisoner until the authorities were satisfied that the other offender's hurt was not mortal.

The fine gentlemen of the period would have found time hang heavy on their hands but for the hours passed in the Theatre. When weary of displaying themselves in the pit, or lounging in the boxes by the side of their lady-loves, they resorted to the tiring-rooms of the pretty actresses, and made merry with the paraphernalia of the toilette. One Saturday, in February, 1667, a certain Sir Hugh Myddelton commented with such rude freedom on the dressing processes of the nymphs of Drury Lane Theatre, that Rebecca Marshall sharply advised him to reserve his company for the ladies of the Duke's House since those who served the King did not meet with his approbation. In reply Sir Hugh, an ill-conditioned fellow, threatened he would kick, or that his footman should kick her. On the following Monday Mistress Marshall complained of this insult to the King, who, however, did not at once take notice of it. As she left the theatre on Tuesday evening, after the play, Sir Hugh hung about her, and at last whispered something to a ruffianly retainer, who thereupon followed her closely, and pressed

against her with such violence that, alarmed lest he should rob or stab her, she screamed for help. The wretch for a minute or two was abashed; then, picking up some mud and refuse from the gutter, he daubed it about the actress's face and hair, and took to flight. The next day she lodged a second complaint with the King, who, some few days afterwards, issued a decree, prohibiting gentlemen from entering the tiring-rooms of the ladies of the King's Theatre. The prohibition, however, was as unwelcome to the actresses as to the beaux, and in a short time was, by mutual consent, ignored.

Of the audiences of the Restoration, that is, of those audiences so far as they were composed of fine ladies and fine gentlemen, Monsieur Henri Taine furnishes an elaborate picture. “They were rich," he says, "they had tried to deck themselves with the polish of Frenchmen ; they added to the stage moveable decorations, music, lights, probability, comfort, every external aid; but they wanted heart. Imagine these foppish and half-intoxicated men, who saw in love nothing beyond desire, and in man nothing beyond sensuality; Rochester in the place of Mercutio. What part of his soul could comprehend poesy and fancy? The comedy of romance was altogether beyond his reach; he could only seize the actual world, and of this world but the palpable and gross externals. Give him an exact picture of ordinary life, commonplace and probable occurrences, literal imitations of what he himself was and did; lay the scene in London, in the current year; copy his coarse words, his brutal jokes, his conversation with the orange-girls, his rendezvous in the Park, his attempts at French dissertation. Let him recognize himself, let him find again the people

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