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The History Of The Theatre During Its Suppression
by
[Footnote 151:
One actor, William Kynaston, continued to perform female characters in the reign of Charles II., and his performances were praised by Dryden, and preferred by many to that of the ladies themselves. He was so great a favourite with the fair sex, that the court ladies used to take him in their coaches for an airing in Hyde Park. ]
[Footnote 152:
Ben Jonson was one of their hardest enemies; and his Zeal-of-the-Land-busy, Justice Over-doo, and Dame Pure-craft, have never been surpassed in masterly delineation of puritanic cant. The dramatists of that era certainly did their best to curb Puritanism by exposure. ]
[Footnote 153:
The title of this collection is “THE WITS, or Sport upon Sport, in select pieces of Drollery, digested into scenes by way of Dialogue. Together with variety of Humours of several nations, fitted for the pleasure and content of all persons, either in Court, City, Country, or Camp. The like never before published. Printed for H. Marsh, 1662:” again printed for F. Kirkman, 1672. To Kirkman’s edition is prefixed a curious print representing the inside of a Bartholomew-fair theatre (by some supposed to be the Red Bull Theatre in Clerkenwell). Several characters are introduced. In the middle of the stage, a figure peeps out of the curtain; on a label from his mouth is written “Tu quoque,” it represents Bubble, a silly person in a comedy, played so excellently by an actor named Green, that it was called “Green’s Tu-quoque.” Then a changeling and a simpleton, from plays by Cox; a French dancing-master, from the Duke of Newcastle’s “Variety;” Clause, from Beaumont and Fletcher’s “Beggar’s Bush;” and Sir John Falstaff and hostess. Our notion of Falstaff by this print seems very different from that of our ancestors: their Falstaff is in extravaganza of obesity, not requiring so much “stuffing” as ours does. ]
[Footnote 154:
PYM was then at the head of the Commons, and was usually deputed to address personally the motley petitioners. We have a curious speech he made to the tradesmen’s wives in Echard’s “History of England,” vol. ii. 290. ]