And let it be our custom, I advise ;

I'm sure this custom's better than th' excise,
And may procure us custom hearts of flint
Will melt in passion, when a woman's in't.
But, gentlemen, you that as judges sit
In the Star-chamber of the house—the pit,
Have modest thoughts of her; pray, do not run
To give her visits when the play is done,
With 'damn me, your most humble servant, lady ;'
She knows these things as well as you, it
may be;
Not a bit there, dear gallants, she doth know
Her own deserts, and your temptations too.
But to the point :—in this reforming age
We have intents to civilize the stage.

Our women are defective, and so sized,

You'd think they were some of the guard disguised;
For to speak truth, men act, that are between

Forty and fifty, wenches of fifteen;

With bone so large, and nerve so incompliant,
When you call Desdemona, enter giant.
We shall purge every thing that is unclean,
Lascivious, scurrilous, impious or obscene;
And when we've put all things in this fair way,
Barebones himself may come to see a play."*

The epilogue, "which consists of but twelve lines, is in the same strain of apology."

"And how do you like her? Come, what is't ye drive at ?
She's the same thing in public as in private,
As far from being what you call a whore,
As Desdemona injured by the Moor ;
Then he that censures her in such a case,
Hath a soul blacker than Othello's face.
But, ladies, what think you? for if you tax
Her freedom with dishonour to your sex,
She means to act no more, and this shall be
No other play, but her own tragedy.

* Malone, p. 135.

She will submit to none but your commands, And take commission only from your hands." * From the nature of this epilogue, and the permission accorded by the ladies, the women actors appear to have met with all the success they could wish; yet a prologue to the second part of Davenant's "Siege of Rhodes, " acted in April, 1662, shows us that the matter was still considered a delicate one upwards of a year afterwards.

66

'Hope little from our poet's withered wit,

From infant players scarce grown puppets yet;
Hope from our women less, whose bashful fear
Wondered to see me dare to enter here:
Each took her leave, and wished my danger past,
And though I come back safe and undisgraced,
Yet when they spy the wits here, then I doubt
No amazon can make them venture out,

Though I advised them not to fear you much,
For I presume not half of you are such."†

It was in the Theatre at Vere Street that Pepys first saw a woman on the stage. One of the earliest female performers mentioned by him, was an actress, whose name is not ascertained, but who attained an unfortunate celebrity in the part of Roxana in the "Siege of Rhodes." She was seduced by Aubery de Vere, the last Earl of Oxford of that name, under the guise of a private marriage,

a species of villany which made a great figure in works of fiction up to a late period. The story is "got up" in detail by Madame Dunois, in her "History of the Court of Charles II. ;"§ but it is told with more brevity in Grammont; and as the latter, though apocryphal enough, pretends to say nothing on the subject, in which he is not borne out by other writers, his lively account may be laid before the reader.

*Malone, p. 136.

Memoirs, ut supra, vol. i. p. 167.

† Id. p. 136.

§ Memoirs of the English Court in the Reign of Charles II., &c., by the Countess of Dunois, part ii. p. 71.

"The Earl of Oxford," says one of his heroines, "fell in love with a handsome, graceful actress, belonging to the Duke's theatre, who performed to perfection, particularly the part of Roxana in a very fashionable new play; insomuch that she ever after retained that name. This creature being both very virtuous, and very modest, or, if you please, wonderfully obstinate, proudly rejected the presents and addresses of the Earl of Oxford. The resistance inflamed his passion; he had recourse to invectives and even spells; but all in vain. This disappointment had such an effect upon him, that he could neither eat nor drink; this did not signify to him; but his passion at length became so violent, that he could neither play nor smoke. In this extremity, Love had recourse to Hymen: the Earl of Oxford, one of the first peers of the realm, is, you know, a very handsome man: he is of the order of the Garter, which greatly adds to an air naturally noble. In short, from his outward appearance, you would suppose he was really possessed of some sense; but as soon as ever you hear him speak, you are perfectly convinced of the contrary. This passionate lover presented her with a promise of marriage, in due form, signed with his own hand; she would not, however, rely upon this; but the next day she thought there could be no danger, when the Earl himself came to her lodgings attended by a clergyman, and another man for a witness; the marriage was accordingly solemnized with all due ceremonies, in the presence of one of her fellow-players, who attended as a witness on her part. You will suppose, perhaps, that the new countess had nothing to do but to appear at court according to her rank, and to display the earl's arms upon her carriage. This was far from being the case. When examination was made concerning the marriage, it was found to be a mere deception : it appeared that the pretended priest was one of my lord's trumpeters, and the witness his kettle-drummer. The parson and his companion never appeared after the ceremony was over; and as for the other witness, he endeavoured to persuade her, that the Sultana Roxana might have supposed, in some part or other of a play, that she was really married. It was all to no purpose that the poor creature claimed the protection of the laws of

God and man; both which were violated and abused, as well as herself, by this infamous imposition: in vain did she throw herself at the king's feet to demand justice; she had only to rise up again without redress; and happy might she think herself to receive an annuity of one thousand crowns, and to resume the name of Roxana, instead of Countess of Oxford."*

This scoundrel Earl (whose alleged want of sense is extremely probable, and was his best excuse, as well as the worst thing to say for the lady) died full of years and honours, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

In 1664, Mr. Pepys witnessed a scene in the theatre in Portugal Street, which shows the extremity to which the speculation of managers and the curiosity of the British public can go. This was no other than the appearance of an impostor, called the German Princess, in the part of her own character, after having been tried for it at the Old Bailey. She was tried for bigamy, and acquitted; but she had inveigled a young citizen into marriage under pretence of being a German Princess, the citizen pretending at the same time to be a nobleman. The impudence of the thing was completed by the badness of her performance. Granger, however, who appears to have read a vindication of her, which she published, thinks she had great natural abilities.

The following is curious: - 4th (Feb. 1666-7.)

"Soon as dined,” says Pepys, "my wife and I out to the Duke's playhouse, and there saw Heraclius; an excellent play, to my extraordinary content; and the more from the house being very full, and great company; among others Mrs. Stuart †, very fine, with her locks done up in puffes, as my wife calls them and several other great ladies had their hair so, though I do not like it, but my wife do mightily; but it is only because she sees it is the fashion. Here I saw my Lord Rochester and

* Memoirs of Count Grammont, 8vo. 1811, vol. ii. p. 142.

With whom Charles II. was in love—afterwards Duchess of Rich mond.

The famous wit and debauchee.

his lady, Mrs. Mallet, who hath after all this ado married him ; and, as I hear some say in the pit, it is a great act of charity, for he hath no estate. But it was pleasant to see how every body rose up when my Lord John Butler, the Duke of Ormond's son, came into the pit, towards the end of the play, who was a servant to Mrs. Mallet, and now smiled upon her, and she on him."

One little thinks, now-a-days, in turning into Portugal Street, that all the fashionable world, with the wits and poets, once thronged into that poor-looking thoroughfare, with its bailiffs at one end, and its butchers at the other. The difference, however, between beaux and butchers was not so great at that time as it became afterwards; though none arrogated the praise of high breeding more than the fine gentlemen of Charles II. Next year Pepys speaks of a fray at this house, between Harry Killigrew and the Duke of Buckingham, in which the latter beat him, and took away his sword. Another time, according to his account, Rochester beat Tom Killigrew, at the Dutch Ambassador's, and in the King's presence. Blows from people of rank do not appear to have been resented as they would be now.

In the following passage we have an author's first night before us, and that author the gallant Etherege, with dukes and wits about him in the pit. He makes, however, a very different figure in our eyes from what we commonly conceive of him, for he is unsuccessful and complaining.

"My wife," says Pepys, "being gone before (6th Feb. 1667–8), I to the Duke of York's playhouse, where a new play of Etheridge's, called 'She would if she could;' and, though I was there by two o'clock, there was one thousand people put back that could not have room in the pit; and I at last, because my wife was there, made shift to get into the 18d. box, and there

* Pepys' Memoirs, vol. iii. p. 136.