1. Her last original rôle was Berenice in Crowne’s The Destruction of Jerusalem, a heroic tragedy in two parts.
2. There was a Sir Arthur Slingsby, a younger son of Sir Guildford Slingsby, Bart. Both Pepys (20 July, 1664) and Evelyn (19 July, 1664) mention the lottery he held with the King’s permission in the Banqueting House at Whitehall. Evelyn judged him to be ‘a mere shark.’
THE YOUNG KING.
p. 107 Tartarian war. Brawls and free fights, sometimes of a serious character, in the pit (Tartarus) of a Restoration theatre were of frequent occurrence. There is a well-known instance in Langbaine: ‘At the acting of this tragedy [Macbeth] on the stage, I saw a real one acted in the pit; I mean the death of Mr. Scroop, who received his death’s wound from the late Sir Thomas Armstrong, and died presently after he was remov’d to a house opposite to the Theatre, in Dorset Garden.’ This was in 1679. In April, 1682, in the pit at the Theatre Royal, Charles Dering and Mr. Vaughan drew on each other and then clambered on to the stage to finish their duel ‘to the greater comfort of the audience’. Dering being badly wounded, Vaughan was held in custody until he recovered. In Shadwell’s A True Widow (1678) Act iv, i, there is a vivid picture of a general scuffle and battle royal in the pit. cf. Dryden’s Prologue to The Spanish Friar (1681):—
Now we set up for tilting in the pit,
Where ‘tis agreed by bullies chicken-hearted
To fright the ladies first, and then be parted.
p. 107 Half crown my play…. There are many allusions to the price of admission to the pit. Pepys mentions it, and on one occasion notices ’.rdinary’ prentices and mean people in the pit at 2s 6d a-piece’. cf. Epilogue to Carye’s The Generous Enemies:—
There’s a nest of devils in the pit,
By whom our plays, like children, just alive,
Pinch’d by the fairies, never after thrive:
‘Tis but your half-crown, Sirs: that won’t undo.
p. 133 antick.—here used in its strict and original sense, ‘baroque’, ’.ococo’. A favourite word with Mrs. Behn.
p. 181 _Life it self’s a Dream. This is the very title of Calderon’s comedia, La Vida es Sueño.
p. 183 J. Wright, esq. James Wright (1643-1713), barrister-at-law and miscellaneous writer, is now chiefly remembered by his famous pamphlet, Historia Histrionica (1699), a dialogue on old plays and players, reprinted in various editions of Dodsley. Wright was a great lover of the theatre, and ‘one of the first collectors of old plays since Cartwright.’