To laugh and clap as tho’ the devil were in ye.
As then, for Nokes, so now I hope you’ll be
So dull, to laugh, once more, for love of me.
Two slightly different explanations are given of the jest. Theatrical tradition has it that Dryden supplied Nell Gwynne, who was plump and petite, with this hat of the circumference of a cart wheel, in ridicule of a hat worn by Nokes of the Duke’s company whilst playing Ancient Pistol. It is again said that in May, 1670, whilst the Court was at Dover to receive the Duchess of Orleans, the Duke’s Company played there Shadwell’s The Sullen Lovers, and Caryl’s Sir Salomon; or, The Cautious Coxcomb, in which latter comedy Nokes acted Sir Arthur Addle, a bawling fop. The dress of the French gallants attending the Duchess was characterised by an excessively short laced scarlet or blue coat, a very broad waist-belt and a wide-leaved hat. Nokes appeared on the stage in a still shorter coat, a huger waist-belt, and a hat of preposterous dimensions. The Duke of Monmouth buckled his own sword to the actor’s side, and, according to old Downes, our comedian looked more like a dressed-up ape or a quiz on the French than Sir Arthur Addle. The English Court was straightway convulsed with laughter at this mimicry, which seems, to say the least, in highly questionable taste. When Nell Gwynne appeared and burlesqued the biter, Charles II, who was present at the first performance of The Conquest of Granada, well nigh died of merriment, and her verve in delivering Dryden’s witty lines wholly completed her conquest of the King. Nell Gwynne did not appear on the boards after 1670.
[p. 121] The Jig and Dance. cf. note (on p. 43), Vol. III, p. 477: A Jigg (The Town Fop). The Jig is in this prologue clearly distinct from a dance. Act iv, sc. III (p. 185): ‘Cloris dances a Jig’— (i.e. the simple dance). [ Cross-reference: The Town Fop]
Act I: Scene iii
[p. 133] Capriol. Capriole (French) signifies a leap made by a horse without advancing.
Act I: Scene iv
[p. 140] Clarina why thus clouded? Similar expressions in Davenant’s The Siege of Rhodes (4to 1663), Part 1, the Second Entry:—
Mustapha. I bring the morning pictur’d in a cloud.