And one with loving she, retires to th' Rose."
In the "Comparison between the two Stages" one scene is laid in the Rose Tavern, and from it we gather that the house was of a very bad character:—
"Ramb. Defend us! what a hurry of Sin is in this House!
Sull. Drunkenness, which is the proper Iniquity of a Tavern, is here the most excusable Sin; so many other Sins over-run it, 'tis hardly seen in the crowd....
Sull. This House is the very Camp of Sin; the Devil sets up his black Standard in the Faces of these hungry Harlots, and to enter into their Trenches is going down to the Bottomless Pit according to the letter."—Comp., p. 140.
Pepys mentions the Rose more than once. On 18th May, 1668, the first day of Sedley's play, "The Mulberry Garden," the diarist, having secured his place in the pit, and feeling hungry, "did slip out, getting a boy to keep my place; and to the Rose Tavern, and there got half a breast of mutton, off the spit, and dined all alone. And so to the play again."
[ [333] Cibber's chronology cannot be reconciled with what we believe to be facts. Horden was killed in 1696; Wilks seems to have come to England not earlier than the end of 1698, while it is, I should say, certain that Estcourt did not appear before 1704. I can only suppose that Cibber, who is very reckless in his dates, is here particularly confused.
[ [334] For Leigh's playing of this character, see ante, p. 145.
[ [335] Curll, in his "Life of Mrs. Oldfield," says that the only part she played, previous to appearing as Alinda, was Candiope in "Secret Love." She played Alinda in 1700.
[ [336] In 1702, Gildon, in the "Comparison between the two Stages" (p. 200), includes Mrs. Oldfield among the "meer Rubbish that ought to be swept off the Stage with the Filth and Dust."