[ [3] See Cobbett's State Trials, vol. 3, coll. 561-586.

"Women actors notorious whores ... and dare then any Christian women be so more than whorishly impudent as to act, to speake publikely on a stage perchance in man's apparell and cut haire here proved sinfull and abominable in the presence of sundry men and women?... O let such presidents of impudency, of impiety be never heard of or suffered among Christians."

There are some interesting letters in Ellis's Original Letters (2nd Series, vol. 3) which illustrate the effect on the Court of these violent expressions of opinion. Jo. Pory wrote to Sir Thomas Puckering on September 20th, 1632: "That which the Queen's Majesty, some of her ladies and all her maides of honour are now practicing upon is a Pastorall penned by Mr. Walter Montague, wherein her Majesty is pleased to acte a parte, as well for her recreation as for the exercise of her Englishe."

George Gresley wrote to the same Puckering on the following 31st of January: "Mr. Prinne an Utter Barrister of Lincoln's Inne is brought into the High Commission Court and Star Chamber, for publishing a Booke (a little before the Queene's acting of her play) of the unlawfullness of Plaies wherein in the Table of his Booke and his brief additions thereunto he hath these words [the extracts given above are here printed], which wordes it is thought by some will cost him his eares, or heavily punnisht and deepely fined."

Those who thought thus were amply justified in their opinion. Mr. Hill Burton observes that it was a very odd compliment to Queen Henrietta Maria to presume that these words refer to her, and he adds that the supposition reminds him of Victor Hugo's sarcasm respecting Napoleon III., that when the Parisian police overheard any one use the terms "ruffian" and "scoundrel," they said, "You must be speaking of the Emperor!"

Prynne is so full in his particulars that he might have given us much information respecting the stage in his own day, which we should have welcomed; but, instead, he is ever more ready to draw his examples from Greek and Latin authorities.

In the eighteenth century a practice arose of drawing up indexes of sentiments and opinions as distinguished from facts. Such indexes required a special skill in the indexer, who was usually the original author. There is a curious poetical index to the Iliad in Pope's Homer, referring to all the places in which similes are used.

Samuel Johnson was very anxious that Richardson should produce such an index to his novels. In the Correspondence of Samuel Richardson (vol. v., p. 282) is a letter from Johnson to the novelist, in which he writes: "I wish you would add an index rerum, that when the reader recollects any incident, he may easily find it, which at present he cannot do, unless he knows in which volume it is told; for Clarissa is not a performance to be read with eagerness, and laid aside for ever; but will be occasionally consulted by the busy, the aged and the studious; and therefore I beg that this edition, by which I suppose posterity is to abide, may want nothing that can facilitate its use."

At the end of each volume of Clarissa Harlowe Richardson added a sort of table of all the passages best worth remembering, and as he was the judge himself, it naturally extended to a considerable length. In September, 1753, Johnson again wrote to Richardson suggesting the propriety of making an index to his three works, but he added: "While I am writing an objection arises; such an index to the three would look like the preclusion of a fourth, to which I will never contribute; for if I cannot benefit mankind I hope never to injure them."

Richardson took the hint of his friend, and in 1755 appeared a volume of four hundred and ten pages, entitled, A Collection of the moral and instructive Sentiments, Maxims, Cautions, and Reflexions contained in the Histories of Pamela, Clarissa and Sir Charles Grandison, digested under proper heads.