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 came 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."[227]
It was in the Theatre at Vere Street that Pepys first saw a woman on the stage.[228] 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.;"[229] 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.