Dryden, in his prologues, makes frequent mention of the Dorset Gardens Theatre, more especially in the address on the opening of the new Drury Lane, March, 1674. The Whitefriars house, under Davenant, had been the first to introduce regular scenery, and it prided itself on stage pomp and show. The year before, in Shadwell's opera of The Tempest, or the Enchanted Island, the machinery was very costly, and one scene, in which the spirits flew away with the wicked duke's table and viands just as the company was sitting down, had excited the town to enthusiasm. Psyche, another opera by Shadwell, perhaps adapted from Molière's Court spectacle, had succeeded the Tempest. St. André and his French dancers were probably engaged in Shadwell's piece. The king, whose taste and good sense the poet praises, had recommended simplicity of dress and frugality of ornament. This Dryden took care to well remember. He says:—
"You who each day can theatres behold,
Like Nero's palace, shining all in gold,
Our mean, ungilded stage will scorn, we fear,
And for the homely room disdain the cheer."
Then he brings in the dictum of the king:—
"Yet if some pride with want may be allowed,
We in our plainness may be justly proud:
Our royal master willed it should be so;
Whate'er he's pleased to own can need no show.
That sacred name gives ornament and grace,
And, like his stamp, makes basest metal pass.
'Twere folly now a stately pile to raise,
To build a playhouse, while you throw down plays.
While scenes, machines, and empty operas reign,
And for the pencil you the pen disdain:
While troops of famished Frenchmen hither drive,
And laugh at those upon whose alms they live,
Old English authors vanish, and give place
To these new conquerors of the Norman race."
And when, in 1671, the burnt-out Drury Lane company had removed to the Portugal Street Theatre, Dryden had said, in the same strain,—
"So we expect the lovers, braves, and wits;
The gaudy house with scenes will serve for cits."
In another epilogue Dryden alludes sarcastically to the death of Mr. Scroop, a young rake of fortune, who had just been run through by Sir Thomas Armstrong, a sworn friend of the Duke of Monmouth, in a quarrel at the Dorset Gardens Theatre, and died soon after. This fatal affray took place during the representation of Davenant's adaptation of Macbeth.
From Dryden's various prologues and epilogues we cull many sharply-outlined and bright-coloured pictures of the wild and riotous audiences of those evil days. We see again the "hot Burgundians" in the upper boxes wooing the masked beauties, crying "bon" to the French dancers and beating cadence to the music that had stirred even the stately Court of Versailles. Again we see the scornful critics, bunched with glistening ribbons, shaking back their cascades of blonde hair, lolling contemptuously on the foremost benches, and "looking big through their curls." There from "Fop's Corner" rises the tipsy laugh, the prattle, and the chatter, as the dukes and lords, the wits and courtiers, practise what Dryden calls "the diving bow," or "the toss and the new French wallow"—the diving bow being especially admired, because it—
"With a shog casts all the hair before,
Till he, with full decorum, brings it back,
And rises with a water-spaniel's shake."
Nor does the poet fail to recall the affrays in the upper boxes, when some quarrelsome rake was often pinned to the wainscoat by the sword of his insulted rival. Below, at the door, the Flemish horses and the heavy gilded coach, lighted by flambeaux, are waiting for the noisy gallant, and will take back only his corpse.