A Book of the Play | Page 6

stole the Astrologer: And said, betwixt a French and English plot, He eased his half-tired muse on pace and trot. Up starts a Monsieur, new come o'er, and warm In the French stoop and pull-back of the arm: "Morbleu," dit-il, and cocks, "I am a rogue, But he has quite spoiled the 'Feigned Astrologue!'"
The poet is supposed to make excuse:
He neither swore, nor stormed, as poets do, But, most unlike an author, vowed 'twas true; Yet said he used the French like enemies, And did not steal their plots but made them prize.
Dryden concludes with a sort of apology for his own productiveness, and the necessity of borrowing that it involved:
He still must write, and banquier-like, each day Accept new bills, and he must break or pay. When through his hands such sums must yearly run, You cannot think the stock is all his own.
Pepys, who, born in 1633, must have had experiences of youthful playgoing before the great Civil War, finds evidence afterwards of "the vanity and prodigality of the age" in the nightly company of citizens, 'prentices, and others attending the theatre, and holds it a grievance that there should be so many "mean people" in the pit at two shillings and sixpence apiece. For several years, he mentions, he had gone no higher than the twelvepenny, and then the eighteenpenny places. Oftentimes, however, the king and his court, the Duke and Duchess of York, and the young Duke of Monmouth, were to be seen in the boxes. In 1662 Charles's consort, Catherine, was first exhibited to the English public at the Cockpit Theatre in Drury Lane, when Shirley's "Cardinal" was represented. Then there are accounts of scandals and indecorums in the theatre. Evelyn reprovingly speaks of the public theatres being abused to an "atheistical liberty." Nell Gwynne is in front of the curtain prattling with the fops, lounging across and leaning over them, and conducting herself saucily and impudently enough. Moll Davis is in one box, and my Lady Castlemaine, with the king, in another. Moll makes eyes at the king, and he at her. My Lady Castlemaine detects the interchange of glances, and "when she saw Moll Davies she looked like fire, which troubled me," said Mr. Pepys, who, to do him justice, was often needlessly troubled about matters with which, in truth, he had very little concern. There were brawls in the theatre, and tipsiness, and much license generally. In 1682 two gentlemen, disagreeing in the pit, drew their swords and climbed to the stage. There they fought furiously until a sudden sword-thrust stretched one of the combatants upon the boards. The wound was not mortal, however, and the duellists, after a brief confinement by order of the authorities, were duly set at liberty.
The fop of the Restoration was a different creature to the Elizabethan gallant. Etherege satirised him in his "Man of Mode; or, Sir Fopling Flutter," Dryden supplying the comedy with an epilogue, in which he fully described certain of the prevailing follies of the time in regard to dress and manners. The audience are informed that
None Sir Fopling him or him can call, He's knight of the shire and represents you all! From each he meets he culls whate'er he can; Legion's his name, a people in a man.
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His various modes from various fathers follow; One taught the toss, and one the new French wallow; His sword-knot this, his cravat that designed; And this the yard-long snake he twirls behind. From one the sacred periwig he gained, Which wind ne'er blew nor touch of hat profaned. Another's diving bow he did adore, Which, with a shog, casts all the hair before, Till he with full decorum brings it back, And rises with a water-spaniel shake.
Upon another occasion the poet writes:
But only fools, and they of vast estate, The extremity of modes will imitate, The dangling knee-fringe and the bib-cravat.
While the fops were thus equipped, the ladies wore vizard-masks, and upon the appearance of one of these in the pit--
Straight every man who thinks himself a wit, Perks up, and managing his comb with grace, With his white wig sets off his nut-brown face.
For it was the fashion of the gentlemen to toy with their soaring, large-curled periwigs, smoothing them with a comb. Between the fops and the ladies goodwill did not always prevail. The former were, no doubt, addicted to gross impertinence in their conversation.
Fop Corner now is free from civil war, White wig and vizard-mask no longer jar, France and the fleet have swept the town so clear.
So Dryden "prologuised" in 1672, attributing the absence of "all our braves and all our wits" to the war which England, in conjunction with France, had undertaken against the Dutch.
Queen Anne, in 1704, expressly ordered that "no woman should be