HISTORICAL INCIDENTS AFTER THE RESTORA TIOA? 103
visited at the Abbey. Balls, plays, and masquerades vere likewise attempted, but the
last proved too great an innovation on the rigid manners of that period to be tolerated.
The most profane and vicious purposes were believed, by the vulgar, to be couched under
such ‘a system of disguise ; and this unpopular mode of entertainment had to be speedily
abandoned. Plays, however, which were no less abhorrent to the people at that period,
afforded a constant gratification to the courtiers, and were persisted in, notwithstanding
the violent prejudices which they excited. The actors were regarded as part of the Duke of
York’s household ; and, if we may give any credit to the satirical account which Dryden
has furnished of them, they were not among the most eminent of their profession. Some
members of the company, it would seem, had gone to Oxford, according to annual custom,
to assist in performing the public acts there. Dryden, with great humour, makes them
apologise to the University for the thinness of the Company, by intimating that many
of its members have crossed the Tweed, and are now nightly appearing before Edinburgh
audiences, for the ambiguous fee of (‘ two and sixpence Scots.” He slyly insinuates, however,
that only the underlings of the company have gone north, leaving all its talent and
character at the service of the University:-
Our brethren have from Thames to Tweed departed,
To Edinborough gone, or coached or carted :
With bonny blue cap there they act all night,
For Scotch half-crowns, in English threepence hight.
One nymph, to whom fat Sir John Falstaffs lean,
There with her single person fills the scene.
Another, with long use and age decayed,
Died here old woman, and rose there a maid.
Our trusty door-keeper, of former time,
There struts and awaggers in heroic rhime.
Tack but a copper lace to drugget suit,
And there’s a hero made without dispute ;
And that which was a capon’s tale before,
Becomes a plume for Indian Emperor.
But .all his subjects to express the care
Of imitation, go, like Indian, bare I
The reader need hardly be reminded of the usual licence which the satiric poet
claims as his privilege, and which his Grace’s servants at Edinburgh may have
retorted in equal measure on his Majesty’s servants at Oxford, though no copy of
their prologue has been preserved. It is not improbable, however, that the early Scottish
theatre might merit Rome of the poet’s sarcasms. The courtly guests of the royal Duke
were probably too much taken up with the novelty of such amusements, and the
condescending urbanity of their entertainers, to be very critical on the equipments of the
stage.
These amusements were occasionally varied with the exhibition of masques at Court, in
which the Lady Anne, and other noble young ladies, assumed the characters of gods and
goddesses) and the like fanciful personages that usually figure in such entertainments. The
gentlemen varied these pastimes with the games of tennis and golf. The Tennis Court,
which also served as the fist theatre for the Court, stood immediately without the Water
Gate. It may be seen in Gordon’s map, a large oblong building, occupying a considerable
Dyden’a Niac., voL ii. -
