o us, who after
dinner took me and Creed to the Cockpit play, the first that
I have had time to see since my coming from sea, _The Loyall
Subject_, where one Kinaston, a boy, acted the Duke's
sister, but made the loveliest lady that ever I saw in my
life, only her voice not very good.

[Footnote 618: For his troubles with the Master of the Revels see
Halliwell-Phillipps, _A Collection of Ancient Documents_, p. 26.]

[Footnote 619: Parton, _op. cit._, p. 236.]

Again on October 11, 1660, he writes:

Here in the Park we met with Mr. Salisbury, who took Mr.
Creed and me to the Cockpit to see _The Moor of Venice_,
which was well done. Burt acted the Moor, by the same token
a very pretty lady that sat by me called out to see
Desdemona smothered.

The subsequent history of the Cockpit falls outside the scope of the
present treatise. The reader who desires to trace the part the
building played in the Restoration would do well to consult the
numerous documents printed by Malone from the Herbert Manuscript.[620]

[Footnote 620: Malone, _Variorum_, III, 244 ff.]

CHAPTER XIX

SALISBURY COURT

The Salisbury Court Playhouse[621] was projected and built by two men
whose very names are unfamiliar to most students of the drama--Richard
Gunnell and William Blagrove. Yet Gunnell was a distinguished actor,
and was associated with the ownership and management of at least two
theatres. Even so early as 1613 his reputation as a player was
sufficient to warrant his inclusion as a full sharer in the
Palsgrave's Company, then acting at the Fortune. When the Fortune was
rebuilt after its destruction by fire in 1621, he purchased one of the
twelve shares in the new building, and rose to be manager of the
company.[622] In addition to managing the company he also, as we learn
from the Herbert Manuscript, supplied the actors with plays. In 1623
he composed _The Hungarian Lion_, obviously a comedy, and in the
following year _The Way to Content all Women, or How a Man May Please
his Wife_.[623] Of William Blagrove I can learn little more than that
he was Deputy to the Master of the Revels. In this capacity he signed
the license for Glapthorne's _Lady Mother_, October 15, 1635; and his
name appears several times in the Herbert Manuscript in connection
with the payments of various companies.[624] Possibly he was related
to Thomas Blagrove who during the reign of Elizabeth was an impo