ates that Beeston was to _reconvert_ the
building into a theatre.]

[Footnote 652: Cunningham, _The Shakespeare Society's Papers_, IV,
103.]

The reconstructed playhouse was opened in 1660, probably as early as
June, with a performance of _The Rump_, by Tatham. It was engaged by
Sir William Davenant for his company of actors until his "new theatre
with scenes" could be erected in Lincoln's Inn Fields.[653] The
ubiquitous Pepys often went thither, and in his _Diary_ gives us some
interesting accounts of the performances he saw there. On March 2,
1661, he witnessed a revival of Thomas Heywood's _Love's Mistress, or
The Queen's Masque_ before a large audience:

After dinner I went to the Theatre [i.e., Killigrew's
playhouse] where I found so few people (which is strange,
and the reason I did not know) that I went out again; and so
to Salisbury Court, where the house as full as could be; and
it seems it was a new play, _The Queen's Masque_, wherein
are some good humours: among others a good jeer to the old
story of the Siege of Troy, making it to be a common country
tale. But above all it was strange to see so little a boy as
that was to act Cupid, which is one of the greatest parts in
it.

[Footnote 653: Malone, _Variorum_, III, 257; Halliwell-Phillipps, _A
Collection of Ancient Documents_, p. 27.]

Again, on March 26, he found Salisbury Court crowded:

After dinner Mrs. Pierce and her husband, and I and my wife,
to Salisbury Court, where coming late, he and she light of
Col. Boone, that made room for them; and I and my wife sat
in the pit, and there met with Mr. Lewes and Tom Whitton,
and saw _The_ _Bondman_[654] done to admiration.

[Footnote 654: By Philip Massinger.]

The history of the playhouse during these years falls outside the
scope of this volume. Suffice it to say that before Beeston finished
paying the carpenters for their work of reconstruction, the great fire
of 1666 swept the building out of existence; as Fisher and Silver
declared: "The mortgaged premises by the late dreadful fire in London
were totally burned down and consumed."[655]

[Footnote 655: The subsequent history of Salisbury Court is traced in
the legal documents printed by Cunningham. Beeston lost the property,
and Fisher and Silver erected nearer the river a handsome new
playhouse, known as "The Duke's Theatre," at an estimated cost of
L1000.]

CHAP