Loveless is brought to Lady Lambert at night. She endeavours to dazzle
him by showing the regalia richly set out and adorned with lights.
He puts by, however, crown and sceptre and rebukes her overweening
ambition. Suddenly the Committee, who have been drinking deep, burst in
upon them dancing a riotous dance. Loveless is hurriedly concealed under
the coverlet of a couch, and Lady Lambert sits thereon seemingly at her
devotions. Her husband takes his place by her side, but rolls off as the
gallant slips to the ground. The lights fall down and are extinguished,
the men fly howling and bawling 'A Plot! A Plot!' in drunken terror.
Lambert is cajoled and hectored into believing himself mistaken owing to
his potations. The ladies hold a council to correct and enquire into
women's wrongs, but on a sudden, news is brought that Lambert's
followers have turned against him and that he is imprisoned in the
Tower. The city rises against the Parliament and the Rump is dissolved.
Loveless and Freeman rescue Lady Lambert and Lady Desbro', whose old
husband has fallen down dead with fright. The parliamentarians endeavour
to escape, but Wariston, Goggle, and Hewson-- a leading member of the
Committee-- are detected and maltreated by the mob. As they are haled
away to prison the people give themselves up to general merry-making and
joy.

SOURCE.

The purely political part of _The Roundheads; or, The Good Old Cause_
was founded by Mrs. Behn on John Tatham's _The Rump_; or, _The Mirror of
the Late Times_ (4to, 1660, 4to, 1661, and again 1879 in his collected
works,) which was produced on the eve of the Restoration, in February,
1660, at the Private House, i.e. small theatre, in Dorset Court. The
company which played here had been brought together by William Beeston,
but singularly little is known of its brief career and only one name has
been recorded, that of George Jolly, the leading actor. Tatham was the
author of the Lord Mayor's pageants 1657-64. His plays, four in number,
together with a rare entertainment, _London's Glory_ (1660), have been
well edited by Maidment and Logan.

_The Rump_ met with great success. It is certainly a brisk and lively
piece, and coming at the juncture it did must have been extraordinarily
effective. As a topical key-play reflecting the moment it is indeed
admirable, and the crescendo of overwhelming satire, all the keener for
the poet's deep earnestness, culminating in the living actors,
yesterd