of Dodsley's collection, are
examples of the great license these dramatists allowed themselves.]

[Footnote 147: It has been preserved by Hawkins in his "Origin of the
English Drama," vol. i.]

[Footnote 148: Macrobius, Saturn., lib. iii. 1, 14.]

[Footnote 149: Several of them have been reprinted by the Shakespeare
Society since the above was written. Particularly the work of Gosson
here alluded to.]

[Footnote 150: The "Historica Histrionica" notes Stephen Hammerton as "a
most noted and beautiful woman-actor," in the early part of the
seventeenth century. Alexander Goffe, "the woman-actor at Blackfriars,"
is also mentioned as acting privately "in Oliver's time."]

[Footnote 151: One actor, William Kynaston, continued to perform female
characters in the reign of Charles II., and his performances were
praised by Dryden, and preferred by many to that of the ladies
themselves. He was so great a favourite with the fair sex, that the
court ladies used to take him in their coaches for an airing in Hyde
Park.]

[Footnote 152: Ben Jonson was one of their hardest enemies; and his
_Zeal-of-the-Land-busy, Justice Over-doo,_ and _Dame Pure-craft_, have
never been surpassed in masterly delineation of puritanic cant. The
dramatists of that era certainly did their best to curb Puritanism by
exposure.]

[Footnote 153: The title of this collection is "THE WITS, or Sport upon
Sport, in select pieces of Drollery, digested into scenes by way of
Dialogue. Together with variety of Humours of several nations, fitted
for the pleasure and content of all persons, either in Court, City,
Country, or Camp. The like never before published. Printed for H. Marsh,
1662:" again printed for F. Kirkman, 1672. To Kirkman's edition is
prefixed a curious print representing the inside of a Bartholomew-fair
theatre (by some supposed to be the Red Bull Theatre in Clerkenwell).
Several characters are introduced. In the middle of the stage, a figure
peeps out of the curtain; on a label from his mouth is written "Tu
quoque," it represents Bubble, a silly person in a comedy, played so
excellently by an actor named Green, that it was called "Green's
Tu-quoque." Then a changeling and a simpleton, from plays by Cox; a
French dancing-master, from the Duke of Newcastle's "Variety;" Clause,
from Beaumont and Fletcher's "Beggar's Bush;" and Sir John Falstaff and
hostess. Our notion of Falstaff by this print seems very different from
that of our ancestors: their