Waist Belt'. It commences thus:--

This jest was first of t'other house's making,
And five times tried, has never fail'd of taking;
For 'twere a shame a poet should be kill'd
Under the shelter of so broad a shield.
This is the hat, whose very sight did win ye
To laugh and clap as tho' the devil were in ye.
As then, for Nokes, so now I hope you'll be
So dull, to laugh, once more, for love of me.

Two slightly different explanations are given of the jest. Theatrical
tradition has it that Dryden supplied Nell Gwynne, who was plump and
petite, with this hat of the circumference of a cart wheel, in
ridicule of a hat worn by Nokes of the Duke's company whilst playing
Ancient Pistol. It is again said that in May, 1670, whilst the Court
was at Dover to receive the Duchess of Orleans, the Duke's Company
played there Shadwell's _The Sullen Lovers_, and Caryl's _Sir Salomon;
or, The Cautious Coxcomb_, in which latter comedy Nokes acted Sir
Arthur Addle, a bawling fop. The dress of the French gallants
attending the Duchess was characterised by an excessively short laced
scarlet or blue coat, a very broad waist-belt and a wide-leaved hat.
Nokes appeared on the stage in a still shorter coat, a huger
waist-belt, and a hat of preposterous dimensions. The Duke of Monmouth
buckled his own sword to the actor's side, and, according to old
Downes, our comedian looked more like a dressed-up ape or a quiz on
the French than Sir Arthur Addle. The English Court was straightway
convulsed with laughter at this mimicry, which seems, to say the
least, in highly questionable taste. When Nell Gwynne appeared and
burlesqued the biter, Charles II, who was present at the first
performance of _The Conquest of Granada_, well nigh died of merriment,
and her verve in delivering Dryden's witty lines wholly completed her
conquest of the King. Nell Gwynne did not appear on the boards after
1670.

p. 121 _The Jig and Dance._ cf. note (on p. 43), Vol. III, p. 477:
_A Jigg_ (_The Town Fop_). The Jig is in this prologue clearly
distinct from a dance. Act IV, sc. iii (p. 185): 'Cloris dances a
Jig'-- (i.e. the simple dance).

+ACT I: Scene iii+

p. 133 _Capriol._ Capriole (French) signifies a leap made by a horse
without advancing.

+ACT I: Scene iv+

p. 140 _Clarina why thus clouded?_ Similar expressions in Davenant's
_The Siege of Rhodes_ (4to 1663), Part 1,