fore they leave it the same tryals of strength, both of them, that Wm.
had the honour of showing before his majesty and their royal highnesses,
with several other persons of quality, for which he received a
considerable gratuity. The lifting a weight of two thousand two hundred
and forty pounds. His holding an extraordinary large cart-horse; and
breaking a rope which will bear three thousand five hundred weight.
Beginning exactly at two, and ending at four. The boxes, 4s.; the pit,
2s. 6d.; first gallery, 2s.; upper gallery, 1s. Whereas several
scandalous persons have given out that they can do as much as any of the
brothers, we do offer to such persons L100 reward, if he can perform the
said matters of strength as they do, provided the pretender will forfeit
L20 if he doth not. The day it is performed will be affixed a
signal-flag on the theatre. No money to be returned after once paid."

In 1681 Dr. Davenant seems, by rather unfair tactics, to have bought off
and pensioned both Hart and Kynaston from the King's Company, and so to
have greatly weakened his rivals. Of these two actors some short notice
may not be uninteresting. Hart had been a Cavalier captain during the
Civil Wars, and was a pupil of Robinson, the actor, who was shot down at
the taking of Basing House. Hart was a tragedian who excelled in parts
that required a certain heroic and chivalrous dignity. As a youth,
before the Restoration, when boys played female parts, Hart was
successful as the Duchess, in Shirley's _Cardinal_. In Charles's time
he played Othello, by the king's command, and rivalled Betterton's
Hamlet at the other house. He created the part of Alexander, was
excellent as Brutus, and terribly and vigorously wicked as Ben Jonson's
Cataline. Rymer, says Dr. Doran, styled Hart and Mohun the AEsopus and
Roscius of their time. As Amintor and Melanthus, in _The Maid's
Tragedy_, they were incomparable. Pepys is loud too in his praises of
Hart. His salary, was, however, at the most, L3 a week, though he
realised L1,000 yearly after he became a shareholder of the theatre.
Hart died in 1683, within a year of his being bought off.

Kynaston, in his way, was also a celebrity. As a handsome boy he had
been renowned for playing heroines, and he afterwards acquired celebrity
by his dignified impersonation of kings and tyrants. Betterton, the
greatest of all the Charles II. actors, also played occasionally at
Dorset Gardens. Pope knew him; Dryden was his f