had converted existing materials to dramatic uses,
but not as did the playwrights of the Restoration. In the Epilogue to
the comedy of "An Evening's Love; or, The Mock Astrologer," borrowed
from "Le Feint Astrologue" of the younger Corneille, Dryden, the
adapter of the play, makes jesting defence of the system of
adaptation. The critics are described as conferring together in the
pit on the subject of the performance:

They kept a fearful stir
In whispering that he stole the Astrologer:
And said, betwixt a French and English plot,
He eased his half-tired muse on pace and trot.
Up starts a Monsieur, new come o'er, and warm
In the French stoop and pull-back of the arm:
"Morbleu," dit-il, and cocks, "I am a rogue,
But he has quite spoiled the 'Feigned Astrologue!'"

The poet is supposed to make excuse:

He neither swore, nor stormed, as poets do,
But, most unlike an author, vowed 'twas true;
Yet said he used the French like enemies,
And did not steal their plots but made them prize.

Dryden concludes with a sort of apology for his own productiveness,
and the necessity of borrowing that it involved:

He still must write, and banquier-like, each day
Accept new bills, and he must break or pay.
When through his hands such sums must yearly run,
You cannot think the stock is all his own.

Pepys, who, born in 1633, must have had experiences of youthful
playgoing before the great Civil War, finds evidence afterwards of
"the vanity and prodigality of the age" in the nightly company of
citizens, 'prentices, and others attending the theatre, and holds it a
grievance that there should be so many "mean people" in the pit at two
shillings and sixpence apiece. For several years, he mentions, he had
gone no higher than the twelvepenny, and then the eighteenpenny
places. Oftentimes, however, the king and his court, the Duke and
Duchess of York, and the young Duke of Monmouth, were to be seen in
the boxes. In 1662 Charles's consort, Catherine, was first exhibited
to the English public at the Cockpit Theatre in Drury Lane, when
Shirley's "Cardinal" was represented. Then there are accounts of
scandals and indecorums in the theatre. Evelyn reprovingly speaks of
the public theatres being abused to an "atheistical liberty." Nell
Gwynne is in front of the curtain prattling with the fops, lounging
across and leaning over them, and conducting herself sauc