d (it being
Sunday evening) which this day se'nnight I was witness to, the
king sitting and toying with his concubines--Portsmouth, Cleveland,
Mazarine, etc.--a French boy singing love songs in that glorious
gallery, whilst about twenty of the great courtiers and other
dissolute persons were at basset round a large table, a bank of at
least 2000 pounds in gold before them, upon which two gentlemen who
were with me made reflexions with astonishment. Six days after was all
in the dust!"

Although the monarch who made England merry with all sorts of
frivolities had passed away, the influences of his life did not
quickly cease. One of the social changes which came about in his reign
was destined to become very widely extended and to have an important
bearing upon the structure of English society. This was the
introduction of women upon the stage. In discussing the amusements of
the English people in the several periods, we have as yet said nothing
with regard to the theatre, because it did not relate to woman in
an especial manner. The old mediaeval mystery and morality plays were
given under the auspices of the Church, and formed a part of the
religious instruction of a people who neither knew how nor had the
facilities to read. With the rise of the modern drama and of such
masterly interpreters of human passion as the dramatists of the
Elizabethan era, the stage was secularized and the range of subjects
and appeal was very much widened.

In 1660, for the first time, women were engaged to perform female
characters. Before that time, they had been prohibited from appearing
on the stage; largely because the female parts were usually--and
especially in the beginning of the popularity of the theatre--so
vulgar and obscene that it not only would have been highly disgraceful
for a woman to appear in such characters, but the vulgarity was too
great even for the countenance of females in the audience without
resorting to the expedient of wearing masks. This practice led to
shameful intrigues and discreditable escapades which added to
living the zest which was craved by the women of the court who, thus
disguised, were _habituees_ of the theatre. If it was thought that
by allowing women to take female parts in the plays the tone of such
characters might be improved, the ordinances which permitted the
practice certainly failed of effect. D'Israeli, taking the aesthetic
view of this innovation of the time of Charles II., says: "To