the sturdy old Puritan William Prynne, who was rewarded for his ardent
crusades against the iniquities of the theatre by the snipping off
of his ears. The condemnation of the theatre was not confined to any
party or church, for Bishop Burnet is found vigorously denouncing
theatres, under the new conditions inaugurated by Charles II., as
"nests of prostitution."

The depravity of the taste of the patrons of the theatres had its
influence upon the writers of the plays. Men whose personal lives
were unexceptionable did not scruple, when writing pieces intended for
representation upon the stage, to introduce as much indecency as they
possibly could, knowing full well that unless their works were highly
seasoned they would never get a hearing. The manners and tastes of the
court of Charles II. established the standard of the theatres
during his reign; the depravity of public sentiment and the general
corruption of the times were greatly increased by these mirrors of the
manners and life of the court. So utterly foul became the repute of
the stage, that, to quote from Sydney's _Social Life in England_,
"Every person who had the slightest regard for sobriety and morality
avoided a playhouse as he would have avoided a house on the door of
which the red cross bore witness to the awful fact that the inmates
had been smitten by the pestilence which walketh in darkness and by
the sickness that destroyeth in noon-day. The indecorous character of
the stage inflicted much less injury than it would have done had
it been covered with a thin veil of sentiment. Those dramatic
representations, at which women desirous of maintaining some
reputation for modesty deemed it incumbent upon them to wear masks,
were, as may be supposed, studiously avoided by those who really were
virtuous." The influence of the metropolis did not extend over the
kingdom as it does to-day, so that outside of the tainted circles
there were to be found social spheres where the old gentility of the
Elizabethan age was maintained, although subjected to such sneers
as were directed against them by Dryden, who looked upon them as
unfortunate enough to have been bred in an unpolished age, and still
more unlucky to live in a refined one. "They have lasted beyond their
own, and are cast behind ours."

Artificiality without any pretence to sincerity was the spirit of the
times of Charles II.; the maundering sentiments and flagitious bearing
of the actors upon the stage w