g of the seventeenth centuries; but what the
stage had lost in dramatic composition, was, in some degree, supplied by
the increasing splendour of decoration, and the favour of the court. A
private theatre, called the Cockpit, was maintained at Whitehall, in
which plays were performed before the court; and the king's company of
actors often received command to attend the royal progresses.[1]
Masques, a species of representation calculated exclusively for the
recreation of the great, in whose halls they were exhibited, were an
usual entertainment of Charles and his consort. The machinery and
decorations were often superintended by Inigo Jones, and the poetry
composed by Ben Jonson the laureate. Even Milton deigned to contribute
one of his most fascinating poems to the service of the drama; and,
notwithstanding the severity of his puritanic tenets, "Comus" could only
have been composed by one who felt the full enchantment of the theatre.
But all this splendour vanished at the approach of civil war. The stage
and court were almost as closely united in their fate as royalty and
episcopacy, had the same enemies, the same defenders, and shared the
same overwhelming ruin. "No throne no theatre," seemed as just a dogma
as the famous "No king no bishop." The puritans indeed commenced their
attack against royalty in this very quarter; and, while they impugned
the political exertions of prerogative, they assailed the private
character of the monarch and his consort, for the encouragement given to
the profane stage, that rock of offence, and stumbling-block to the
godly. Accordingly, the superiority of the republicans was no sooner
decisive, than the theatres were closed, and the dramatic poets
silenced. No department of poetry was accounted lawful; but the drama
being altogether unhallowed and abominable, its professors were
persecuted, while others escaped with censure from the pulpit, and
contempt from the rulers. The miserable shifts to which the surviving
actors were reduced during the commonwealth, have been often detailed.
At times they were connived at by the caprice or indolence of their
persecutors; but, in general, so soon as they had acquired any slender
stock of properties, they were beaten, imprisoned, and stripped, at the
pleasure of the soldiery.[2]

The Restoration naturally brought with it a revived taste for those
elegant amusements, which, during the usurpation, had been condemned as
heathenish, or punished as ap