gh he
received the moneys, we received not the playes, not one in a yeare.
After which, the House being burnt, the Company, in building another,
contracted great debts, so that the shares fell much short of what they
were formerly. Thereupon, Mr. Dryden complaining to the Company of his
want of proffit, the Company was so kind to him, that they not only did
not presse him for the playes which he so engaged to write for them, and
for which he was paid beforehand, but they did also, at his earnest
request, give him a third day for his last new play, called 'All for
Love;' and at the receipt of the money of the said third day, he
acknowledged it as a guift, and a particular kindnesse of the Company.
Yet, notwithstanding this kind proceeding, Mr. Dryden has now, jointly
with Mr. Lee (who was in pension with us to the last day of our playing,
and shall continue), written a play, called 'Oedipus,' and given it to
the Duke's Company, contrary to his said agreement, his promise, and all
gratitude, to the great prejudice and almost undoing of the Company,
they being the only poets remaining to us. Mr. Crowne, being under the
like agreement with the Duke's House, writt a play, called the
'Destruction of Jerusalem,' and being forced, by their refusall of it,
to bring it to us, the said Company compelled us, after the studying of
it, and a vast expence in scenes and cloathes, to buy off their clayme,
by paying all the pension he had received from them, amounting to one
hundred and twelve pounds paid by the King's Company, besides neere
forty pounds he, the said Mr. Crowne, paid out of his owne pocket.

"These things considered, if, notwithstanding Mr. Dryden's said
agreement, promise, and moneys, freely given him for his said last new
play, and the many titles we have to his writings, this play be judged
away from us, we must submit.

(Signed) "CHARLES KILLIGREW.
CHARLES HART.
RICH. BURT.
CARDELL GOODMAN.
MIC. MOHUN."

Dryden also appears as a regular partner in the King's Company in an
agreement to repay money lent for the purpose of rebuilding the Theatre
after its burning in 1672.--_Shakespeare Society's Papers_, iv. 147.--
ED.]

[27] Cibber, with his usual vivacity, thus describes the comic powers of
Nokes in this admired character:

"In the ludicrous distresses, which, by the laws of comedy, folly is
often involved in, he sunk into such a mixture of piteous pusillanimity,
a