his sentence commuted for thirty years of imprisonment, he alleviated the dulness of his long confinement in the isle of Guernsey by the same amusement. In the card we have engraved, Lambert is represented in his garden, holding a large tulip in his hand; and it is no doubt in allusion to this innocent taste that he is here entitled "Lambert, Knight of the Golden Tulip." [Illustration: _No. 185. Shrovetide._] The Restoration furnished better songs than prints, and many years passed before any caricatures worthy of notice appeared in England. Even burlesque subjects of any merit occur but rarely, and I hardly know of one which is worth describing here. Among the best of those I have met with, is a pair of plates, published in 1660, representing Lent and Shrovetide, and these, I believe, are copied or imitated from foreign prints. Lent is come as a thin miserable-looking knight-errant, appropriately armed and mounted, ready to give battle to Shrovetide, whose good living is pernicious to the whole community, and he abuses his opponent in good round terms. In the companion print, of which our cut No. 185 is a copy, Shrovetide appears as a jolly champion, quite ready to meet his enemy. He is best described in the following lines, extracted from the verses which accompany the prints:-- _Fatt Shrovetyde, mounted on a good fatt oxe, Supposd that Lent was mad, or caught a foxe,[99] Armed cap-a-pea from head unto the heel, A spit his long sword, somewhat worse than steale, (Sheath'd in a fatt pigge and a peece of porke), His bottles fild with wine, well stopt with corke; The two plump capons fluttering at his crupper; And 's shoulders lac'd with sawsages for supper; The gridir'n (like a well strung instrument) Hung at his backe, and for the turnament His helmet is a brasse pott, and his flagge A cookes foule apron, which the wind doth wagg, Fixd to a broome: thus bravely he did ride, And boldly to his foe he thus replied._ [99] _i.e._, was drunk. CHAPTER XXII. ENGLISH COMEDY.--BEN JONSON.--THE OTHER WRITERS OF HIS SCHOOL.--INTERRUPTION OF DRAMATIC PERFORMANCES.--COMEDY AFTER THE RESTORATION.--THE HOWARDS BROTHERS; THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM; THE REHEARSAL.--WRITERS OF COMEDY IN THE LATTER PART OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.--INDECENCY OF THE STAGE.--COLLEY CIBBER.--FOOTE.