By which we may guess that the Rope-dancer’s Song, in our text, was probably written about, or even before, 1651. Some among us (the Editor for one) saw Madame Sacchi in 1855 mount the rope, although she was seventy years old, as nimbly as when the first Napoleon had been her chief spectator. During the Commonwealth, rope-dancing and tumbling were tolerated at the Red-Bull Theatre, while plays were prohibited. See (Note to p. 210) our Introduction to _Westminster Drollery_, pp. xv.-xx, and the Frontispiece reproduced from Kirkman’s “_Wits_,” 1673, representing sundry characters from different “Drolls,” grouped together, viz.: Falstaff and Dame Quickly, from “the Bouncing Knight;” the French Dancing-Master, from the Duke of Newcastle’s “Variety,” Clause, from Beaumont and Fletcher’s “Beggar’s Bush,” Tom Greene as Bubble the Clown uttering “Tu Quoque” from John Cooke’s “City Gallant” (peeping through the chief-entrance, reserved for dignitaries); also Simpleton the Smith, and the Changeling, from two of Robert Cox’s favourite Drolls. We add now, illustrative of practical suppression under the Commonwealth, a contemporary record:— A SONG. 1. _The fourteenth of ~September~_ _I very well remember,_ _When people had eaten and fed well,_ _Many men, they say,_ _Would needs go see a Play,_ _But they saw a great rout at the ~red Bull~._ 2. _The Soldiers they came,_ _(The blind and the lame)_ _To visit and undo the Players;_ _And women without Gowns,_ _They said they would have Crowns;_ _But they were no good Sooth-sayers._ 3. _Then ~Jo: Wright~ they met,_ _Yet nothing could get,_ _And ~Tom Jay~ i’ th’ same condition:_ _The fire men they_ _Would ha’ made ’em a prey,_ _But they scorn’d to make a petition._ 4. [p. 89.] _The Minstrills they_ _Had the hap that day,_ _(Well fare a very good token)_ _To keep (from the chase)_ _The fiddle and the case,_ _For the instruments scap’d unbroken._ 5. _The poor and the rich,_ _The wh... and the b...,_ _Were every one at a losse,_ _But the Players were all_ _Turn’d (as weakest) to the wall,_ _And ’tis thought had the greatest losse._ [? _cross._] (_Wit’s Merriment, or Lusty Drollery_, 1656, p. 88.) One such raid on the poor actors (and probably at this very theatre, the Red Bull, St. John’s Street, Clerkenwell) is recorded, as of 20th December, 1649:—“Some Stage-players in St. John’s-Street were apprehended by troopers, their clothes taken away, and themselves carried to prison” (Whitelocke’s _Memorials_, 435, edit. 1733, cited by J. P. C., _Annals_, ii. 118). It was a serious business, as we see from the Ordinance of 11 Feb., 1647-8; the demolishing of seats and boxes, the actors “to be apprehended and openly and publicly whipt in some market town ... to enter into recognizances with two sufficient sureties, never to act or play any Play or Interlude any more,” &c.