As for the Light-skirts, so elegantly referred to in the Song now reprinted (as far as we are aware, for the first time), they were certainly not actresses, but courtezans frequenting the place to ensnare visitors. Although English women did not _publicly_ perform until after the Restoration, except on one occasion (of course, at Court Masques and private mansions, the Queen herself and her ladies had impersonated characters), yet so early as 8th November, 1629, some French professional actresses vainly attempted to get a hearing at Blackfriars Theatre, and a fortnight later at the Red Bull itself, as three weeks afterwards at the Fortune. Evidently, they were unsuccessful throughout. We hear a good deal about the far-more objectionable “Ladies of Pleasure,” who beset all places of amusement. Thomas Cranley, addressing one such, in his _Amanda_, 1635, describes her several alluring disguises and habits:— _The places thou dost usually frequent_ _Is to some playhouse in an afternoon,_ _And for no other meaning and intent_ _But to get company to sup with soon;_ _More changeable and wavering than the moon._ _And with thy wanton looks attracting to thee_ _The amorous spectators for to woo thee._ _Thither thou com’st in several forms and shapes_ _To make thee still a stranger to the place,_ _And train new lovers, like young birds, to scrapes,_ _And by thy habit so to change thy face;_ _At this time plain, to-morrow all in lace:_ _Now in the richest colours to be had;_ _The next day all in mourning, black and sad._ &c. Page 33. _Oh fire, fire, fire, where?_ Despite our repugnance to mutilate a text (see Introduction to _Westminster Drollery_, p. 6; ditto to _Merry Drollery Compleat_, pp. 38, 39, 40; and that to our present volume, foot-note in section third), a few letters have been necessarily suppressed in this piece of coarse humour. Verse fourth, on p. 33, refers to Ben Jonson’s loss of valuable manuscripts by fire, and his consequent “Execration upon Vulcan,” before June, 1629; an event deeply to be regretted: also to the whimsical account of the fire on London Bridge (see _Merry Drollery, Compleat_, pp. 87, 369, and Additional Note in present volume, tracing the poem to 1651, and the event to 1633). An amusing poem was written, by Thomas Randolph, on the destruction of the Mitre Tavern at Cambridge, about 1630; it begins, “Lament, lament, you scholars all.” (See _A Crew of kind London Gossips_, 1663, p. 72). Page 38. _In Eighty Eight, ere I was born._