There were in the theatre many well-known faces. Sir Bacon was sitting in the front, but he went to sleep shortly after the beginning of the play, and slept right until the end, none daring to disturb him. At the end of the play his servants woke him up by shaking him. He is a busy man, and goes to the theatre for repose, liking well the music, the high screeching of the players, and the buzz of tongues, and finding them conducive to repose. In one of the boxes Guasconi pointed me out the beautiful Countess of Nottingham, whom, he said, the English consider to be one of their most beautiful countrywomen. She has the marks of race, and was richly and elegantly dressed in black and crimson colours. With her was a young nobleman whom I took to be her son, but Guasconi told me that this was not so. He was her second husband. One nobleman, the Earl of Essex, arrived in the middle of the performance, and talked loudly to his friends, paying but little attention to the players. Since his father was beheaded not long ago it was considered a lapse in taste on his part to visit the theatre so soon. In the theatre were several well-known players from other theatres, who were much clapped by the populace when they entered. The crowd was good-humoured, and pleased with the show: but they made a great noise, eating oranges and nuts, and throwing shells and peel right and left. There were also in the audience some men of letters, scholars and noblemen, whose fame as writers of verse is the talk of the town. For instance, Lord Southampton, who has written over a hundred sonnets; Sir Iger and the Countess of Pembrock, the author of “The Fall of Troy,” which those who know say is the finest epic which has been written since the death of Virgil. There were also many students, who were tempestuous and unruly in the expression of their enjoyment, and among these many vagabond writers and ballad-mongers. The show was not displeasing, being full of much excellent clowning and fine dresses. It is a tale of murder and revenge such as have been brought into the fashion by the Italian story-tellers. It is brutal, and therefore suits the English taste, for Guasconi tells me the English will not go to the playhouse unless they can see tales of battle and murder with plenty of fighting on the stage, mixed with grotesque episodes and rough horseplay. The players declaimed their words nicely, and the utterance of the verse, especially that which was spoken by the young boy who played the part of the mad heroine of the play, struck me as being not unmelodious poetry, but when I said this to the young literary noblemen with whom we supped after the performance, they split their sides with laughter, and said how impossible it was for a foreigner to judge the literature of a country which was not his own.