What the two Bettertons made of Lord Beaufort and Graciana, I do not pretend to say, but Nokes is said to have been “screamingly farcical,” to adopt an equivalent modern phrase, in Sir Nicholas Cully. His successor, Norris, fell short of the great original in broad humor, but Nokes himself was surpassed by Dogget, who played “Oliver’s Knight” with all the comic effect which he imparted to the then low comedy part of Shylock. It is inexplicable to me how any actor would ever have extracted a laugh from the audience at anything he had to say, or chose to do, when enacting the “Cavalier of the Commonwealth.” There is not a humorous speech, nor a witty remark, nor a comic situation for the knight to profit by. In 1664, however, people could laugh heartily at seeing one of the Protector’s knights swindled, and beaten on the stage. The knight is represented as a thirsty drunkard, “all the drier for the last night’s wetting,” with a more eager desire to attack the ladies of cavaliers than cavaliers themselves, and no reluctance to cheat any man who will undertake to throw a main with him at dice. He has, however, great reluctance to pay his losses, when he unconsciously falls into the hands of a greater knave than himself, and bodily declares-- “I had been a madman to play at such a rate, If I had ever intended to pay.” He had less boldness in accepting the results of such a declaration, and in meeting his antagonist at the end of a rapier. He is brought to the sticking-point, just as Acres is, by an assurance that his adversary is an arrant coward. The scene of “the Field” is worth quoting in part, inasmuch as it is not only an illustration of the spirit of chivalry, as imputed to Oliver’s knights by cavalier-poets, but also as it will, perhaps, serve to show that when Sheridan sat down at his table in Orchard Street, Portman Square, to bring Acres and Beverley together in mortal combat, he probably had a copy of Etherege’s play before--or the memory of it strong within--him. Wheadle and Cully are on the stage:-- _W._ What makes you so serious? _C._ I am sorry I did not provide for both our safeties. _W._ How so? _C._ Colonel Hanson is my neighbor, and very good friend. I might have acquainted him with the business, and got him, with a file of musketeers, to secure us all. _W._ But this would not secure your honor. What would the world have judged. _C._ Let the world have judged what it would! Have we not had many precedents of late? and the world knows not what to judge.