In the following passage we have an author's first night before us, and that author the gallant Etherege, with dukes and wits about him in the pit. He makes, however, a very different figure in our eyes from what we commonly conceive of him, for he is unsuccessful and complaining. "My wife," says Pepys, "being gone before (6th Feb. 1667-8), I to the Duke of York's playhouse, where a new play of Etheridge's, called 'She would if she could;' and, though I was there by two o'clock, there was one thousand people put back that could not have room in the pit; and I at last, because my wife was there, made shift to get into the 18_d._ box, and there saw. But Lord! how full was the house, and how silly the play, there being nothing in the world good in it, and few people pleased in it. The King was there; but I sat mightily behind, and could see but little, and hear not at all. The play being done, I into the pit to look for my wife, it being dark and raining; but could not find her, and so staid, going between the two doors and through the pit, an hour and a half, I think, after the play was done, the people staying there till the rain was over, and to talk one with another. And among the rest here was the Duke of Buckingham to-day openly sat in the pit; and there I found him with my Lord Buckhurst, and Sedley, and Etheridge the poet; the last of whom I did hear mightily find fault with the actors, that they were out of humour and had not their parts perfect, and that Harris did do nothing, nor could so much as sing a catch in it; and so was mightily concerned; while all the rest did through the whole pit blame the play as a silly, dull thing, though there was something very roguish and witty; but the design of the play and end mighty insipid. At last I did find my wife." The ensuing is a specimen of the manners of one of the fine ladies:-