"25th (March, 1666-7). To the King's playhouse, and by and by comes Mr. Lowther and his wife and mine, and into a box, forsooth, neither of them being dressed, which I was almost ashamed of. Sir W. Pen and I in the pit, and here saw the 'Mayden Queen' again; which, indeed, the more I see the more I like, and is an excellent play, and so done by Nell her merry part, as cannot be better done in nature. "9th (April, 1667). To the King's house, and there saw the 'Taming of the Shrew,' which hath some very good pieces in it, but generally is but a mean play; and the best part 'Sawny,' done by Lacy; and hath not half its life, by reason of the words, I suppose, not being understood, at least by me. [This was one of the _rifacimentos_ of Shakspeare, by which he was to be rendered palatable.] "15th (April, 1667). To the King's house, by chance, where a new play: so full as I never saw it; I forced to stand all the while close to the very door till I took cold, and many people went away for want of room. The King and Queene and Duke of York and Duchesse there, and all the court, and Sir W. Coventry. The play called 'The Change of Crownes;' a play of Ned Howard's, the best that I ever saw at that house, being a great play and serious; only Lacy did act the country gentleman come up to court with all the imaginable wit and plainness about the selling of places, and doing everything for money. The play took very much. "16th (April, 1667). Knipp tells me the King was so angry at the liberty taken by Lacy's part to abuse him to his face, that he commanded they should act no more, till Moone (Mohun) went and got leave for them to act again, but not in this play. The King mighty angry; and it was bitter indeed, but very fine and witty. I never was more taken with a play than I am with this 'Silent Woman' (Ben Johnson's) as old as it is, and as often as I have seen it. [Ned Howard, the author of 'The Change of Crownes,' was one of the sons of the Earl of Berkshire, and though of a family who helped to bring in the King, was probably connected with the Presbyterians, and disgusted, like many of the royalists on that side, by the disappointments they had experienced in church and state. Dryden, who married one of his sisters, was of a Presbyterian stock. Ned, however, who afterwards became the butt of the wits, was not very nice, and might have 'committed himself,' as the modern phrase is, in his mode of conducting his satire].