[66] "Marcelia." [67] Her father never resided at Surinam. He died on the voyage out. [68] The _Biographia Dramatica_ gives 1709 as the year of Mrs. Pix's last play; but this is certainly an error, as Mrs. Bracegirdle, who retired in 1707, is in the cast. [69] Genest states in strong terms his utter disbelief in this story. It is stated in the _Biog. Dram._ that Wilks used this strong expression regarding "A Bold Stroke for a Wife." [Illustration: PRYNNE.] CHAPTER XII. THE AUDIENCES OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. Speedily after the Restoration, there was no more constant visitor at the theatre than Charles II., with a gay, and what is called a gallant, gathering. Thus we are arrested by a crowd at the Temple Gate. On the 15th of August 1661, Charles and the Duke and Duchess of York are leaving the apartments of the Reader, Sir Henry Finch, with whom they have been dining, and an eager audience is awaiting them in the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre, where "The Wits" is to be represented,--a piece "never yet acted," says Pepys, "with scenes." Two nights later, the same piece is playing, and the Queen of Bohemia is there, "brought by my Lord Craven," whom some do not scruple to speak of as the ex-Queen's husband. A week later, Charles and "Madame Palmer" were at the theatre in Drury Lane, with the Duke of York and his wife. "My wife," says Pepys, "to her great content had a full sight of them all the while." The King's Madame Palmer became, in fact, an attraction; seated between Charles and his brother, Pepys beheld her a few weeks later, when he and his wife escorted Lord Sandwich's young daughters to the theatre, and obtained places close to Madame and her double escort. The play was Johnson's "Bartholomew Fair," with the puppets, and all its virulent satire against the Puritans. As Pepys listened and remembered that no one had dared to bring forward this slashing play for the last forty years, he wondered at the audacity of managers now, and grieved that the King should countenance it. But what recked the laughing King, when Puritanism was in the dust, and troops of cavaliers were singing, "Up go we?" Occasionally, if Pepys witnesses a play ill-acted, he finds compensation in sitting near some "pretty and ingenious lady." At that time oranges were more costly than pines are now, and to offer one of the former, even to an unknown fair neighbour, was an intimation of a readiness on the part of the presenter to open a conversation. To behold his most sacred Majesty seated in his box was for ever, with Pepys, even a stronger attraction than the eyes or the wit of the fairest and sprightliest of ladies. Again and again, he registers a vow to refrain from resorting to the theatre during a certain period, but he no sooner hears of the presence there of his religious and gracious King, than he breaks his vow, rushes to the play, perjures himself out of loyal courtesy, and next morning writes himself down an ass.