At the most this was but a poor life; but such as it was, the players were obliged to make the best of it. If they were impatient, it was not without some reason, for though Oliver despised the stage, he could condescend to laugh at, and with, men of less dignity in their vocation than actors. Buffoonery was not entirely expelled from his otherwise grave court. At the marriage festival of his daughter Frances and his son-in-law Mr. Rich, the Protector would not tolerate the utterance of a line from Shakspeare, expressed from the lips of a player; but there were hired buffoons at that entertainment, which they well-nigh brought to a tragical conclusion. A couple of these saucy fellows seeing Sir Thomas Hillingsley, the old gentleman-usher to the Queen of Bohemia, gravely dancing, sought to excite a laugh by trying to blacken his face with a burnt cork. The high-bred, solemn old gentleman was so aroused to anger by this unseemly audacity, that he drew his dagger, and, but for swift interference, would have run it beneath the fifth rib of the most active of his rude assailants. On this occasion, Cromwell himself was almost as lively as the hired jesters; snatching off the wig of his son Richard, he feigned to fling it in the fire, but suddenly passing the wig under him, and seating himself upon it, he pretended that it had been destroyed, amid the servile applause of the edified spectators. The actors might reasonably have argued that "Hamlet" in Scotland Yard or at Holland House was a more worthy entertainment than such grown-up follies in the gallery at Whitehall. Those follies ceased to be; Oliver had passed away, and Richard had laid down the greatness which had never sat well upon him. Important changes were at hand, and the merry rattle of Monk's drums coming up Gray's Inn Road, welcomed by thousands of dusty spectators, announced no more cheering prospect to any class than to the actors. The Oxford vintner's son, Will Davenant, might be seen bustling about in happy hurry, eagerly showing young Betterton how Taylor used to play Hamlet, under the instruction of Burbage, and announcing bright days to open-mouthed Kynaston, ready at a moment's warning to leap over his master's counter, and take his standing at the balcony as the smooth-cheeked Juliet.