Off as on the stage, he was exemplary in his bearing; true to every duty; as good a country gentleman on his farm in Berkshire as he was perfect actor in town; pursuing with his excellent wife the even tenor of his way; not tempted by the vices of his time, nor disturbed by its politics; not tippling like Underhill; not plotting and betraying the plotters against William, like Goodman, nor carrying letters for a costly fee between London and St. Germains, like Scudamore. If there had been a leading player on the stage in 1647, with the qualities, public and private, which distinguished Betterton, there perhaps would have been a less severe ordinance than that which inflicted so much misery on the actors, and which, after a long decline, brought about a fall; from which they were, however, as we shall see, destined to rise and flourish. FOOTNOTES: [12] Should be 1579. Stephen Gosson's _Schoole of Abuse_ was entered at Stationers' Hall, July 22, 1579. Dr. Doran corrects this in the second edition. [13] Gosson was not made rector of St. Botolph till 1600. [14] February 1647-48: that is, February 1648. This act succeeded the one mentioned in the next paragraph. [Illustration: THE GLOBE THEATRE.] CHAPTER III. THE "BOY ACTRESSES," AND THE "YOUNG LADIES." The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, is the "sacred ground" of the English drama since the restoration of monarchy. At the Cockpit (Pit Street remains a memory of the place), otherwise called the Phoenix, in the "lane" above-named, the old English actors had uttered their last words before they were silenced. In a reconstruction of the edifice near, rather than on, the old site, the young English actors, under Rhodes, built their new stage, and wooed the willing town. There was some irregularity in the first steps made to re-establish the stage, which, after an uneasy course of about four years, was terminated by Charles II., who, in 1663,[15] granted patents for two theatres, and no more, in London. Under one patent, Killigrew, at the head of the King's Company (the Cockpit being closed), opened at the new theatre in Drury Lane, in August[16] 1663, with a play of the olden time--the "Humourous Lieutenant" of Beaumont and Fletcher. Under the second patent, Davenant and the Duke of York's Company found a home--first at the old Cockpit, then in Salisbury Court, Fleet Street, the building of which was commenced in 1660, on the site of the old granary of Salisbury house, which had served for a theatre in the early years of the reign of Charles I. This little stage was lapped up by the great tongue of fire, by which many a nobler edifice was destroyed, in 1666. But previous to the fire, thence went Davenant and the Duke's troop to the old Tennis Court, the first of the three theatres in Portugal Row, on the south side of Lincoln's Inn Fields, from which the houses took their name.