The play, with Burbadge in the role of Melantius, was popular during the lives of the authors. It was acted before the King and Queen in 1636 and it held the stage until the closing of the theatres. It was revived in 1660 and 1661. Pepys saw it at least five times before the middle of May 1668, and found it "too sad and melancholy" but still "a good play." It was popular when Dryden in his _Essay on Dramatick Poesy_, 1668, praised its "labyrinth of design." For a time during the reign of Charles II it was proscribed, possibly because the moral was too readily applicable to the conduct of the "merry monarch"; but the play in its original form was on the stage again by 1677. Before 1685 Waller made at least two attempts to change it from tragedy to tragicomedy by writing a new fifth act in which Evadne was bloodlessly eliminated. In one of these sentimental absurdities the King alone survived; in another the King, preposterously reformed, succeeded in saving Amintor and Aspatia from suicide and joined them in marriage: but neither attempt, though made "to please the Court," was crowned with success. The play enjoyed several other revivals in the first half of the eighteenth century with high popularity, notably at the Haymarket in 1706 when Melantius was played by Betterton, Evadne by Mrs. Barry, and Aspatia by Mrs. Bracegirdle; and again in 1710 just before Betterton's death. In 1742 Theobald writes, that the famous controversy between Melantius and Amintor is always "received with vehement applause." In 1837 the play was acted by Macready at the Haymarket, with alterations by himself and three original scenes by Sheridan Knowles, under the name of _The Bridal_, and, as Dyce tells us, was very favourably received by the public.[242]