contending before him, because that, being a natural production, could
not possibly tell lies, whereas a steel pen, as an artificial
contrivance, could not be depended on for veracity; wherefore, in all
law proceedings, even at the lowest police court, quill pens only could
be used, for the law on morality and public policy grounds strongly
objects to lies; it is itself so truthful! Of course, I believed all my
mother told me; children are so easy of belief if you only look serious
when you tell them crammers. But I know better now, and crowns no
longer represent to me sovereignty, nor wigs wisdom. Of another
delusion, too, I have been cured. When I was a young man I was told
that English law was the perfection of human wisdom. I believed this
then, for I was only a bigger child without experience. But when I
arrived at years of discretion--that is, when I began to observe and
reflect--I could come to no other conclusion than that the axiom of the
law's wisdom was a delusion. There are many ways of proving this, but
one argument presents itself, which renders all further proofs
unnecessary. Can a code which comprises a number of laws, the
interpretation of whose import is liable to be declared by one judge to
mean 'Yes,' whilst another as positively maintains it means 'No,' be
called the perfection of human wisdom? The ever-growing frequency of
appeals alone is sufficient to show that the existing laws are ambiguous
in expression, and lend themselves to the idiosyncrasies of every
individual judge, which is very far from perfection. Laws should be as
precise in their definitions as mathematical formulae. To substantiate
my reasoning, let me quote an actual case: Some twelve or thirteen years
ago, the captain of a cargo steamer belonging to a London firm, while
loading maize at Odessa, signed bills of lading which were ante-dated.
Between the false date and the real one, a few days after, of loading,
there was a considerable fall in the price of maize, and the consignees,
who were the sufferers by it, brought an action against the owners of
the steamer, they--the consignees--having discovered the ante-dating,
and recovered L437 damages, which the shipowners paid. On the captain's
return to England, he made a claim of L190 for wages, which claim was
admitted by the firm, but they set up a counter-claim for the damages
they had had to pay to the consignees, through the captain's negligence
and breach of duty in signing the ante-dated bills. The case went to
trial before Mr. Justice Field and a jury, and was decided in the
captain's favour, both as to his wages and the counter-claim. The
owners appealed, and the Divisional Court, consisting of Grove, Denman,
and Wills, ordered the judgment to be set aside, and a new trial
granted. The Appeal Court ordered the original judgment in favour of
the captain to be restored. The owners then took the cause into the
House of Lords, where Lords Watson, Blackburn, and Fitzgerald restored
the order of the Divisional Court in favour of the owners, with all the
costs they had incurred. Now, here was a case of breach of duty as
plain as it could be, yet it took four trials, the costs amounting to
about L4,000, to decide the question. This is but one of a hundred
similar cases which might be cited. With what wisdom can laws be framed
which can give rise to so many judicial contradictory decisions? And the
fault of this lies not with the judges, but with the legislators, whose
only wisdom seems to consist in surrounding plain matter-of-fact with a
network of sophistry, chicanery, and hair-splitting subtleties--a system
which is constantly regretted by the judges themselves, who are ever
ready to warn the public against indulgence in litigation, for English
judges, as a rule, are straightforward, honourable men, who are inclined
to take common-sense and impartial views, except when a political or
theological bias gives a twist to their judgment. Nor can it be left
out of our consideration that men educated in the legal schools of the
Inns of Court, and by teachers strongly impressed with the dignity and
importance of their pursuit, should adhere to it with cast-iron
rigidity, thus opposing, as much as possible, the introduction of new,
and in their estimation, revolutionary and destructive opinions. It is
due to this adherence to, and maintenance of, the principles of a
barbarous and an arbitrary regime that the judges still possess the
tremendous power of committing for contempt of court any person who may
make a remark displeasing to them, however innocently that remark may
have been made. Years ago I defended an action brought against me by a
tradesman for certain goods he alleged he had supplied me with. The
action was tried in a County Court. The plaintiff made his statement,
which introduced several particulars which were as new to me as they
were false. But my solicitor whom I had brought with me could not know
they were so. I turned towards the judge, and stated that I could prove
in two minutes that there was not a word of truth in the plaintiff's
statements. But the judge turned quite savagely towards me, saying:
'You must not speak to me. You have your solicitor here.'
'But,' I replied, 'my solicitor cannot know that these assertions are
false!'
'Be silent!' thundered the judge. 'If you say another word I shall
commit you for contempt.'
Of course I said no more, but, like the parrot, thought a lot. I knew
that a judge, a mere County Court judge, who passes his life amidst the
most sordid and depressing scenes of wretchedness, had the power of
sending me to prison, and to keep me there till I made the most abject
apology for a speech which was never intended to be offensive. Persons
have been kept in prison for twenty years by the mere order of a judge,
who was plaintiff, jury, and judge in every such case. This is scarcely
in accordance with our ideas of justice. But this relic of a barbarous
age will be abolished in time, as the Courts of Doctors' Commons, or the
Palace Court, where a number of sleepy old gentlemen
'Were sittin' at their ease,
A-sendin' of their writs about,
And drorin' in their fees,'
have been abolished. And there is no doubt that our modern judges are
superior in talent, adroitness, and acuteness to those of former days.
They are men of high-breeding, combining in their characteristics those
of the courtier and of the lawyer. Judges of the past were different;
in fact, some of the old judges were noted for their eccentricities.
Lord Thurlow was one of them. When he was still an aspirant for
forensic fame, he was one evening at Nando's Coffee-house--now a
hairdresser's shop, opposite Chancery Lane, falsely called the palace of
Henry VIII. and Cardinal Wolsey. Arguing keenly about a celebrated case
then before the courts, he was heard by some lawyers, who were so
pleased with his handling of the matter that next day they appointed him
junior counsel, and the cause won him a silk gown. This was in 1754.
It is asserted that he was singularly ugly, and that when his portrait
was shown to Lavater, the physiognomist said: 'Whether that man is on
earth or in another place, which shall be nameless, I know not; but
wherever he is, he is a born tyrant, and will rule if he can.' And the
opinion thus formed was a correct one, for Lord Thurlow was fierce and
overbearing as a statesman, and was more feared than any other member of
the Cabinet. In 1778 he had become Lord Chancellor, and been raised to
the Peerage. His ugliness must have been a fact, for the Duke of
Norfolk, who had at Arundel Castle a fine breed of owls, named one of
them, on account of its ugliness, Lord Thurlow. Great fun was caused by
a messenger coming to the Duke in the Lobby of the House of Peers with
the news that Lord Thurlow had laid an egg.
In 1785 Lord Thurlow purchased Brockwell Green Farm, and other lands in
the neighbourhood of Dulwich and Norwood, and chose Knight's Hill as a
suitable site for a house. The house was finished, but Lord Thurlow
considered it too dear--it is said to have cost L30,000--and would never
live in it, but remained in a smaller house, called Knight's Hill Farm.
As he was coming from the Queen's Drawing-room, a lady asked him when he
was going into his new house. 'Madam,' he replied, 'the Queen has just
asked me that impudent question, and, as I would not tell her, I will
not tell you.' Both the mansion and the farmhouse disappeared long ago.
The romantic marriage of Lord Eldon, then plain Mr. John Scott, of the
Northern Circuit, forms a pleasant episode in legal history. Bessie
Surtees was the daughter of Aubone Surtees, a banker and gentleman of
honourable descent at Newcastle. Scott had met and danced with her at
the assemblies in that town, and his pretensions were at first favoured
by her family; but Sir William Blackett, a patrician but aged suitor,
presenting himself, Bessie was urged to throw over Scott and become Lady
Blackett. But Bessie was faithful, and one night descended from a
window into her lover's arms, and they were married at Blackshiels,
North Britain. The future Lord Eldon came to London with his young and
pretty wife, and settled in a humble, small house in Cursitor Street.
Their housekeeping at first must have been on a somewhat restricted
scale, for Lord Eldon, in after-life, used to relate that, in those
days, he frequently ran into Clare Market for sixpennyworth of sprats.
It was probably owing to these privations in the early days of their
married life that her husband had afterwards to complain of her
stinginess and her repugnance to society. In fact, she seems to have
ruled him rather sternly, for we read of his often stealing into the
George Coffee House, at the top of the Haymarket, to get a pint of wine,
as Lady Eldon did not permit him to enjoy it in peace at home. Cyrus
Redding, who tells us this, did not like Eldon either as a Tory or as a
man. 'His words,' he writes, 'were no index to his real feelings. He
had a sterile soul for all things earthly, except money, doubts, and the
art of drawing briefs.'
Cyrus Joy, who was present at the funeral of Lord Gifford, who was
buried in the Rolls Chapel, relates that Lord Eldon and Lord Chief
Justice Abbott were placed in a pew by themselves, and that he saw Lord
Eldon, who was very shaky during the most solemn part of the service,
touch the Chief Justice, evidently for his snuff-box, for the box was
produced, and he took a large pinch of snuff, but the moment he had
taken it he threw it away. 'I was astonished,' says Joy, 'at the
deception practised by so great a man, with the grave yawning before
him.' Whilst Lord Eldon held the Great Seal, in 1812, a fire occurred
at Encombe, his country seat in Dorsetshire. As soon as it broke out,
Lord Eldon buried the Seal in the garden whilst the engine played on the
burning house. All the men-servants were helping to supply it with
water. 'It was,' wrote Lord Eldon, 'a very pretty sight, for all the
maids turned out of their beds, and formed a line from the water to the
fire-engine, handing the buckets. They looked very pretty, all in their
shifts.' When the fire was subdued, Lord Eldon had forgotten where he
had buried the Seal, and all the gardeners and maids who had looked so
pretty by firelight were set to work to dig up the garden till the Seal
was found. Lord Eldon could be very rude at times. He and the
Archbishop dined with George III., when he said: 'It is a curious fact
that your Majesty's Archbishop and your Lord Chancellor married
clandestinely. I had some excuse, certainly, for Bessie Surtees was the
prettiest girl in all Newcastle; but Mrs. Sutton was always the same
pumpkin-faced thing that she is at present.' The King was much amused,
as we are told.
Lord Eldon's brother, Sir William Scott, had a strange matrimonial
experience. His brother eloped with a man's daughter, and thus entered
the wedded state somewhat illegally. Sir William may be said to have
entered it, in the true sense of the word, legally--that is, as a result
of his legal status. He and Lord Ellenborough presided at the Old
Bailey at the trial of the young Marquis of Sligo for having, while in
the Mediterranean, lured into his yacht two of the King's sailors, for
which offence he was fined L5,000, and sentenced to four months'
imprisonment in Newgate. Throughout the trial his mother sat in the
court, hoping that her presence would rouse in the bench or the jury
feelings favourable to her son. When the above sentence was pronounced,
Sir William accompanied it by a long moral jobation on the duties of a
citizen. The Marchioness sent a paper full of satirical thanks to Sir
William for his good advice to her son. Sir William read it as he sat
on the bench, and, having looked towards the lady, received from her a
glance and a smile which sealed his fate. Within four months he was
tied fast (on April 10, 1813) to a voluble, shrill termagant, who
rendered him miserable and contemptible. He removed to his wife's house
in Grafton Street, and, ever economical in his domestic expenses,
brought with him his own door-plate from Doctor's Commons, and placed it
under the pre-existing plate of Lady Sligo. Jekyll, the punster of the
day, condoled with Sir William at having to 'knock under.' Sir William
had the plates transposed.
'You see, I don't knock under now,' he said to Jekyll.
'Not now,' replied the punster; 'now you knock up.'
This was said with reference to his advanced age.
Lord Erskine, another famous judge, when dining one day at the house of
Sir Ralph Payne, afterwards Lord Lavington, found himself so indisposed
as to be obliged to retire after dinner to another room. When he
returned to the company, Lady Payne asked how he found himself. Erskine
took out a piece of paper and wrote on it:
''Tis true I am ill, but I cannot complain,
For he never knew pleasure who never knew Payne.'
After he had ceased to hold the Seals as Lord Chancellor--and the time
he held the office was one year only--he met Captain Parry at dinner,
and asked him what he and his crew lived on in the Frozen Sea. Parry
replied that they lived on seals. 'And capital things too, seals are,
if you only keep them long enough,' was Erskine's reply. Being invited
to attend the Ministerial fish dinner at Greenwich when he was
Chancellor, 'To be sure,' he answered; 'what would your dinner be
without the Great Seal?' When Erskine lived at Hampstead he was asked
at a dinner-party he attended, 'The soil is not the best in that part of
Hampstead where your seat is?' 'No,' he answered, 'very bad; for though
my grandfather was buried there as an Earl near a hundred years ago,
what has sprouted from it since but a mere Baron?' Erskine married when
very young, and had four sons and four daughters. When a widower and
getting old he married a second time, and his latter days were passed in
a state bordering on indigence. He died in 1823, in poverty. On July
17, 1826, a woman, poorly dressed, was brought before the Lord Mayor by
a chimney-sweep as a person deserving assistance. The woman, being
interrogated, declared herself to be Lady Erskine. The Lord Mayor
conducted her into his private room, where he heard her sad story. She
had lived with Lord Erskine several years before he married her, which
he did in Scotland, whereby their children (four) were legitimatized.
His death left her destitute, though she had been promised a pension
from Government of twelve shillings a week, which had been paid very
irregularly, and finally withdrawn altogether, because she would not be
parted from her youngest child. The others had been taken care of by
Government. She had for years endeavoured to maintain herself by female
labour, but now she was totally destitute and actually starving. The
Lord Mayor liberally supplied her present wants, and promised to
intercede for her with Government, with what result we have been unable
to ascertain. It was Mr. H. Erskine, brother of Lord Erskine, who,
after being presented to Dr. Johnson by Boswell, slipped a shilling into
the latter's hand, whispering that it was for showing him his bear.
Erskine could mould a jury at his pleasure, yet in Parliament he was not
successful as an orator. But when pleading he was always ready with
repartee. Once, when insisting on the validity of an argument before
Lord Mansfield, the latter said: 'I disproved it before you were born!'
'Yes, my Lord,' replied Erskine, 'because I was not born.' Lord Erskine
owned that the most discreditable passage in his life was his becoming
Lord Chancellor. Some other judges seem to have had no faith in their
own works. Lord Campbell was seated one day next to Chief Baron
Pollock, when they were both Members of the House of Commons, and said:
'Pollock, we lawyers receive the highest wages of an infamous
profession.'
Sir Nicholas Bacon was so learned in the law that he was appointed
attorney in the Court of Wards, and made a Privy Councillor and Keeper
of the Great Seal under Elizabeth. When the Queen visited him at
Redgrave, she observed, alluding to his corpulence, that he had built
the house too little for himself. 'Not so, madam,' he answered; 'but
your Majesty has made me too big for my house.' A man was brought
before Sir Nicholas accused of a crime which, under the Draconian laws
then in force, involved the penalty of death. He was found guilty, and,
asked whether he had anything to say for himself, appealed to the
judge's compassion, seeing that he was a kind of relation to him, his
name being Hogg. 'True,' replied Bacon; 'but Hog is not Bacon till it's
hung.' And hung, or hanged, to speak correctly, he was, and thus did
not save his bacon. But the jest was a cruel one.
*VII.*
*SOME FAMOUS LONDON ACTRESSES.*
Distance lends enchantment to the view, but the view frequently does not
return it, a common practice with borrowers! Distance alone invests the
East with a halo of romance and beauty, to which it really can lay no
claim. The romance is the invention of Western imagination, and the
beauty, if not tawdry, is monstrous. In no respect is this excess of
imagination over the reality more apparent than in the eidolon the
European forms in his mind of Eastern female beauty. He hears or reads
of houris, and nautch-girls, and bayaderes, and the dancing-women of
Japan and Burmah; but if ever he sees any of them he will be
disenchanted, for awkward figures they are, wrapped up in clothes like
so many sacks, twisted and tied over one another--if not old, at least
middle-aged women with rings in their noses. Pooh! enough of them! The
real beauties the European never gets a sight of, they are shut up in
harems. But still he thinks the East the region of beauty, and longs
for it, even when he sees beauty in perfection in the West, where alone
it is to be found, because in Western lands alone physical and
intellectual or perfect beauty exists in combination. And this
combination is most frequently seen, as may be surmised from the nature
of her avocation, in the actress. Women first appeared on the English
stage in 1660. On December 6 in that year, at the performance of
'Othello' at the Duke's Theatre, Lincoln's Inn Fields, the prologue
spoken is entitled: 'A prologue to introduce the first woman that came
to act on the stage.' Pepys went to see 'The Beggar's Bush' at the same
theatre on January 3, 1661, and reports: 'Here the first time that ever
I saw a woman come upon the stage.' But the Queen had long before then,
namely, in 1633, acted in a pastoral given at Court. The practice
having, however, been introduced at the Duke's Theatre, was continued,
to the disgust of moralists, who looked upon the 'enormous shamefulness'
of female acting as a sinful practice. Even the intelligent and
generally liberal-minded Evelyn speaks of the drama as abused to 'an
atheistical liberty,' by the circumstance of women being suffered to
become performers. In his Diary, October 18, 1666, he writes: 'This
night was acted my Lord Broghill's tragedy, called "Mustapha," before
their Majesties at Court, at which I was present, very seldom going to
the public theatres for many reasons now, as they were abused to an
atheistical liberty, foul and indecent women now (and never till now)
permitted to appear and act, who, inflaming several young noblemen and
gallants, became their misses, and to some their wives, witness ye Earl
of Oxford, Sir R. Howard, P. Rupert, the Earl of Dorset, and another
greater person than any of them, who fell into their snares, to ye
reproach of their noble families, and ruin of both body and soul.' By
'another greater person,' Evelyn no doubt intended the King himself,
Charles II., who had at least three avowed mistresses taken from the
stage--Madam Davis, Mrs. Knight, and Nell Gwynne. Miss Davis was,
according to Pepys, a natural daughter of the Earl of Berkshire. He
went to see her perform on March 7, 1666, in 'The English Princess,' and
'little Miss Davis did dance a jigg after the end of the play, and there
telling the next day's play, so that it came in by force only to see her
dance in boy's clothes.' Mrs. Knight was a famous singer. Kneller
painted her portrait. Of Nell Gwynne we shall have occasion to speak
further on. At the same theatre Mrs. Davenport, the lady who played the
part of Roxalana in 'The Siege of Rhodes,' was taken to be the Earl of
Oxford's _misse_, as at this time they began to call lewd women, as
Evelyn says. But Evelyn evidently was badly informed. Mrs. Davenport
for a long time refused the Earl of Oxford's presents and overtures,
but, on his offering to marry her, she consented. The ceremony was
performed, and they lived together for some time, and then the Earl
informed her that the marriage was a sham, and that the mock parson was
one of his trumpeters. In vain the deluded woman appealed to the laws,
in vain she threw herself at the King's feet to demand justice. She
might consider herself lucky to obtain a pension of L300. Pepys saw her
afterwards at the theatre, and says: 'Saw the old Roxalana in the chief
box, in a velvet gown, as the fashion is, and very handsome, at which I
was glad.'
Moll Davies was another of the King's favourites, and he is said to have
fallen in love with her through her singing 'My Lodging is on the Cold
Ground' in 'The Rivals,' a play altered by Davenant from Beaumont and
Fletcher's 'The Two Noble Kinsmen.' Pepys frequently mentions her as a
rival to Nell Gwynne. She had one daughter by Charles, who was
christened Mary Tudor, and was married in 1687 to the son of Sir Francis
Ratcliff, who became Earl of Derwentwater. When the King grew tired of
her he settled a pension on her of L1,000 a year. It was as a
descendant of this Earl that the lady who called herself Amelia,
Countess of Derwentwater, in 1868 took possession of the old baronial
castle of Devilstone, or Dilston, claiming it and the estates belonging
thereto, but then and now vested in Greenwich Hospital, as hers. But
the Lords of the Admiralty, in 1870, defeated her claim, and she
disappeared from public view.
Another famous actress in the days of Charles II. was Margaret Hughes,
of whom Prince Rupert became enamoured. At first she pretended to be
fiercely virtuous, so as to secure a higher price for her favours. And,
in fact, the Prince settled on her Brandenburgh House, near Hammersmith,
in which she lived about ten years. The house afterwards became the
residence of Queen Caroline, who died there, shortly after which it was
demolished.
Whatever may be said against women appearing on the stage, there is
something more repulsive in men and boys taking female parts in a play,
at least, so it seems to our moral feelings, and aesthetically the
practice is still more objectionable. Male performers can never
represent the spontaneous grace, melting voice, and tender looks of a
female, and the ludicrous contretemps the custom frequently caused
further showed its absurdity. Thus, on one occasion, Charles II.
inquired why the commencement of the play was delayed. The manager
stepped forward and craved his Majesty's indulgence, as the queen was
not yet shaved. And whatever Prynne might say in his 'Histrio Mastix'
against female actors, the practice caught on and became general. Of
course, the opposition did not cease at once; even in France it raised
its head as late as 1733. A speaker against the stage spoke thus at the
Jesuits' College in Paris: 'They (the actresses) do not form the deadly
shafts of Cupid, but they level them with the eye, and shoot with the
utmost dexterity and skill. Such women I mean as represent destructive
love characters.... How artfully do they hurl the most inconsiderable
dart! What multitudes are wounded by a single one!' And, indeed, what
multitudes have our Nancy Oldfields, Bracegirdles, Gwynnes, Kitty
Clives, Perditas, Meltons, and the whole galaxy of theatrical beauties
not only wounded, but conquered, and sometimes killed!
The life of an actress had many ups and downs--as it has now--in former
days. There was the eccentric Charlotte Charke, daughter of Colley
Cibber, who for some mysterious reason for many years went in male
attire, and who acted on the stage if she could get employment. There
was then in Bear Yard, Clare Market, a theatre, occasionally used as a
tennis-court and as an auction-room. 'Thither,' she says in her
Memoirs, 'I adventured to see if there was any character wanting--a
custom very frequent among the gentry who exhibited in that
slaughter-house of dramatic poetry. One night, I remember, the
"Recruiting Officer" was to be performed.... To my unbounded joy
Captain Plume was so unfortunate that he came at five o'clock to say
that he did not know a word of his part.... The question being put to
me, I immediately replied that I could do such a thing, but was ...
resolved to stand upon terms ... one guinea paid in advance, which terms
were complied with.'
We mentioned above that the life of an actress has many ups and downs
even now. In justification of that statement let us quote from the
_Star_ of September 12, 1896: 'A pathetic story of an aged lady, who had
been a popular actress, but upon whom evil days had come, and who was
found dead in a poorly-furnished bedroom in a third-floor back at
Whitfield Street, Tottenham Court Road, was told yesterday to the
coroner. The old lady was Louisa Marshall, aged seventy, sister of a
celebrated clown at Drury Lane, who died before her. She used to teach
the piano, and had a small pension from the Musical and Dramatic Sick
Fund. The contents of her room, an old piano and some theatrical
dresses, were said to be worth fifty shillings at most.' But, as Byron
says, let us lay this sheet of sorrow on the shelf, and speak of lively,
joyous Nell Gwynne, who drove that amorous Pepys nearly mad. His Diary
is full of her. First she is simply 'pretty, witty Nell' (April 3,
1665). On January 23, 1666, Nelly is brought to him in a box at the
theatre. 'A most pretty woman.... I kissed her, and so did my wife,
and a mighty pretty soul she is.' On March 2, in the same year, 'Nell
... comes in like a young gallant, and hath the motions and carriage of
a spark the most that ever I saw any man have. It makes me, I confess,
admire her.' On May 1, 1667, he writes: 'To Westminster. In the way
many milkmaids with their garlands upon their pails, dancing with a
fiddler before them, and saw pretty Nelly standing at her lodging's door
in Drury Lane, in her smock sleeves and bodice, looking upon one. She
seemed a mighty pretty creature.' But, according to her ardent admirer,
this 'mighty pretty creature' could use mighty strong language too, for
he says of her (October 5, 1667): 'But to see how Nell cursed for having
so few people in the pit was strange.' And again, on October 26, he
reports: 'Nelly and Beck Marshall (one of the great Presbyterian's
daughters) falling out the other day, the latter called the other my
Lord Buckhurst's mistress. Nell answered her: "I was but one man's
mistress, though I was brought up in a disreputable house to fill strong
waters to the gentlemen, and you are a mistress to three or four, though
a Presbyter's praying daughter."' And Nell may have been right, for Beck
Marshall seems to have been a trifle fast. Pepys says, on May 2, 1668:
'To the King's (play) house, where ... the play being over, I did see
Beck Marshall come dressed off the stage, and look mighty fine and
pretty, and noble; and also Nell, in her boy's clothes, mighty pretty.
But, Lord! their confidence, and how many men do hover about them as
soon as they come off the stage, and how confident they are in their
talk!' Pepys, in the end, seems to have cooled in his devotion to
pretty Nell, for on January 7, 1669, he wrote in his Diary: 'My wife and
I to the King's play-house.... We sat in an upper box, and the jade
Nell came and sat in the next box, a bold, merry slut, who lay laughing
there upon people, and with a comrade of hers, of the Duke's house, that
came in to see the play.'