'" If it so chanced that
the players were refractory, then "the benches, the tiles, the lathes,
the stones, oranges, apples, nuts, flew about most liberally; and as
there were mechanics of all professions, everyone fell to his own
trade, and dissolved a house on the instant, and made a ruin of a
stately fabric. It was not then the most mimical nor fighting man
could pacify; prologues nor epilogues would prevail; the Devil and the
Fool [evidently two popular characters at this time] were quite out of
favour; nothing but noise and tumult fills the house," &c. &c.
Concerning the dramatist of the time, upon the occasion of the first
performance of his play, his anxiety, irascibility, and peculiarities
generally, Ben Jonson provides sufficient information. "We are not so
officiously befriended by him," says one of the characters in the
Induction to "Cynthia's Revels," "as to have his presence in the
tiring-house, to prompt us aloud, stamp at the bookholder [or
prompter], swear at our properties, curse the poor tireman, rail the
musick out of tune, and sweat for every venial trespass we commit as
some author would.
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