" Yet, all this notwithstanding,
some little show of life stirred now and then in the seeming corpse of
the drama. A few players met furtively, assembled a select audience,
and gave a clandestine performance, more or less complete, in some
obscure quarter. Secret Royalists and but half-hearted Puritans
abounded, and these did not scruple to abet a breach of the law, and
to be entertained now and then in the old time-honoured way.
With the Restoration, however, Thespis enjoyed his own again, and sock
and buskin became once more lawful articles of apparel. Charles II.
mounted the throne arm-in-arm, as it were, with a player-king and
queen. The London theatres reopened under royal patronage, and in the
provinces the stroller was abroad. He had his enemies, no doubt.
Prejudice is long-lived, of robust constitution. Puritanism had struck
deep root in the land, and though the triumphant Cavaliers might hew
its branches, strip off its foliage, and hack at its trunk, they could
by no means extirpate it altogether. Religious zealotry, strenuous and
stubborn, however narrow, had fostered, and parliamentary enactments
had warranted, hostility of the most uncompromising kind to the player
and his profession.
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