These disturbed audiences were too unpleasant to afford much employment to the actors.  Francis Kirkman, the author and bookseller, tells us they were often seized on by the soldiers, and stripped and fined at their pleasure.  A curious circumstance occurred in the economy of these strolling theatricals:  these seizures often deprived them of their wardrobe; and among the stage directions of the time, may be found among the exits and the entrances, these:  Enter the red coat—­Exit hat and cloak, which were, no doubt, considered not as the least precious parts of the whole living company:  they were at length obliged to substitute painted cloth for the splendid habits of the drama.

At this epoch a great comic genius, Robert Cox, invented a peculiar sort of dramatic exhibition, suited to the necessities of the time, short pieces which he mixed with other amusements, that these might disguise the acting.  It was under the pretence of rope-dancing that he filled the Red Bull playhouse, which was a large one, with such a confluence that as many went back for want of room as entered.  The dramatic contrivance consisted of a combination of the richest comic scenes into one piece, from Shakspeare, Marston, Shirley, &c., concealed under some taking title; and these pieces of plays were called “Humours” or “Drolleries.”  These have been collected by Marsh, and reprinted by Kirkman, as put together by Cox, for the use of theatrical booths at fairs.[153] The argument prefixed to each piece serves as its plot; and drawn as most are from some of our dramas, these “Drolleries” may still be read with great amusement, and offer, seen altogether, an extraordinary specimen of our national humour.  The price this collection obtains among book-collectors is excessive.  In “The bouncing Knight, or the Robbers robbed,” we recognise our old friend Falstaff, and his celebrated adventure:  “The Equal Match” is made out of “Rule a Wife and have a Wife;” and thus most.  There are, however, some original pieces, by Cox himself, which were the most popular favourites; being characters created by himself, for himself, from ancient farces:  such were The Humours of John Swabber, Simpleton the Smith, &c.  These remind us of the extemporal comedy and the pantomimical characters of Italy, invented by actors of genius.  This Cox was the delight of the city, the country, and the universities:  assisted by the greatest actors of the time, expelled from the theatre, it was he who still preserved alive, as it were by stealth, the suppressed spirit of the drama.  That he merited the distinctive epithet of “the incomparable Robert Cox,” as Kirkman calls him, we can only judge by the memorial of our mimetic genius, which will be best given in Kirkman’s words.  “As meanly as you may now think of these Drolls, they were then acted by the best comedians; and, I may say, by some that then exceeded all now living; the incomparable Robert Cox, who was not only the principal actor, but also the contriver and author