“Limberham” was acted at the Duke’s Theatre in Dorset-Garden; for, being a satire upon a court vice, it was deemed peculiarly calculated for that play-house.  The concourse of the citizens thither is alluded to in the prologue to “Marriage-a-la-Mode.”  Ravenscroft also, in his epilogue to the “Citizen turned Gentleman,” acted at the same theatre, disowns the patronage of the courtiers who kept mistresses, probably because they Constituted the minor part of his audience: 

  From the court party we hope no success;
  Our author is not one of the noblesse,
  That bravely does maintain his miss in town,
  Whilst my great lady is with speed sent down,
  And forced in country mansion-house to fix. 
  That miss may rattle here in coach-and-six.

The stage for introducing “Limberham” was therefore judiciously chosen, although the piece was ill received, and withdrawn after being only thrice represented.  It was printed in 1678.

Footnotes:  1.  Reasons for Mr Bayes changing his Religion, p. 24.

2.  See State Trials, vol. viii. pp. 17, 18.

To

The right honourable

John,

LordVaughan, &c[1].

MY LORD,

I cannot easily excuse the printing of a play at so unseasonable a time[2], when the great plot of the nation, like one of Pharaoh’s lean kine, has devoured its younger brethren of the stage.  But however weak my defence might be for this, I am sure I should not need any to the world for my dedication to your lordship; and if you can pardon my presumption in it, that a bad poet should address himself to so great a judge of wit, I may hope at least to escape with the excuse of Catullus, when he writ to Cicero: 

Gratias tibi maximas Catullus Agit, pessimus omnium, poeta; Tanto pessimus omnium poeta, Quanto tu optimns omnium patronus.

I have seen an epistle of Flecknoe’s to a nobleman, who was by some extraordinary chance a scholar; (and you may please to take notice by the way, how natural the connection of thought is betwixt a bad poet and Flecknoe) where he begins thus:  Quatuordecim jam elapsi sunt anni, &c.; his Latin, it seems, not holding out to the end of the sentence:  but he endeavoured to tell his patron, betwixt two languages which he understood alike, that it was fourteen years since he had the happiness to know him.  It is just so long, (and as happy be the omen of dulness to me, as it is to some clergymen and statesmen!) since your lordship has known, that there is a worse poet remaining in the world, than he of scandalous memory, who left it last[3].  I might enlarge upon the subject with my author, and assure you, that I have served as long for you, as one of the patriarchs did for his Old-Testament mistress; but I leave those