This done, T.
Killigrew and I to talk: and he tells me how the audience at his
house is not above half so much as it used to be before the late
fire. That Knipp is like to make the best actor that ever come
upon the stage, she understanding so well: that they are going
to give her 30l. a-year more. That the stage is now by his pains
a thousand times better and more glorious than ever heretofore.
Now wax-candles, and many of them; then not above 3 lbs. of
tallow: now all things civil, no rudeness any where; then, as in
a bear-garden: then two or three fiddlers, now nine or ten of
the best: then nothing but rushes upon the ground, and every
thing else mean; now all otherwise: then the Queene seldom and
the King never would come; now, not the King only for state, but
all civil people do think they may come as well as any. He tells
me that he hath gone several times (eight or ten times, he tells
me,) hence to Rome, to hear good musique; so much he loves it,
though he never did sing or play a note. That he hath ever
endeavoured in the late King's time and in this to introduce good
musique, but he never could do it, there never having been any
musique here better than ballads.
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