Mrs. Barry's Roxana, in Lee's impressive tragedy of Alexander the Great. Such were the actresses when Nell came among them.
Among the actors at the Duke's were Thomas Betterton, the rival of Burbage and Garrick in the well-earned greatness of his reputation, and the last survivor of the old school of actors; Joseph Harris, the friend of Pepys, originally a seal-cutter, and famous for acting Romeo, Wolsey, and Sir Andrew Aguecheek; William Smith, a barrister of Gray's Inn, celebrated as Zanga in Lord Orrery's Mustapha; Samuel Sandford, called by King Charles II. the best representative of a villain in the world, and praised both by Langbaine and Steele for his excellence in his art; James Nokes, originally a toyman in Cornhill, famous for playing Sir Nicholas Cully in Etherege's Love in a Tub, for his bawling fops, and for his "good company;" Cave Underhill, clever as Cutter in Cowley's comedy, and as the grave-digger in Hamlet, called by Steele "honest Cave Underhill;" and Matthew Medbourne, a useful actor in parts not requiring any great excellence. The women were, Elizabeth Davenport, the first Roxolana in the Siege of Rhodes, snatched from the stage to become the mistress of the twentieth and last Earl of Oxford of the
