upon Nelly, who spoke the prologue "in a broad-brimmed hat and waist-belt," and apologised in the following manner for her appearance, to the renewed delight of the whole audience:
This jest was first of th' other House's making,
And, five times tried, has never failed of taking;
For 'twere a shame a poet should be kill'd
Under the shelter of so broad a shield.
This is that hat whose very sight did win ye
To laugh and clap as though the devil were in ye.
As then for Nokes, so now I hope you'll be
So dull to laugh once more for love of me.
The jest "of the other house's making" is said to have occurred in May, 1670, while the Court was at Dover, to receive the King's sister, the beautiful Duchess of Orleans. The reception of her royal highness was attended with much pomp and gaiety—the Duke's company of actors playing Shadwell's "Sullen Lovers," and Caryl's "Sir Salomon, or the Cautious Coxcomb," before the Duchess and her suite. One of the characters in Caryl's comedy is that of Sir Arthur Addle, a bawling fop, played by Nokes with a reality of action and manner then unsurpassed upon the stage. The dress of the French attending the Duchess, and present at the performance of the plays, included an excessively short laced scarlet or blue coat, with a broad waist-belt, which Nokes took care to laugh at, by wearing a still shorter coat of
