Event Comment: Pepys, Diary: Thence after dinner to a play, to see The Generall; which is so dull and so ill-acted, that I think it is the worst I ever saw or heard in all my days. I happened to sit near to Sir Charles Sidly; who I find a very witty man, and he did at every line take notice of the dullness of the poet and badness of the action, that most pertinently; which I was mightily taken with; and among others where by Altemire's command Clarimont, the Generall, is commanded to rescue his Rivall, whom she loved, Lucidor, he, after a great deal of demurre, broke out, "Well, I'le save my Rivall and make her confess, that I deserve, while he do but possesse." "Why, what, pox," says Sir Charles Sydly, "would he have him have more, or what is there more to be had of a woman than the possessing her?" Thence...vexed at my losing my time and above 20s. in money, and neglecting my business to see so bad a play

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. Downes (p. 29): It took well, but Inferior to Love in a Tub. Pepys, Diary: I to the Duke of York's playhouse; where a new play of Etherige's called She Would if she Could; and though I was there by two o'clock, there was 1000 people put back that could not have room in the pit: and I at last, because my wife was there, made shift to get into the 18d. box, and there saw; but, Lord! how full was the house, and how silly the play, there being nothing in the world good in it, and few people pleased in it. The King was there; but I sat mightily behind, and could see but little, and hear not all. The play being done...here was the Duke of Buckingham to-day openly sat in the pit; and there I found him with my Lord Buckhurst, and Sidly, and Etherige, the poet; the last of whom I did hear mightily find fault with the actors, that they were out of humour, and had not their parts perfect, and that Harris did do nothing, nor could so much as sing a ketch in it; and so was mightily concerned: while all the rest did, through the whole pit, blame the play as a silly, dull thing, though there was something very roguish and witty; but the design of the play, and end, mighty insipid. Thomas Shadwell, Preface to The Humorists (1671): The last (viz.) imperfect Action, had like to have destroy'd She Would if she could, which I think (and I have the Authority of some of the best Judges in England for't) is the best Comedy that has been written since the Restauration of the Stage: And even that, for the imperfect representation of it at first, received such prejudice, that, had it not ben for the favour of the Court, in all probability it had never got up again; and it suffers for it, in a great measure, to this very day

Event Comment: See 27 Feb. and 4 March. Pepys, Diary: [Sir W. Coventry] told me the matter of the play [The Rehearsal] that was intended for his abuse, wherein they foolishly and sillily bring in two tables like that which he hath made, with a round hole in the middle, in his closet, to turn himself in; and he is to be in one of them as master, and Sir J. Duncomb in the other, as his man or imitator: and their discourse in those tables, about the disposing of their books and papers, very foolish. But that, that he is offended with, is his being made so contemptible, so that any should dare to make a gentleman a subject for the mirth of the world; and that therefore he had told Tom Killigrew that he should tell his actors, whoever they were, that did offer any thing like representing him, that he would not complain to my Lord Chamberlain, which was too weak, nor get him beaten, as Sir Charles Sidly is said to do, but that he would cause his nose to be cut