The clothes worn by the players upon the stage were of superior quality--fine dresses were of especial value in times prior to the introduction of scenery--and the loss was hard to bear.

The public, it was feared, would be loath to believe in the merits of an actor who was no better attired than themselves.

But at length it became too hazardous, as Kirkman relates, in the preface to "The Wits, or Sport upon Sport," 1672, "to act anything that required any good cloaths; instead of which painted cloath many times served the turn to represent rich habits." Kirkman's book is a collection of certain "scenes or parts of plays ...

the fittest for the actors to represent at this period, there being little cost in the cloaths, which often then were in great danger to be seized by the soldiers." These "select pieces of drollery, digested into scenes by way of dialogue, together with variety of humours of several nations, fitted for the pleasure and content of all persons, either in court, city, county, or camp," were first printed in 1662, by H.Marsh, and were originally contrived by Robert Cox, a comic genius in his way, who exhibited great ingenuity in evading the ordinances of Parliament, and in carrying on dramatic performances in spite of the Puritans.

He presented at the Red Bull what were professedly entertainments of rope-dancing, gymnastic feats, and such coarse practical fun as may even now be seen in the circus of strolling equestrian companies; but with these he cunningly intermingled select scenes from the comedies of the best English dramatists.