That he was a very natural actor, or what would now be called "realistic," may be judged from the story told of his performance of a comic blacksmith, and his securing thereby an invitation to work at the forge of a master smith, who had been present among the audience.
"Although your father speaks so ill of you," said the employer of labour, "if you will come and work with me, I will give you twelvepence a-week more than I give any other journeyman." As Kirkman adds: "Thus was he taken for a smith bred, that was, indeed, as much of any trade." It seems certain that for some few years prior to the Restoration there had been far less stringent treatment of the players than in the earlier days of the triumph of Puritanism.

Cromwell, perhaps, rather despised the stage than condemned it seriously on religious grounds; the while he did not object to indulge in buffoonery and horseplay, even in the gallery of Whitehall.

Some love of music he has been credited with, and this, perhaps, induced him to tolerate the operatic dramas of Sir William Davenant, which obtained representation during the Commonwealth: such as "The History of Sir Francis Drake," "represented by instrumental and vocal music, and by art of Perspective in Scenes," and "The Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru." According to Langbaine, the two plays called "The Siege of Rhodes" were likewise acted _"in stilo recitativo"_ during the time of the Civil Wars, and upon the Restoration were rewritten and enlarged for regular performance at the Duke of York's Theatre, in Lincoln's Inn Fields.

It seems to have been held that a play was no longer a play if its words were sung instead of spoken--or these representations of Davenant's works may have been altogether stealthy, and without the cognisance of the legal authorities of the time.

Isaac Disraeli, however, has pointed out that in some verses, published in 1653, and prefixed to the plays of Richard Brome, there is evident a tone of exultation at the passing away of power from the hands of those who had oppressed the actors.