and the necessity of borrowing that it involved:

He still must write, and banquier-like, each day
Accept new bills, and he must break or pay.
When through his hands such sums must yearly run,
You cannot think the stock is all his own.

Pepys, who, born in 1633, must have had experiences of youthful
playgoing before the great Civil War, finds evidence afterwards of
"the vanity and prodigality of the age" in the nightly company of
citizens, 'prentices, and others attending the theatre, and holds it a
grievance that there should be so many "mean people" in the pit at two
shillings and sixpence apiece. For several years, he mentions, he had
gone no higher than the twelvepenny, and then the eighteenpenny
places. Oftentimes, however, the king and his court, the Duke and
Duchess of York, and the young Duke of Monmouth, were to be seen in
the boxes. In 1662 Charles's consort, Catherine, was first exhibited
to the English public at the Cockpit Theatre in Drury Lane, when
Shirley's "Cardinal" was represented. Then there are accounts of
scandals and indecorums in the theatre. Evelyn reprovingly speaks of
the public theatres being abused to an "atheistical liberty." Nell
Gwynne is in front of the curtain prattling with the fops, lounging
across and leaning over them, and conducting herself saucily and
impudently enough. Moll Davis is in one box, and my Lady Castlemaine,
with the king, in another. Moll makes eyes at the king, and he at her.
My Lady Castlemaine detects the interchange of glances, and "when she
saw Moll Davies she looked like fire, which troubled me," said Mr.
Pepys, who, to do him justice, was often needlessly troubled about
matters with which, in truth, he had very little concern. There were
brawls in the theatre, and tipsiness, and much license generally. In