his other dramatic writings, in his mind, when he wrote the following
verses; where the impurity of the stage is traced to its radical
source, the debauchery of the court:

Then courts of kings were held in high renown,
Ere made the common brothels of the town.
There virgins honourable vows received,
But chaste, as maids in monasteries, lived.
The king himself, to nuptial rites a slave,
No bad example to his poets gave;
And they, not bad, but in a vicious age,
Had not, to please the prince, debauched the stage.
_Wife of Bath's Tale._

"Limberham" was acted at the Duke's Theatre in Dorset-Garden; for,
being a satire upon a court vice, it was deemed peculiarly calculated
for that play-house. The concourse of the citizens thither is alluded
to in the prologue to "Marriage-a-la-Mode." Ravenscroft also, in his
epilogue to the "Citizen turned Gentleman," acted at the same theatre,
disowns the patronage of the courtiers who kept mistresses, probably
because they Constituted the minor part of his audience:

From the court party we hope no success;
Our author is not one of the noblesse,
That bravely does maintain his miss in town,
Whilst my great lady is with speed sent down,
And forced in country mansion-house to fix.
That miss may rattle here in coach-and-six.

The stage for introducing "Limberham" was therefore judiciously