"
Every one agreed that the long dry summer menaced some catastrophic change
which should surprise this easy-going age as the plague had done last year.
But oh, how lightly that widespread calamity had touched those light minds!
and, if Providence had designed to warn or to punish, how vain had been
the warning, and how soon forgotten the penalty that had left the worst
offenders unstricken!
There was to be a play at Whitehall that evening, his Majesty and the Court
having returned from Tunbridge Wells, the business of the navy calling
Charles to council with his faithful General--_the_ General _par
excellence_, George Monk, Duke of Albemarle, and his Lord High Admiral and
brother--_par excellence_ the Duke. Even in briefest residence, and on
sternest business intent, with the welfare and honour of the nation
contingent on their consultations, to build or not to build warships of the
first magnitude, the ball of pleasure must be kept rolling. So Killigrew
was to produce a new version of an old comedy, written in the forties,
but now polished up to the modern style of wit. This new-old play, _The
Parson's Widow_, was said to be all froth and sparkle and current interest,
fresh as the last _London Gazette_, and spiced with allusions to the
late sickness, an admirable subject, and allowing a wide field for the
ridiculous.
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