Lenten Casts and the Nursery: Evidence for the Dating of Certain Restoration Plays

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Abstract
In determining more narrowly the date of A Session of the Poets, commonly ascribed to John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, c. 1676, the dating of the play Wits Led by the Nose has proved to be of preliminary concern, since it contains the first known reference to A Session. Wits Led has on the title-page verso “August 1677,” the date when it was licensed for printing, but there is no external evidence for the date of composition or of its acting at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane. Falling back on internal evidence, we find this not explicit, but of a significance beyond the dating. The internal evidence for the acting date offers a clue to an unsettled question of identity: who made up the “younger part” of the King's or Duke's Company that acted in Lent, and what relation if any did these actors bear to the Nursery? The answer to this may provide another principle for determining the acting date of certain Restoration plays—the principle, namely, that a particular set of actor's names in a dramatis personæ may have a seasonal significance.

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