In 1660, following the restoration of the monarchy, public theatre became legal for the first time since 1642: patents were issued to two companies, the King's and the Duke's, and illicit rivals were suppressed. The circumstances of performance in the post-Restoration theatre, however, differed significantly from those in the earlier period: for example, outdoor theatres were quickly abandoned, and changeable scenery was introduced. Moreover, whereas women's roles had before the Restoration been played by men, actresses now appeared: a performance by the King's Company on 8 December 1660 featured a special prologue by Thomas Jordan, ' to introduce the first Woman that came to Act on the Stage '. The play was Othello; the actress is unknown. Less than a month later, the new phenomenon had been witnessed, without much comment, by Samuel Pepys: 'I to the Theatre, where was acted Beggars bush - it being very well done; and here the first time that ever I saw Women come upon the stage.' Pepys certainly enjoyed the new opportunity to admire female beauty: on 28 October 1661 he 'saw Argalus and Parthenia, where a woman acted Parthenia, and came afterwards on the Stage in man's clothes, and had the best legs that ever I saw; and I was very well pleas'd with it'. Pepys's theatre-going was not, however, confined to mere ogling, as his variable reactions to Nell Gwyn show. When she acted in Dryden's Secret Love, his admiration was unbounded: 'there is a comical part done by Nell, which is Florimell, that I never can hope ever to see the like done again, by man or woman . . . but so great performance of a comical part was never, I believe, in the world before as Nell do this' (2 March 1667).