[In the following excerpt, Sprague discusses two plays adapted by Buckingham: The Chances, originally by Fletcher, and The Restauration from Philaster, or Love Lies a Bleeding, by Beaumont and Fletcher.]

BUCKINGHAM (?), THE RESTORATION

In The Miscellaneous Works of His Grace George, Late Duke of Buckingham, printed nearly twenty years after his death, appeared two excellent pieces entitled respectively, A Prologue to Philaster and The Epilogue, to be spoken by the Governour in Philaster.¹ Both, it is expressly stated, were written “by the Duke of Buckingham,” and I see no reason to question the attribution.

Our next notice of the play is from the anonymous preface to the octavo Beaumont and Fletcher of 1711—in general a mere scrapbook. Buckingham, we are told, after writing The Chances, “bestow'd some time in altering another Play of our Authors, call'd Philaster, or Love lies a Bleeding; He made very considerable Alterations in it, and took it with him, intending to finish it the last Journey he made to Yorkshire in the Year 1686. I cannot learn what is become of the Play with his Grace's Alterations, but am very well inform'd it was since the Revolution in the Hands of Mr. Nevil Payn, who was Imprison'd at Edinburgh in the Year 1689.”² Into the career of this personage—a petty writer and political meddler, whose unenviable distinction it was to be the last prisoner who underwent torture in Scotland—it is needless to go.³ What concerns us is that he seems to have been an acquaintance and supporter of Buckingham's during the Duke's last years, and that as such he might conceivably have got hold of the play.⁴

This at last saw the light in 1714, forming part of another collection of the Duke's Works. It was now called “The Restauration: or, Right will take Place, A Tragicomedy. Written by George Villiers, late Duke of Buckingham. From the Original Copy, never before Printed”; and was accompanied by the same prologue and epilogue. Payne, who had died four years before, is nowhere mentioned, nor is any explanation offered how the publisher came by his manuscript.

Finally, in 1719, this brief but emphatic notice appeared in The Poetical Register of Giles Jacob: “The Restauration, or Right will take Place; a Tragi-Comedy. Injuriously father'd upon the Duke of Buckingham. Never acted.”⁵ And this statement has generally been taken over, with slight variation, in subsequent descriptions of the play.⁶

It remained for Professor Firth to point out that “in the epilogue to his version of Philaster, written evidently in 1683, Buckingham sneers at Shaftesbury as one who claimed infallibility and railed against popery in order to make himself a pope. … The prologue and epilogue printed in Buckingham's ‘Works’ are clearly his.”⁷ There can be no reasonable doubt, I think, that Shaftesbury was aimed at in the epilogue, and references to his flight and death, to his having gone wrong for “five years” (that is, since 1678, when the Popish Plot was first broached) are sufficient warrant for dating it early in 1683.⁸

The prologue, furthermore, makes it probable, though by no means certain, that Villiers was author also of the alteration. It runs in part:

Nothing is harder in the World to do,
Than to quit that our Nature leads us to.
As this our Friend(9) here proves, who, having spent
His Time and Wealth for other Folks Content,
Tho' he so much as Thanks could never get,
Can't, for his Life, quite give it over yet;
But, striving still to please you, hopes he may,
Without a Grievance, try to mend a Play.
Perhaps, he wish'd it might have been his Fate
To lend a helping Hand to mend the State:
Tho' he conceives, as things have lately run,
'Tis somewhat hard at present to be done. …
He, for the Public, needs wou'd play a Game,
For which, he has been trounc'd by public Fame;
And, to speak Truth, so he deserv'd to be,
For his Dull, Clownish Singularity:
For, when the Fashion is to break ones Trust,
'Tis Rudeness then to offer to be Just.

Jacob's statement in 1719 is not in itself of much value.¹⁰ What does throw doubt on the Duke's authorship is the indifferent quality of the alteration itself, and particularly the nerveless mediocrity of the verse. It is hard indeed to believe that the mercurial Villiers, at a time when he was still capable of writing with the vigor which characterizes the two pendant compositions, had anything to do with the lines which follow. Bellario's last speech in iii, 1, had ended:

                                                                                          —let there be
A tear shed from you in my memory,
And I shall rest in peace.

(lines 291 ff.)

This appears in The Restoration as:

                                                                                                              —let there be
A Tear, at least, shed by you for me; and
I then shall rest in Peace.

(P. 37.)

In the next scene, Philaster had thus addressed Arethusa:

                                                                                                                        Mistress,
Forget the boy; I'll get thee a far better.

(lines 72, 73.)

And this is changed to

                                                                                                                        Madam, forget
This Boy; I'll get you one a great deal better.

(P. 39.)

But, not to multiply examples, in the last scene of the fourth act the same personage had pleaded:

                              Forgive me thou that art the wealth
Of Poor Philaster.(11)

The later hero exclaims:

                                                                                                                                            Oh,
Endymion! Thou that art the Wealth of poor
Philander, and that I have us'd so ill;
Pray let my Crimes be punish'd as they ought,
And don't forgive me, I deserve it not.(12)

Whoever the author was, he had taken cognizance of Dryden's strictures on the tragi-comedy. These were particularly concerned with the behavior of the hero. Fletcher “neither understood correct plotting, nor that which they call ‘the decorum of the stage’”; he who would consider the play “will find it much below the applause which is now given it. He will see Philaster wounding his mistress, and afterwards his boy, to save himself; not to mention the Clown, who enters immediately, and not only has the advantage of the combat against the hero, but diverts you from your serious concernment, with his ridiculous and absurd raillery.”¹³ By the omission of one hemistich (“Oh, do you breathe?”)¹⁴ and the addition of a stage direction (“Clown Falls”)¹⁵ the victory is now definitely bestowed on Philaster; and a very small but essential change, noted in the analysis, would have satisfied Dryden, in his right mind, on the general subject of the Country Fellow.

The character of the hero has, indeed, been conscientiously reinterpreted. He still wounds both his mistress and the page, but in each case the circumstances are different. Finding Bellario and Arethusa together,¹⁶ he now rushes at them in a frenzy of indignation, and, aiming at the page, wounds his mistress. He is at first ignorant of the accident, and on learning of it is moved to contrition. He still fights with the clown, but afterwards lingers, and when Arethusa bids him flee replies: “D'ye think I'll leave you thus to save my Life.”¹⁷ Going at last, he forgives her, though still suspecting that she is guilty. When next we see him he is utterly miserable. He comes upon Bellario asleep and decides to kill him, though “very loth to do so.” “Who can trust a woman's word?” he asks himself.

I'm sure I saw him take her in his Arms;
And he deserves to lose his Life for that.(18)

Bellario wakes—and is wounded, pleading that his lord be not angry with him. In other words, Philaster never intends to harm Arethusa, and in wounding Bellario has no thought of saving his own skin, but only of doing an act of justice. Moreover, nearly two pages are added to the later scene¹⁹ in which he begs forgiveness. Arethusa tells him she has a priest ready to marry them, but for her sake, fearing the King's anger, he refuses. She swears to take her own life if he persists; and, finding himself “outdone … in all the kindest Proofs of Love,” he agrees: “Let's talk no more, but love, love till we die.”²⁰

One other character has been consistently restudied. The Pharamond of the Jacobean play, though much of a braggart and something of a fool, is still within hailing distance of the conceivable. Thrasomond, his successor, is a complete buffoon throughout, “a pretty forward Boy about four and twenty.”²¹ In the initial scene, his “Governour” prompts him with “You must be angry, Sir.”²² After the discovery of his liaison with Megra (which is now wholly ridiculous) he makes no show of resistance, but is taken sneaking out of the back door “in Drawers, muffled up in a Cloak.”²³ And later still he lives up to his new character by swearing, when the Princess bids him, “Why then i' fecks I will.”²⁴ It was, indeed, only in the low comedy scene with the citizens that the reviser felt satisfied to leave him as he was.

The dramatis personae have all been rechristened, though, for metrical reasons perhaps, their new names agree with the old in accentuation and number of syllables. Philaster is now Philander; Dion, Cleon; Pharamond, Thrasomond; Thrasilene, Agremont; and Cleremont, Adelard: Arethusa is Araminta; Megra, Alga; Galatea, Melisinda; and Euphrasia-Bellario is Euphrosyne, as Cleon's daughter—Endymion, as Philander's page. Thrasomond's “Governour” is the only added character, and takes little part in the action of the play. In the opening scene, to be sure, we find him talking with the ladies, and later prompting his royal pupil; but thereafter he disappears until we reach the epilogue. Philander enters a little earlier than Philaster had—in time for an aside, “Thou ugly silly Rogue,” following Thrasomond's prolonged blast of self-praise. But Alga (Megra) and Melisinda (Galatea) no longer comment on the two princes—which is a pity—and there is abridgment both at the beginning and end.²⁵ Some of Arethusa's best lines were sacrificed early in scene 2,²⁶ and her interview with her lover has been largely rewritten. It is a coy princess we have now, and one who no longer speaks out. Philander, too, is a conventional gallant who spares no protestation when once he has been given his cue. On the other hand, the description of Bellario, and the quarrel between Philaster and Pharamond, are taken over with little variation.

This is also the case with the first scene of Act ii. The second scene, in which Pharamond made an assignation with Megra, overheard by Galatea, was dropped, the report of Melisinda to the Princess sufficing, in the later playwright's opinion, to prepare his audience for the sensational events to come. Scene 3 of the original is, accordingly, scene 2 in the alteration—and is practically unchanged. It had been followed by the good-nights of the ladies and courtiers, with Pharamond's remarks that he was hunting, next morning, and the notice taken of Bellario by both Megra and Dion.²⁷ The reviser felt no compunction in reducing this to a line or two, and was wrong in so doing. The original is then taken up again, and is followed, with some cuts and minor changes,²⁸ to Alga's denunciation of the Princess. This had been imperfectly motivated in the old play, but we knew something, at any rate, about the “lascivious lady” who made it, and that she had taken notice of the new page. In the alteration, Alga is practically a new character, and her accusation is a bolt from the blue.

The third act is retained about as it stood.²⁹ The fourth, however, is very much changed. The principal divergences have already been described, but there are others not without interest. The hunting scene at the beginning (realistic background again) was cut, and the same fate overtook the jocular talk of the two woodmen.³⁰ The play is resumed with Philander's soliloquy beginning, “Oh, that I had been nourish'd in these woods,”³¹ Endymion, after an added word or two for the audience's sake,³² breaks in upon his reverie, and the scene then proceeds like its prototype.³³ The Country Fellow enters at the beginning of scene 2, explains his presence by remarking that he wants to see the King, then exit. This transposition serves to avoid the awkwardness, which Dryden had felt, in the succeeding episode. What follows, except for the changes already discussed, is substantially unaltered up to the end of the act,³⁴ where some lines of an expositional nature—in part from v, 1—are added to the brief remarks of Cleremont and Dion, the latter's successor concluding with: “I can't imagine what all this should mean.”

The last act opens with Philaster's contrition (v, 2, of the old play), followed immediately by the added pages concerning the marriage, already mentioned. Then comes, at the beginning of the second scene, a patch of exposition—again in part from v, 1. The rest represents Philaster, v, 3, much reduced.³⁵ The King becomes sententious toward the end, and is no longer merely panicky. But he prepares us for his final act of wickedness:

I see I must release him now: It goes
Against my Heart to do a virtuous Act;
But there's no Remedy. Who's there, Go bring
Philander hither.(36)

The baiting of Pharamond is retained as scene 3, and is followed by the original conclusion (4), as usual somewhat abridged.³⁷

.....

BUCKINGHAM, THE CHANCES

Swinburne, speaking of The Knight of the Burning Pestle, calls it “at least as superior to The Rehearsal at all points as the fifth act of The Chances substituted by the author of The Rehearsal for Fletcher's original fifth act is superior in force, character, and humour to that hasty and headlong scrawl of a sketch.”³⁸ Without going into the comparative merits of the two excellent burlesques first mentioned, I think there can be no doubt that Buckingham left The Chances a much better play than he found it. Through the first three acts Fletcher had worked with unusual zest. A romantic Spanish story which must have delighted him³⁹ was being retold with the swiftness and vigor of an adroit technician. Don John and old Gillian, the landlady, were already among his best portraits. The plot had reached its climax, but there was still, in the disappearance of the First Constantia already motivated, and the foreshadowings⁴⁰ of a Second Constantia, abundant material for recomplication. Yet here he faltered. What remained to be done could not have presented much difficulty. The pursuit of Petruchio's sister might always have led to Antonio's mistress, and vice versa, with mutual jealousy on the part of the Spanish students, both of whom would be suspected all the while by Petruchio and the Duke. So in Act iv we have the discovery of the First Constantia's disappearance, attended by bickering and heartburning all round, and the running down of one false scent with the impudent Second Constantia at the end. But in the last act the pursuers are separated but momentarily, and the only interest that remains is how, and where, they shall find the lost lady. The hocus-pocus at Peter Vecchio's probably amused a contemporary audience—which is about all that can be said for it.⁴¹ And as we look back, Langbaine's story comes to mind: how he had read or heard tell that Fletcher used to carry three acts to the players, and, if they accepted these, would “huddle up” the other two.⁴²

Villiers not only perceived the weakness of these concluding scenes but lighted upon a remedy. By scattering the pursuers, the Second Constantia might be kept at large, and then anything was possible. The result is a rapid succession of episodes, enlivened by a fine (if lawless) wit, and rivalling the best of the earlier incidents for sheer dash. There were gains in characterization as well. Fletcher's Second Constantia is on the stage only a few minutes, and her attendant bawd no longer. In that time they are clearly enough sketched as stock characters, immediately recognizable to the audience and by no means undiverting in themselves. Buckingham chose to individualize both, but particularly the bawd, now called “Mother to the Second Constantia.” The incongruity of her affectations of precise good breeding is richly humorous in view of her moral situation. There is in her gabbling something of Mrs. Peacham, something of Mrs. Malaprop—though not the single quality for which either of those estimable ladies is remembered. “As I'm a Christian,” she says (it is a favorite expression of hers), “as I'm a Christian, my Position is; That no true Beauty can be lodg'd in that Creature, who is not in some measure buoy'd up with a just sense of what is incumbent to the devoir of a Person of Quality … When once a Person fails in Fundamentals she's at a period with me. Besides, with all her wit, Constantia is but a Fool, and calls all the Meniarderies of a bonne mine, affectation.”⁴³ And this same Constantia, who finds that “to have always a remorse, and ne'r do anything that should cause it, is intolerable,”⁴⁴ must be regarded as no unworthy daughter. “Come, pray unmasque,” Don John pleads. “Then turn away your face,” she replies, “for I'm resolv'd you shall not see a bit of mine till I have set it in order, and then”—“What?” he asks—“I 'll strike you dead.”⁴⁵

In short, Fletcher's comedy has been genuinely improved by its Restoration adapter—a somewhat extraordinary thing in itself. And the improvement has been gained by entering fully into the spirit of the original, and applying a simple technical device by which that spirit might be maintained at its best.⁴⁶

Through ii, 3, Villiers follows Fletcher with great fidelity.⁴⁷ There are only slight departures in the beginning of the fourth scene—that in which Don John is employed by Petruchio to carry his challenge to the Duke. But in the ensuing dialogue between Don Frederick and Don John,⁴⁸ it is worth noting, perhaps, that no mention is made of the mysterious lady's being the same Constantia whom they “were errant two months after.” Instead, Don John comments whimsically on what Petruchio has told him, and on the possibility that “in time” the lady might “fall to their shares.”

The first scene of Act iii is again substantially Fletcher's, up to Don John's repartee with the landlady,⁴⁹ where one regrets to see that the latter is deprived of her caustic reminiscences.⁵⁰ The second scene has been curiously treated. The dialogue remains Fletcher's—except for a few cementing phrases of Buckingham's—but is entirely rearranged⁵¹ and reduced to prose.⁵² As it stands, Antonio no longer cries for a wench, his song of John Dorrie is not introduced but only alluded to, and his truculent final speech no longer regales us:

Farewell: and if you find him,
The mad slave that thus slash'd me, commend me to him,
And bid him keep his skin close.

The third scene—again verse—is a reduction of the corresponding scene in the original; and the same may be said of the fourth. In the fifth,⁵³ on the contrary, we have prose for verse, and some differences, one or two of them worthy of attention. A man is introduced for Francisco to question, and the impropriety of an overheard soliloquy is thus avoided. Also, the Second Constantia is spoken of as accompanied by a woman—a “grave conductress” who “twattled as they went along.” Fletcher had ended his act with the reappearance of the Duke and Petruchio,⁵⁴ interrupting the quarrel of the two students. Villiers adds two more scenes.⁵⁵ The first (6) comes in the main from iv, 2, of the older comedy. It is once more prose, which continues to the end of the play. The adapter, curiously enough, still has Antonio send for a conjuror, though the Peter Vecchio episode was not to be utilized. Minor changes are determined by the fact that in the revision Constantia's mother is the chief conspirator against Antonio, Francisco's part being reduced almost to nothing.⁵⁶ The last scene (7) opens with the discovery of the First Constantia's flight, an episode recounted at the beginning of the fourth act of the original. But now the Duke and Petruchio are not convinced by what the students can say in their defence, and a duel is hinted. The scene, thus developed, closes effectively with the concluding lines of Fletcher's fourth act,⁵⁷ as Don John dismisses the subject with a dry jest, the older dramatist's last contribution to the comedy:

FRED.
If she be not found, we must fight
JO.
I am glad on 't, I have not fought a great while.
FRED.
If we die—
JO.
There 's so much money sav'd in Lechery. …

The new fourth act shows us the Second Constantia and her mother, making for the port. We learn that Constantia had been sold by the old woman, and that she had not found the purchaser, Antonio, to her taste. “This sinning without pleasure I cannot endure,” she says, and vows henceforth “to live for ever chast, or find out some handsome young fellow I can love.”⁵⁸ The mother, meanwhile, cannot resist a short halt at a tavern, and Constantia follows her in, determining, however, to seek her freedom. Enter Don John (scene 2), who likes the appearance of the tavern and decides to forego his search for the First Constantia and go in. He meets the Second Constantia coming out. She readily obtains his promise to take her where she may “be secured a while from the sight of any one whatsoever,” and they go off together—Don John “in another world” with delight. Frederick is questioning Francisco at the beginning of the next scene (3). Francisco insists that he has seen Don John with Constantia, and Frederick is greatly alarmed. They “step behind this Shop” as Don John and his mistress enter. Don John shows Constantia into a house, and is following when Frederick stops him. A furious quarrel ensues. Francisco, still insisting that John's companion is Constantia, gets a blow for his pains, and runs out. The students fight. A new scene (4) begins as the Duke and Petruchio interrupt them. Frederick declares that he has just seen John “lock Constantia up in that house.” John denies it, but will not let them in because of his promise. They threaten a general attack, and old Antonio, now entering, chivalrously takes his part. The newcomer is agreed on as a mediator, and goes in to determine the identity of the lady. A moment or two later, Don John's servant rushes on the stage, crying out that Antonio has “run out o' the back door … after the Gentlewoman.”

Act v opens with the entrance of Antonio's servant, accompanied by “Constables and Officers” (all drunk, as it happens) in pursuit of the Second Constantia and her mother. That they are on the wrong scent, however, is evinced by the appearance of Petruchio's sister, in the second scene, who tells us that they have just arrested the landlady. Don John enters, looking eagerly for his Constantia, and is too engrossed in that occupation to aid her namesake. The latter, seeing Antonio coming, takes flight, and Antonio follows. In scene 3 an amusing discussion of the Second Constantia takes place between the mother and a kinswoman. This is interrupted by the entrance of Frederick. After much talking at cross purposes he gets an inkling of the truth and hurries off to make amends for the injustice done his friend. The final scene (4) is launched with Don John overtaking his Constantia. She readily accepts his explanations, and they are going off together when “Enter 1. Constantia, and just then Antonio seizes upon her.” A stormy altercation ensues. Finally, the Second Constantia threatens to make certain disclosures, and, to avoid the consequent ridicule, Antonio gives her up to Don John. His money is restored with great affability by the mother, who has come on, meanwhile, with Don Frederick.⁵⁹ The Duke and Petruchio appear in company with the landlady, whom they have rescued from the constables. The First Constantia is graciously received by her husband and brother, and Don John then speaks the closing lines.

Notes

1. I, 9-13.

2. I, p. ix.

3. See T. F. Henderson in the Dictionary of National Biography, xv, 553.

4. In the Miscellaneous Works of 1705-1707, is a “Letter from Nevill Payne to a Domestic of the Duke of Buckingham's, upon occasion of his Grace's Discourse Concerning Tolleration,” dated 1686 (i, 71). Payne had defended Buckingham the year before in a pamphlet called The Persecutor Exposed; and was honored by having addressed to him the Duke's Essay upon Reason and Religion (ii, 58).

5. P. 326.

6. For example, in Baker's Companion to the Playhouse; Biographia Dramatica (ed. 1782, ii, 304; ed. 1812, iii, 201); Genest, x, 154; Dyce, i, 203; Var. Ed., i, 120.

7. Dictionary of National Biography, xx, 343, 345.

8. Shaftesbury died on January 21 (W. D. Christie, Life of Anthony Ashley Cooper, ii, 455).

9. Friend, that is, of the actor who spoke (or was to speak) these lines.

10. It is somewhat singular that the author of Poetic Reflections on a late Poem, entituled Absalom and Achitophel (1682), a sufficiently bitter attack on Dryden, should now condescend to borrow a name for Shaftesbury from the very work in which he had himself been ridiculed. Yet our epilogue contains:

    The most egregious of all Scribes could tell
    There never was such an Architophell.

11. Lines 123, 124.

12. Pp. 56, 57.

13. The Defence of the Epilogue, 1672, Scott-Saintsbury, iv, 229, 230. See also The Grounds of Criticism in Tragedy, 1679, vi, 271.

14. IV, 3, 104.

15. P. 50.

16. His jealousy is made more explicable by the omission of Bellario's appeal to him,—“My lord, help, help the princess,”—for which is substituted, “Are you not better yet?” addressed to Arethusa (Philaster, iv, 3, 26; The Restoration, p. 48).

17. P. 50.

18. P. 53.

19. Philaster, v, 2; The Restoration, v, 1.

20. P. 62.

21. P. 7.

22. P. 11.

23. II, 4, p. 25.

24. IV, 3, p. 52.

25. Megra has again lost by them. Minor cuts figure in practically every scene.

26. Notably:

                                                                                                                            Whilst I
    May live neglected; and do noble things
    As fools in strife throw gold into the sea,
    Drown'd in the doing

    (lines 14-17).

27. MEG[RA].

                                                                Look you, my lord,

    The princess has a Hylas, an Adonis …

    DION.

    Serves he the princess?

    THRA[SOLIND].

                                                                                                        Yes.

    DION.

    'T is a sweet boy: how brave she keeps him!

    (iii, 4, 19, 28, 29.)

28. The assignation, for instance, is now at Alga's lodgings instead of Pharamond's. The changed behavior of the Spanish prince has already been noted.

29. One change is worth mentioning. In the second scene, when Philander accuses his mistress of misconduct with her boy, she now asks:

    ARA.

    Why, did he tell you so?

    PHIL.

    It may be he did.

    ARA.

    Alas, then I'm undone

    (p. 40).

    Araminta's reproaches to the page, later in the scene, are thus rendered more fully explicable.

30. At the commencement of iv, 2.

31. IV, 2, 33 ff.

32. It grieves me that I'm forc'd to disobey,
    His last Commands; but 't is not in my Pow'r
    To forbear speaking, when I look on him.
    I'll make as if I wanted, tho' Heav'n knows
    I can't, because I do not wish to live

    (p. 43).

    The last two lines were suggested by iv, 3, 6 ff.

33. There are, of course, minor alterations. The following, for instance, is very plausibly taken from Pharamond and assigned the King:

                                                                                    There's some treason.
    You, Galatea, rode with her into the wood;
    Why left you her?

    (Philaster, iv, 2, 138-140; The Restoration, p. 46.)

    Neither Dyce nor Mr. Daniel chose to record the emendation.

34. One misses Arethusa's reproof:

    What ill-bred man art thou, to intrude thyself
    Upon our private sports, our recreations?

    (iv, 3, 94, 95).

35. Particularly the marriage speeches at the beginning.

36. Pp. 66, 67; cf. lines 161-165.

37. The omission of lines 80-85, 150 ff., weakens the episode of Bellario's confession.

38. Contemporaries of Shakespeare, 1919, p. 152.

39. La Señora Cornelia, one of the Novelas Exemplares of Cervantes. From this, however, he could get little help after the third act.

40. The introduction of the Second Constantia motive is not so well handled as it might be. Antonio could easily have mentioned such a person in iii, 2, while Francisco's soliloquy in iii, 5, leaves much to be desired on the score of clarity.

41. Don John is entertaining still, as he discusses the subject of devils, or breaks through all ceremonial restraint at sight of Gillian.

42. Account of the English Dramatick Poets, p. 144.

43. V, 3, pp. 56, 57. In the course of alteration, the landlady undeniably suffered, but we receive sufficient compensation in this second old trot. On the other hand, the degeneration of Antonio into amorous impotence can only be excused on the ground that Don John was to get Antonio's mistress at the end of the play.

44. IV, 1, p. 45.

45. IV, 2, p. 47.

46. Buckingham's conclusion lacks, indeed, the romantic flavor which distinguished the earlier acts, but in this respect Fletcher's was little better.

47. A few lines are cut, here and there (for example, in i, 1, and 8), and there are one or two changes of single words. Note that ii, 2, of the Folios and Buckingham is subdivided in modern editions of Beaumont and Fletcher, so that scene 4 above is scene 3 in the alteration.

48. II, 4, 58 ff.

49. III, 1, 74 ff.

50. Perhaps the purpose was to give Gillian a sharper spur to vengeance: she now goes out with “Well Don John, the time will come that I shall be even with you.” In what is left of the opening dialogue, Anthony replaces Peter. Which servant belonged to which master was something Fletcher left to his noble successor to make clear—by substituting Peter for Anthony in i, 9, Anthony for Peter here and in i, 11, Gillian for Anthony later in iii, 1, and by omitting ii, 2, 10-13.

51. The order of the corresponding lines in Fletcher is as follows: 35, 36, 28-34, 2-19, 36-45, 22, 23.

52. As was also the latter part of ii, 4.

53. Scene 4 is undivided in the old editions.

54. III, 5, 54.

55. Five and six with him.

56. It may be worth nothing that here, and in i, 3, Buckingham has transferred the scene from Bologna to Naples. This is perhaps to be explained as due to a misunderstanding of iv, 2, 16, where Antonio's servant says the fugitives have “taken towards the ports.” The alteration reads “port,” which would not apply to Bologna: another seacoast of Bohemia could not be tolerated.

57. IV, 3, 142-147.

58. P. 45.

59. Buckingham makes the Second Constantia—not the First—turn out to be the “rare Creature” so long sought by Frederick and John.

Bibliography

I. Alterations and Adaptations

Buckingham's Chances.

The Chances, A Comedy: As it was Acted at the Theater Royal. Corrected and Altered by a Person of Honour. London, Printed for A. B. and S. M. and Sold by Langley Curtis on Ludgate Hill. 1682.

Settle's Philaster.

Philaster: or, Love lies a bleeding. A Tragi-Comedy. As it is now acted at His Majesty's Theatre Royal. Revised, and the Two last Acts new Written. [Quotation.] London: Printed for R. Bentley, at the Post-House in Russel-Street, in Covent-Garden. 1695.

Buckingham's Restoration.

The Restauration: or, Right will take Place. A Tragicomedy. Written by George Villiers, late Duke of Buckingham. From the Original Copy, never before Printed. London: Printed in the Year MDCCXIV. (The Works of His Grace George Villiers, Late Duke of Buckingham. 2 vols., London, 1715.)

II. General

Baker, David Erskine, and others. Biographia Dramatica; or a Companion to the Playhouse. … Originally compiled, to the year 1764, by David Erskine Baker. Continued thence to 1782, by Isaac Read, F.A.S., and brought down to the end of November 1811 … by Stephen Jones, 3 vols., 1812.

Beaumont and Fletcher. Works. Adorned with Cuts. Revised and Corrected: with some Account of the Life and Writings of the Authors, London (Tonson), 7 vols., 8vo., 1711.

Beaumont and Fletcher. Works, ed. Alexander Dyce, 11 vols., 1843-1846.

Beaumont and Fletcher. Works, Variorum Edition, 4 vols., 1904-1912.

Beaumont and Fletcher. Works, ed. Arnold Glover and A. R. Waller (“Cambridge English Classics”), Cambridge, 1906-1912.

Buckingham, Duke of. The Miscellaneous Works of His Grace George, Late Duke of Buckingham, etc., 2 vols., 1705-1707.

———. Calendars of the State Papers Relating to Ireland Preserved in the Public Record Office.

Genest, John. Some Account of the English Stage from the Restoration in 1660 to 1830, 10 vols., Bath, 1832.

Langbaine, Gerard. An Account of the English Dramatick Poets, or, Some Observations and Remarks on the Lives and Writings of all those that have publish'd either Comedies, Tragedies, Tragi-Comedies, Pastorals, Masques, Interludes, Farces, or Operas in the English Tongue, Oxford, 1691.