LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE WILLIAM CONGREVE . Frontispiece From a painting by Sir Godfrey Kneller in the National Portrait Gallery From a mezzotint by Wm. Faithorne, after a painting by Edmund Lely A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF COVENT GARDEN IN 1720 Engraved by Sutton Nichols THE DUKE'S Theatre, Dorset Gardens Built by Sir Christopher Wren. Opened 1671. Demolished 1709 Peter Lely From a mezzotint by J. Smith, after a painting by Peter Lely DRURY LANE 106 JOSEPH HARRIS SPEAKING THE EPILOGUE TO "UNHAPPY" 170 From the painting in the National Portrait Gallery VIEW OF THE FRONT OF THE OLD OPERA HOUSE, From an original drawing by Capon, made in 1783 FARQUHAR'S CONFEDERACY PLAY BILL GEORGE FARQUHAR 200 THE COMEDY OF MANNERS CHAPTER I CRITICAL PRELIMINARIES WHO are the comic dramatists of the Restoration? Dryden wrote comedies; Shadwell's Squire of Alsatia was as popular in its day and regarded as of equal importance with The Country Wife; Sir Charles Sedley, Buckingham, and Rochester, have a claim to be included; Aphra Behn, Crowne and Settle could not very well be omitted in an exhaustive study of the comedy of the period; Otway was the author of no fewer than three original comedies; Colley Cibber was a formidable contemporary rival of Vanbrugh and Farquhar. But it is obviously impossible within the limits of a single volume to include every author of a comedy who wrote within a period of fifty years. What shall be our principle of selection? The Leigh Hunt edition of the comic dramatists is a collected edition of the plays of Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar. Apparently Macaulay had no fault to find with the selection of B |