In the British Theatre, a collection of English dramas, printed at Leipsic in 1828, are foot-notes to some passages in Sheridan's text which at times have other merit than their delightful quaintness. Save in a few imperative instances, it has seemed sufficient to correct without comment the frequent errors in previous annotations of the plays. The distinctive aim of this edition has been to give a critical study of Sheridan's major dramas based primarily on contemporary evidence. Directly or indirectly, more than a thousand volumes of eighteenth-century memoirs, diaries, novels, essays, poems, newspapers, and magazines have contributed to the introductions and notes. Contemporary documents, indeed, have often proved the sole possible key to difficulties of the text. If the notes err sometimes on the side of fullness, my plea must be that, with obvious exceptions, the explanatory matter is drawn from original sources, and often deals with questions which have passed unheeded, or at least unanswered. The introductory sections to the various plays are based, like the notes, chiefly on contemporary evidence. Thus, the picture of Eighteenth-Century Bath is drawn from such sources as Goldsmith's Life of Richard Nash, Christopher Anstey's poem, The New Bath Guide, Fanny Burney's diary, Horace Walpole's letters, Smollett's novels, and contemporary magazines. The account of The Initial Failure and Final Triumph of The Rivals is based on extracts, given in the Appendix, from contemporary newspapers and literary reviews. The Books of Lydia Languish's Circulating Library have been located by means of book-reviews and notices in the monthly magazines and reviews. In the sections discussing the sources of the different plays there is of necessity considerable departure from the general method of dealing only with conbut most of the errors in the early edition have been allowed to stand uncorrected. temporary evidence. The aim, here, has been to assemble from all available sources whatever criticisms and suggestions are pertinent to the subject. Even in this field, where ground has been broken more effectually than in most fields of Sheridan investigation, it has been possible to add a considerable amount of new material. In The Critic, for example, the elements of Personal Caricature and of Burlesque and Parody of Contemporary Drama have hitherto received infrequent and, at best, casual treatment, while to the study of The Element of Actual History it has been readily possible to contribute original matter from the files of contemporary newspapers. Since the death of Mr. Rae, the scope of this work has been extended to include a considerable part of that collation of manuscripts and printed editions of Sheridan's plays which he had hoped to undertake. Detailed explanation of this textual work is given in the pages immediately preceding the text of each play. For the sake of convenience the references to standard works have been taken from readily accessible editions. Thus the Temple edition of Shakespeare, the Mermaid edition of Restoration dramatists, the two-volume edition of Moore's Life of Sheridan, and the recent editions of Walpole, Byron, and Madame d'Arblay, have been adopted. Except, however, in such obvious cases, original documents and editions have been the usual, and often the sole possible, standard of reference. There remains the pleasant privilege of acknowledging some of the personal debts incurred in the preparation of this volume -to Professor G. L. Kittredge, of Harvard, and to Professor C. T. Winchester, of Wesleyan, the general editors of the Athenæum Series, for the helpful suggestions and annotations. which accompanied their acceptance of my manuscript and their inspection of the proofs; to Professors Thomas R. Lounsbury and Wilbur L. Cross, of Yale, for frequent and valuable criticism of my work in its earlier stages; to Professor Franklin B. Dexter and to Mr. Andrew Keogh, of the Yale Library, for courteous and unfailing help in many times of trouble during the past few years; and to Professor Henry A. Beers, of Yale, to whom, though he has read no part of my present work, I owe my first thorough introduction to the appreciative and critical study of Sheridan and the eighteenth-century drama. YALE UNIVERSITY, June 20, 1906. ། |