The elder son of sir William Belfond has taken to Alsatia, but sir William, on his return from abroad, hearing talk of the fame of a squire Belfond among the Alsatians, imagines that it is his younger son, and out of this mistake a considerable amount of misunderstanding arises. At last sir William discovers his error, and finds his eldest son in Whitefryers, but the youth sets him at defiance. The father, in great anger, brings tipstaff constables, to take away his son by force; but the Alsatians rise in force, the officers of the law are beaten, and sir William himself taken prisoner. He is rescued by the younger Belfond, and in the conclusion the elder brother becomes penitent, and is reconciled with his father. There is an underplot, far from moral in its character, which ends in the marriage of Belfond junior. It is a busy, noisy play, and was a great favourite on the stage; but it is now chiefly interesting as a vivid picture of London life in the latter half of the seventeenth century. "Bury Fair," by Shadwell, is another comedy of the same description; with little interest in the plot, but full of life and movement. If "The Squire of Alsatia" was noisy, "The Scowrers," another comedy by the same author, first brought on the stage in 1691, was still more so. The wild and riotous gallants who, in former times of inefficient police regulation, infested the streets at night, and committed all sorts of outrages, were known at different periods by a variety of names. In the reign of James I. and Charles I. they were the "roaring boys;" in the time of Shadwell, they were called the "scowrers," because they scowered the streets at night, and rather roughly cleared them of all passengers; a few years later they took the name of Mohocks, or Mohawks. During the night London lay at the mercy of these riotous classes, and the streets witnessed scenes of brutal violence, which, at the present day, we can hardly imagine. This state of things is pictured in Shadwell's comedy. Sir William Rant, Wildfire, and Tope, are noted scowrers, well known in the town, whose fame has excited emulation in men of less distinction in their way, Whachum, "a city wit and scowrer, imitator of sir William," and "two scoundrells," his companions, Bluster and Dingboy. Great enmity arises between the two parties of rival scowrers. The more serious characters in the play are Mr. Rant, sir William Rant's father, and sir Richard Maggot, "a foolish Jacobite alderman" (it must be remembered that we are now in the reign of king William). Sir Richard's wife, lady Maggot, like the citizen's wives of the comedy of the Restoration generally, is a lady rather wanting in virtue, ambitious of mixing with the gay and fashionable world, and somewhat of a tyrant over her husband. She has two handsome daughters, whom she seeks to keep confined from the world, lest they should become her rivals. There are low characters of both sexes, who need not be enumerated. Much of the play is taken