up with street rows, capital satirical pictures of London life. The play ends with marriages, and with the reconciliation of sir William Rant with his father, the serious old gentleman of the play. Shadwell excelled in these busy comedies. One of the nearest approaches to him is Mountfort's comedy of "Greenwich Park," which is another striking satire on the looseness of London life at that time. As in the others, the plot is simply nothing. The play consists of a number of intrigues, such as may be imagined, at a time when morality was little respected, in places of fashionable resort like Greenwich Park and Deptford Wells. An element of satire was now introduced into English comedy which does not appear to have belonged to it before--this was mimicry. Although the principal characters in the play bore conventional names, they appear often to have been intended to represent individuals then well known in society, and these individuals were caricatured in their dress, and mimicked in their language and manners. We are told that this mimicry contributed greatly to the success of "The Rehearsal," the duke of Buckingham having taken incredible pains to make Lacy, who acted the part of Bayes, perfect in imitating the voice and manner of Dryden, whose dress and gait were minutely copied. This personal satire was not always performed with impunity. On the 1st of February, 1669, Pepys went to the Theatre Royal to see the performance of "The Heiress," in which it appears that sir Charles Sedley was personally caricatured, and the secretary of king Charles's admiralty has left in his diary the following entry:--"To the king's house, thinking to have seen the Heyresse, first acted on Saturday, but when we come thither we find no play there; Kynaston, that did act a part therein in abuse to sir Charles Sedley, being last night exceedingly beaten with sticks by two or three that saluted him, so as he is mightily bruised, and forced to keep his bed." It is said that Dryden's comedy of "Limberham," brought on the stage in 1678, was prohibited after the first night, because the character of Limberham was considered to be too open a satire on the duke of Lauderdale.