[1] As indicated in the Introduction to _The Covent Garden Theatre, or Pasquin Turn'd Drawcansir_, Number 116, Augustan Reprint Society, the author is indebted to the Henry E. Huntington Library, San Marino, California, both for a Research Fellowship in the summer of 1963 and for permission to reproduce the three Macklin plays in the Larpent Collection (Larpent 58, 64 and 96) which had not previously been printed. [2] Arthur H. Scouten, _The London Stage_ (Carbondale, Ill., 1961), Part 3, II, 1235. [3] James T. Kirkman, _Memoirs of the Life of Charles Macklin, Esq._ (London, 1799), II, 443, lists this subtitle in an appendix of Macklin's unprinted plays. [4] George Winchester Stone, _The London Stage_ (Carbondale, Ill., 1962), Part 4, 1, 38, 40, 41, 43, 47, 48. [5] Cf. Alexandre Calame, _Regnard sa vie et son oeuvre_ (Paris, 1960), pp. 323-333. [6] See _The London Stage_, Part 3, II, 1287-90, 1297, 1298, 1308, 1309 for the dates when Hoadly's _The Suspicious Husband_ and Macklin's THE NEW PLAY CRITICIZ'D were performed close together. A WILL AND NO WILL: OR A BONE FOR THE LAWYERS[1] PROLOGUE DRAMATIS PERSONAE for the Prologue RATTLE SMART DULLMAN IRISHMAN SNARLEWIT (_The Curtain rises and discovers the Stage disposed in the Form of a Pit and crowded with Actors who make a great Noise by Whistling and Knocking for the Farce to begin_) _Rattle._ Consume them, why don't they begin? _Smart._ I suppose some of them that were in the Play are dressing for the Farce. _Rattle._ Psha! damn the Farce! They have had time enough to dress since the Play has been over. _Smart._ Dick Rattle, were you at the Boxing Match yesterday? _Rattle._ No, my Dear, I was at the breakfasting at Ranelagh.--Curse catch me, Jack[2], if that is not a fine Woman in the upper Box there, ha! _Smart._ So she is, by all that's charming,--but the poor Creature's married; it's all over with her. _Rattle._ Smart, do you go to Newmarket this meeting,--upon my Soul that's a lovely Woman on the right hand. But what the Devil can this Prologue be about, I can't imagine. It has puzzled the whole Town. _Smart._ Depend upon it, Dick, it is as I said. _Rattle._ What's that? _Smart._ Why one of the Fransique's, the French Harlequin's Jokes; you will find that one of the Players come upon the Stage presently, and make a[n] Apologie that they are disappointed of the Prologue, upon which Macklin, or some other Actor is to start up in the Pit, as one of the Audience, and bawl out that rather than so much good Company should be disappointed, he will speak a Prologue himself. _Rattle._ No, no, no, Smart. That's not it. I thought of that and have been looking carefully all over the Pit, and there is not an Actor in it. Now I fancy it is to be done like the Wall or the Man in the Moon in Pyramus and Thisbe; Macklin will come in dressed like the Pit and say: _Ladies and Gentlemen, I am the Pit And a Prologue I'll speak if you think fit._