The Old Comedies, so called, were a selected group of successful plays which had been produced in the eighteenth century, most of them (altho a few first saw the light of the lamps in the first half of the nineteenth century) and which had survived on the stage, being acted at irregular intervals at the Haymarket Theater in London, at Wallack’s and later at Daly’s Theater in New York, and at the Boston Museum. Curiously enough, no one of Shakspere’s humorous pieces, lovely comedies and lively farces, was included in the catalog of the Old Comedies, altho they were a century older than the youngest of these Old Comedies; and no one of the comic plays of Shakspere’s contemporaries, no comedy-of-humors by Ben Jonson, no dramatic-romance by Beaumont and Fletcher, was regularly enrolled in this special repertory. And, what is even more curious, no one of the comedies of the Restoration, no brilliant and brutal satire by Congreve or Wycherly, no ingenious intrigue by Vanbrugh or Farquhar, had been able to keep the stage and to demand inclusion in this rigorous selection from out the comic masterpieces of the English drama. It may be noted, in a parenthesis, that Daly did revive two of Farquhar’s amusing plays, the ‘Recruiting Officer’ and the ‘Inconstant’; but these revivals were due to Daly’s own taste and neither of these bold and brisk pieces could claim admission to the recognized group of Old Comedies. Now, if this group did not include any of the humorous pieces of the Elizabethan, Jacobean and Restoration dramatists, what plays did it contain? And no two students of stage-history would agree on the answer to this question. No council was ever empowered to regulate the canon and to prepare a final list of the comic dramas demanding inclusion. The repertory of the Haymarket was not exactly the same as that of Wallack’s, which in its turn did not coincide absolutely with that of the Boston Museum. Yet it is safe to say that every student of stage-history would be likely to put on his list most of the plays which I now venture to include in mine. I find fifteen pieces produced in the eighteenth century which I feel compelled to catalog as truly Old Comedies: Cibber’s ‘She Would and She Would Not’ (1703). Mrs. Centlivre’s ‘Busybody’ (1709). Mrs. Centlivre’s ‘Wonder’ (1717). Garrick’s ‘High Life Below Stairs’ (1759). Colman’s ‘Jealous Wife’ (1761). Foote’s ‘Liar’ (1762). Garrick and Colman’s ‘Clandestine Marriage’ (1766). Goldsmith’s ‘She Stoops to Conquer’ (1773). Sheridan’s ‘Rivals’ (1775). Sheridan’s ‘School for Scandal’ (1777). Sheridan’s ‘Critic’ (1779). Mrs. Cowley’s ‘Belle’s Stratagem’ (1780). Holcroft’s ‘Road to Ruin’ (1792). O’Keefe’s ‘Wild Oats’ (1794). Colman the Younger’s ‘Heir at Law’ (1797).