Edward Ravenscroft’s “recantation play” _Dame Dobson, or, The Cunning Woman_ (produced at Dorset Garden in the early autumn of 1683) is an English version of _La Devineresse; ou les faux Enchantements_ (sometimes known as _Madame Jobin_), a capital comedy by Thomas Corneille and Jean Donneau de Vise. This French original had been produced in 1679, and both the stage-craft and the adroit way in which the various tricks and conjurations are managed must be allowed to be consummately clever. An English comedy on a similar theme is _The Wise Woman of Hogsdon_, the intricacies of which are a triumph of technique. _La Devineresse_ was published in 1680 with a frontispiece picturing a grimalkin, a hand of glory, noxious weeds, two blazing torches and other objects beloved of necromancy. There are, moreover, eight folding plates which embellish the little book, and these have no small interest as they depict scenes in the comedy. But _Dame Dobson_ cannot be accounted a play of witchcraft; it is no more than an amusing study of dextrous charlatanry. The protagonist herself[20] is of that immortal sisterhood graced by Heywood’s sibyl, of whom it is said “She is a cunning woman, neither hath she her name for nothing, who out of her ignorance can fool so many that think themselves wise.” Mrs. Behn, in her amusing comedy _The Luckey Chance; or, An Alderman’s Bargain_, produced at Drury Lane in the late winter of 1686, 4to, 1687, has made some play with pretended magic in the capital scenes where Gayman (Betterton) is secretly brought by the prentice Bredwel (Bowman), disguised as a devil, to the house of Lady Fulbank (Mrs. Barry). Here he is received by Pert, the maid, who is dressed as an old witch, and conducted to his inamorata’s embraces. But the whole episode is somewhat farcically treated, and it is, of course, an elaborate masquerade for the sake of an intrigue.[21]