“The Bath Comedy” is an extravagant and flimsy novel, and the dramatist derived but little material from it,--that little, however, comprising the jealous, peppery, belligerent, irrational husband; the silly, pretty wife, with her saccharine endearments and ever-ready tears; the ingenuous young nobleman, _Lord Verney_, so readily dazzled; and the burly, genial, blundering ardent Irish soldier, _O’Hara_, so fond and faithful, so rich in desert, and, at the last, so completely forlorn. Expert use is made, likewise, of the diverted love-letter, inclosing the tress of red hair. No spectacle, indeed, could, intrinsically, be funnier than that presented by the enraged, suspicious, tumultuous husband, intent on fighting with every red-haired man in Bath, in order to be avenged on the unknown epistolary suitor of his absolutely innocent wife. Taking this bull-headed mistake as a pretext for action, and taking as a basis _Kitty’s_ wicked scheme for the relief of _Lady Standish_,--who has temporarily wearied her husband by her dulness and who will be taught to win and hold him by gay indifference and the piquant allurement of coquetry,--Belasco built a structure of story and action practically original and certainly brilliant. Writing on this subject, he modestly says: “The dramatization was not easy: I was obliged to add to the plot, but I used the atmosphere and characters of the book,”--and, it may be added, contrived to fashion a charming and effective comedy where, perhaps, any other dramatist of the time would have failed.