The purely political part of _The Roundheads; or, The Good Old Cause_ was founded by Mrs. Behn on John Tatham’s _The Rump_; or, _The Mirror of the Late Times_ (4to, 1660, 4to, 1661, and again 1879 in his collected works,) which was produced on the eve of the Restoration, in February, 1660, at the Private House, i.e. small theatre, in Dorset Court. The company which played here had been brought together by William Beeston, but singularly little is known of its brief career and only one name has been recorded, that of George Jolly, the leading actor. Tatham was the author of the Lord Mayor’s pageants 1657-64. His plays, four in number, together with a rare entertainment, _London’s Glory_ (1660), have been well edited by Maidment and Logan. _The Rump_ met with great success. It is certainly a brisk and lively piece, and coming at the juncture it did must have been extraordinarily effective. As a topical key-play reflecting the moment it is indeed admirable, and the crescendo of overwhelming satire, all the keener for the poet’s deep earnestness, culminating in the living actors, yesterday’s lords and law-givers, running to and fro the London streets, one bawling ‘Ink or pens, ink or pens!’, another ‘Boots or shoes, boots or shoes to mend!’, a third ‘Fine Seville oranges, fine lemons!’, whilst Mrs. Cromwell exchanges Billingsgate with a crowd of jeering boys, must have caused the house absolutely to rock with merriment. With all its point and cleverness _The Rump_, however, from a technical point of view, is ill-digested and rough. The scenes were evidently thrown off hastily, and sadly lack refining and revision. Mrs. Behn has made the happiest use of rather unpromising material. The intrigues between Loveless and Lady Lambert, who in Tatham is very woodeny and awkward, between Freeman and Lady Desbro’, which give _The Roundheads_ unity and dramatic point, are entirely her own invention. In the original _Rump_ neither cavaliers nor Lady Desbro’ appear. Ananias Goggle also, the canting lay elder of Clements, with his subtle casuistry that jibs at ‘the person not the office,’ a dexterous character sketch, alive and acute, we owe to Mrs. Behn. 335 Amongst the many plays, far too numerous even to catalogue, that scarify the puritans and their zealot tribe, _The Cheats_ (1662), by Wilson, and Sir Robert Howard’s _The Committee_ (1662), which long kept the stage, and, in a modified form, _The Honest Thieves_, was seen as late as the second half of the nineteenth century, are pre-eminently the best. Both possess considerable merit and are worthy of the highest comic traditions of the theatre.