The story itself is, of course, world-wide with a thousand variants. Oriental in origin, it is familiar to all readers of the Thousand and One Nights, when Abou Hassan is drugged by Haroun al Raschid, and for one day allowed to play the caliph with power complete and unconfined. The same trick is said to have been tried upon a drunkard at Bruges by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, during his marriage festivities, 1440. Christopher Sly, well drubbed by Marian Hacket and bawling for a pot of small ale, will at once occur to every mind. Richard Edwardes has the same story in his _Collection of Tales_ (1570); the old _Ballad of the Frolicsome Duke_ sings it; Sir Richard Barckley repeats it in his _Discourse of the Felicitie of Man_ (1598); and Burton found a niche for it in his _Anatomy of Melancholy_ (1621). Simon Goulart included it in the _Tresor d’histoires admirables et memorables_ (circa 1600), whence it was Englished by Grimeston (1607). In fact it is a common property of all times and all nations. Although Mrs. Behn confessedly does not attain (nor was such her intention) the deep philosophy and exquisite melody of the great Spanish poet, she has produced a first-rate specimen of the romance drama, rococo perhaps, and with quaint ornaments, but none the less full of life, incident and interest. FOOTNOTES: 1. This version of Shakespeare, and particularly the part of Hippolito, belong to Davenant, for, as Dryden says in the preface, Sir William ‘to put the last hand to it, design’d the counterpart to Shakespeare’s plot, namely that of a man who had never seen a woman.’. 2. _Life is a Dream_. English translation by John Oxenford, Monthly Magazine, Vol. XCVI; by Archbishop Trench, 1856; by Denis Florence Mac-Carthy, 1873; by FitzGerald (a private edition), ‘Such Stuff as Dreams are Made Of’. It has also been excellently edited by Norman Maccoll, _Select Plays from Calderon_ (1888). THEATRICAL HISTORY.