As sufficiently explained by Gildon, under whose auspices this posthumous play was produced at Drury Lane in 1696, _The Younger Brother; or, The Amorous Jilt_ met with brutal treatment from the audience. There appears to have been a faction, particularly in evidence at its first performance and on the third day, who were steadfastly resolved to damn the comedy, and in spite of fine acting and every advantage it was hissed from the boards. Gildon attributes the failure to ‘the tedious Scenes in Blank Verse betwixt Mirtilla and Prince Frederick’ which he thinks demanded ‘another more easy Dress,’ but, in truth, it can only be attributed to the most verjuiced spite and personal malice. The plot, though somewhat complicated with perhaps a press of crowding incidents, is none the less highly interesting, and the characters are most of them excellently, all well, drawn and sustained. The fact that certain episodes had to be cut in representation in order to bring the comedy within a reasonable time limit, though it may have tended to obscure the connection of the intrigue, could not have insured in spite of its many real merits so absolute a doom for the much maltreated play, a sentence which seems to have wantonly precluded any revival. THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY TO Collonel Codrington. The unjust Sentence this Play met with before very partial Judges in the Acting, will, I’m pretty sure, be revers’d by the more unprejudiced Readers, and it’s evident, Merit will exert itself so far, as to justify my Presumption in Dedicating it, notwithstanding its small success, to you, Sir, for whom I must always profess the highest Esteem and Value, sprung from that Nobleness of your Nature that takes a God-like Delight in redressing the Misfortunes of ‘em, more than fly to you for their unhappiness; a generous Soul indeed, never gives a greater Proof of her Excellence, than in her Protection of the Unfortunate; for tho suffering Merit challenges a Regard from all, yet it meets with it from none but such as you, Sir, who are so Eminent for that Vertue, which more than all the rest, commands the Esteem and Veneration of the Thinking World, your Generosity I mean, Sir, which gives the most Perfect Touches of that likeness, man can have to his Almighty Original; for those are but scurvey awkard Copies of Him that want it. ‘Tis, I may say, the very Essence of God, Who with our _Beings_, dispenses the grateful Knowledge of Himself in the Benefits He bestows.