_Monsieur de Pourceaugnac_ supplied Ravenscroft with material no less than three times. In _Mamamouchi; or, The Citizen turn’d Gentleman_, acted early in 1672, we have Sir Simon Softhead, who is Pourceaugnac in detail; in _The Careless Lovers_, produced at the Duke’s House in 1673, and again in _The Canterbury Guests; or, A Bargain Broken_, played at the Theatre Royal in 1694, we have _in extenso_ Act II, Scenes viii, ix, x, of the French comedy. Crowne’s Sir Mannerley Shallow (_The Country Wit_, 1675) comes from the same source. _Squire Trelooby_, produced at Lincoln’s Inn Fields, 20 March, 1704, and revived as _The Cornish Squire_ at Drury Lane, 3 January, 1734, is ascribed to Vanbrugh, Congreve, and Walsh; but this, as well as a farce produced at Dublin in 1720 by Charles Shadwell and entitled _The Plotting Lovers; or, The Dismal Squire_, cannot claim to be anything but translations. Miller’s _Mother-in-Law_, again, includes much of _Monsieur de Pourceaugnac_; and Thomas Sheridan’s _Captain O’Blunder; or, The Brave Irishman_, produced at Goodman’s Fields, 31 January, 1746, is a poor adaptation. Mrs. Parsons abbreviated Molière to _The Intrigues of a Morning_, played at Covent Garden, 18 April, 1792, a jejune effort. _Les Femmes Savantes_ was rather racily transformed by Thomas Wright into _The Female Virtuosoes_, and produced at Drury Lane in 1693. It was revived as _No Fools like Wits_ at Lincoln’s Inn Fields, 10 January, 1721, to anticipate Cibber’s _The Refusal; or, The Ladies’ Philosophy_, which had a run of six nights. Miller, in his _The Man of Taste_, once more had resource to Molière. His play was produced at Drury Lane, 6 March, 1735. It has no value. Of all these borrowers Mrs. Behn is infinitely the best. _Sir Patient Fancy_ is, indeed, an excellent comedy, and had she used more leisure might have been improved to become quite first rate. Perhaps she plagiarized so largely owing to the haste with which her play was written and staged, but yet everything she touched has been invested with an irresistible humour. A glaring example of her hurry remains in the fact that the ‘precise clerk’ of Sir Patient has a double nomenclature. In Act III he appears as Abel; in Act IV, iii, he is referred to as Bartholomew, and under this last name has an exit marked in Act V. This character is only on the stage twice and is given but some three or four lines to speak. Obviously, when writing her fourth act, Aphra forgot she had already christened him. THEATRICAL HISTORY.