214 _Marriage not to be undertaken wantonly._ The Key is incorrect in citing the Jonson play; see note to p. 140, above.
215 _letters ... Cocu imaginaire._ None of our Key-writer's adducings of Molière is really in point. The hint for the letters came from Act V of anon., _The Apparition_, acted twice in 1713. The same play has an intriguing valet named Plotwell; here our authors found the name for one of their gallants--Underplot was a happy invention of their own.
_Lubomirski ... in Lopez de Vega_. Parker (p. 9) is correct in tracing this impersonation of Plotwell's to Ravenscroft's _The Anatomist, or the Sham Doctor_; the same farce suggested the anxiety of the disguised gallants at the proposals to dissect them in Act V. Ravenscroft's play, first acted in 1696, was popular well into the 18th century and would be well known to the audience. No doubt our authors expected their play to be found infinitely funnier than Ravenscroft's in the comparable parts. It is.
_Theatre Italien._ Parker (p. 14) says more explicitly that the mummy-crocodile scene is "all stole from a farce" in this collection. Gherardi, vol. VI, does have a farce of the title cited but the only trace of it in _Three Hours_ occurs in the brief joke on Antony and Cleopatra that Townley and Plotwell share on p. 185.
A SUPPLEMENT TO THE WORKS OF ALEXANDER POPE, Esq; CONTAINING, Such POEMS, LETTERS, _&c._
As are omitted in the Edition published by the Reverend Doctor _Warburton_:
With the COMEDY of the THREE HOURS after MARRIAGE; And a KEY to the LETTERS: To which is added, (not in the _London_ Edition) A KEY to the THREE HOURS after MARRIAGE,
And a LETTER giving an Account of the Origin of the Quarrel between CIBBER, POPE, and GAY.
_DUBLIN:_ Printed for W. WHITESTONE, opposite _Dick's Coffee-House_, in _Skinner-Row_. M.DCC.LVIII.
_Rumpatur, quisquis rumpitur invidia._ MART.
It may be necessary to acquaint the reader, that this play is printed exactly as it is acted.
I must farther own the assistance I have receiv'd in this piece from two of my friends; who, tho' they will not allow me the honour of having their names join'd with mine, cannot deprive me of the pleasure of making this acknowledgment.
_Authors are judg'd by strange capricious rules, The great ones are thought mad, the small ones fools. Yet sure the best are most severely fated, For fools are only laugh'd at, wits are hated, Blockheads with reason, men of sense abhor; But fool 'gainst fool is barb'rous civil war. Why on all authors then should critics fall? Since some have writ, and shewn no wit at all. Condemn a play of theirs, and they evade it, Cry, damn not us, but damn the French that made it; By running goods, these graceless owlers gain, Theirs are the rules of France, the plots of Spain: But wit, like wine, from happier climates brought, Dash'd by these rogues, turns English common draught: They pall Moliere's and Lopez sprightly strain, And teach dull Harlequins to grin in vain. How shall our author hope a gentle fate, Who dares most impudently----not translate. It had been civil in these ticklish times, To fetch his fools and knaves from foreign climes;_ Spaniards and French abuse to the worlds' end But spare old England, lest you hurt a friend. If any fool is by your satire bit, Let him hiss loud, to show you all--he's hit. Poets make characters as salesmen cloaths, We take no measure of your fops and beaus. But here all sizes and all shapes ye meet, And fit yourselves--like chaps in Monmouth-street._