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PROLOGUE The tableau curtains are closed. An English archdeacon comes through them in a condition of extreme irritation. He speaks through the curtains to someone behind them. THE ARCHDEACON. Once for all, Ermyntrude, I cannot afford to maintain you in your present extravagance. [He goes to a flight of steps leading to the stalls and sits down disconsolately on the top step. A fashionably dressed lady... more...

ACT I The time is morning, and the scene a level lawn, beyond whichthe river is running amongst fields. A huge old beech treeovershadows everything, in the darkness of whose hollow manythings are hidden. A rustic seat encircles it. A low wallclothed in creepers, with two openings, divides this lawn fromthe flowery approaches to the house. Close to the wall there isa swing. The sky is clear and sunny.... more...

Actus primus. Scena prima. Enter Uncle and Merchant. Merc. When saw you Valentine? Uncle. Not since the Horse-race, he's taken up with those that woo the Widow. Mer. How can he live by snatches from such people? he bore a worthy mind. Uncle. Alas, he's sunk, his means are gone, he wants, and which is worse,Takes a delight in doing so. Mer. That's strange. Unc. Runs Lunatick, if you but... more...

SCENE 1 SCENE—A room with lighted fire, and a door into the open air, through which one sees, perhaps, the trees of a wood, and these trees should be painted in flat colour upon a gold or diapered sky. The walls are of one colour. The scene should have the effect of missal Painting. MARY, a woman of forty years or so, is grinding a quern. MARY. What can have made the grey hen flutter so? (TEIG, a boy... more...

PREFACE The Author. 'It is surprising,' says Mr. Percy Fitzgerald, 'how much English Comedy owes to Irishmen.' Nearly fifty years ago Calcraft enumerated eighty-seven Irish dramatists in a by no means exhaustive list, including Congreve, Southerne, Steele, Kelly, Macklin, and Farquhar—the really Irish representative amongst the dramatists of the Restoration, the true prototype of... more...

ACT I The scene is a darkened room, which the curtain reveals so stealthily that if there was a mouse on the stage it is there still. Our object is to catch our two chief characters unawares; they are Darkness and Light. The room is so obscure as to be invisible, but at the back of the obscurity are French windows, through which is seen Lob's garden bathed in moon-shine. The Darkness and Light,... more...

THE LAND OF HEART'S DESIRE SCENE.—A room with a hearth on the floor in the middle of a deep alcove to the Right. There are benches in the alcove and a table; and a crucifix on the wall. The alcove is full of a glow of light from the fire. There is an open door facing the audience to the Left, and to the left of this a bench. Through the door one can see the forest. It is night, but the moon or a... more...

INTRODUCTION TO SARDANAPALUS Byron's passion or infatuation for the regular drama lasted a little over a year. Marino Faliero, Sardanapalus, and the Two Foscari, were the fruits of his "self-denying ordinance to dramatize, like the Greeks ... striking passages of history" (letter to Murray, July 14, 1821, Letters, 1901, v. 323). The mood was destined to pass, but for a while the neophyte... more...

JOHN BULL. ACT THE FIRST. SCENE I. A Public House on a Heath: over the Door the Sign of the Red Cow;——and the Name of "Dennis Brulgruddery." Enter Dennis Brulgruddery and Dan, from the House. Dan opening the outward Shutters of the House. Dennis. A pretty blustratious night we have had! and the sun peeps through the fog this morning, like the copper pot in my kitchen.—Devil a traveller do... more...

PROLOGUE. Scene.—A Russian Inn. Large door opening on snowy landscape at back of stage. Peter Sabouroff and Michael. Peter (warming his hands at a stove). Has Vera not come back yet, Michael? Mich. No, Father Peter, not yet; 'tis a good three miles to the post office, and she has to milk the cows besides, and that dun one is a rare plaguey creature for a wench to handle. Peter. Why didn't... more...