allis, in Killigrew. But as Willmore is a different thing
altogether to Thomaso, so Ned Blunt is an infinitely more entertaining
figure than his prototype Edwardo. Amongst other details Killigrew,
oddly and stupidly enough, gives his English gentlemen foreign
names:-- Thomaso, Ferdinando, Rogero, Harrigo[*]. This jar is duly
corrected in _The Rover_.

[Footnote *: There is a strange commixture here. The character is
familiarly addressed as 'Hal', the scene is Madrid, and he rejoices
in the Milanese (not Italian) nomenclature Arrigo = Henry in that
dialect.]

Mrs. Behn has further dealt with the Lucetta intrigue in a far more
masterly way than Killigrew's clumsily developed episode. In _Thomaso_
it occupies a considerable space, and becomes both tedious and brutally
unpleasant. The apt conclusion of the amour in _The Rover_ with Blunt's
parlous mishap is originally derived from Boccaccio, Second Day,
Novel 5, where a certain Andreuccio finds himself in the same unsavoury
predicament as the Essex squireen. However, even this was by no means
new to the English stage. In _Blurt Master Constable_, Lazarillo de
Tormes, at the house of the courtezan Imperia, meets with precisely the
same accident, Act iii, Scene 3, Act iv, Scenes 2 and 3, and it is
probable that Mrs. Behn did not go directly to the _Decameron_ but drew
upon Middleton, of whom she made very ample use on another occasion,
borrowing for _The City Heiress_ no small portion of _A Mad World, My
Masters_, and racily reproducing in extenso therefrom Sir Bounteous
Progress, Dick Folly-Wit, the mock grandee, and that most excellent of
all burglaries good enough for Fielding at his best.

In dealing with _Thomaso_ Astrea did not hesitate, with manifest
advantage, to transfer incidents from Part II to Part I, and vice versa.
Correcting, pruning, augmenting, enlivening, rewriting, she may indeed
(pace the memory of the merry jester of Charles II) be well said to have
clothed dry bones with flesh, and to have given her creation a witty and
supple tongue.

THEATRICAL HISTORY.

The first part of _The Rover_ was produced at the Duke's House, Dorset
Gardens, in the summer of 1677, and licensed for printing on 2 July of
the same year. It met, as it fully deserved, with complete success, and
remained one of the stock plays of the company. Smith, the original
Willmore, and the low comedian Underhill as Blunt were especially
renowned in their respectiv