Thus far Mr. Ravenscroft has censured Dryden; and Langbain, in order to prove him guilty of the same poetical depredation, has been industrious to trace the plots of his plays, and the similarity of his characters with those of other dramatic poets; but as we should reckon it tedious to follow him in this manner, we shall only in general take notice of those novels from which he has drawn his plots.
We cannot ascertain the year in which this man died; he had been bred a templer, which he forsook as a dry unentertaining study, and much beneath the genius of a poet.
His dramatic works are,
1. The Careless Lovers, a Comedy, acted at the duke's theatre, 4to. 1673. The scene Covent-Garden, part of this play is borrowed from Moliere's Monsieur de Pourceaugnac.
2. Mamamouchi; or the Citizen turned Gentleman, a Comedy, acted at the duke's theatre, 4to. 1675, dedicated to his Highness prince Rupert. Part of this play is taken from Moliere's le Bourgeois Gentilliome. Scene London.
3. Scaramouch a Philosopher, Harlequin a schoolboy, Bravo Merchant and Magician; a Comedy, after the Italian manner, acted at the theatre-royal 1677. The poet in his preface to this play boasts his having brought a new sort of Comedy on our stage; but his critics will not allow any one scene of it to be the genuine offspring of his own brain, and denominate him rather the midwife than the parent of this piece; part of it is taken from le Burgeois Gentilhome, & la Marriage Forcè.
4. The Wrangling Lovers; or the Invisible Mistress, a Comedy, acted at the duke's theatre, 4to. 1677. This play is founded upon Corneille's Les Engagements du Hazard, and a Spanish Romance, called, Deceptio visus; or seeing and believing are two things.
5. King Edgar, and Alfreda, a Tragedy, acted at the theatre-royal 1677. The story is taken from the Annals of Love, a novel, and Malmesbury, Grafton, Stow, Speed, and other English chronicles.
6. The English Lawyer, a Comedy; acted at the theatre-royal 1678; this is only a translation of the celebrated latin comedy of Ignoramus, written by Mr. Ruggle of Clare-hall, Cambridge. Scene Bourdeaux.
7. The London Cuckolds, a Comedy; acted at the duke of York's theatre. This play is collected from the novels of various authors, and is esteemed one of the most diverting, though perhaps the most offensive play of the author's; it was first acted 1682. This play has hitherto kept possession of the flags, a circumstance owing to the annual celebration of the lord mayor's inauguration: Though it seems to be growing into a just disesteem. It was deprived of its annual appearance at Drury-Lane Theatre, in the year 1752, by Mr. Garrick; whose good sense would not suffer him to continue so unwarrantable and ridiculous an insult, upon so respectable a body of men as the magistrates of the city of London.