dances,
which are all of Harris's composition, reflect the demand of the
Restoration audience for excitement, variety, novelty, in their dramatic
fare. When in Act III, scene i, Harris meets this demand by making
Bonvile bare his breast to Friendly's sword, and Friendly a little later
grovel at Bonvile's feet for pardon, we may condemn the new business as
bathetic; but when in Act IV, scene i, he substitutes for Webster's
emaciated jokes the bustle of drawers, the sound of the bar bell, and
healths all around, we can only applaud the change.

We must also commend Harris for supplying a consistent and relatively
believable motivation for the main action. In both _A Cure for a
Cuckold_ and _The City Bride_, Clare (Clara) begins the action by giving
her suitor, Lessingham (Friendly), a cryptic message: he is to determine
who his best friend is and kill him. In _A Cure for a Cuckold_, it is
never made clear whether the victim should have been Bonvile or Clare
herself (she apparently intended to trick Lessingham into poisoning
her). This uncertainty has only recently been noticed by students of the
drama, who have been forced to emend the text at IV, ii, 165 (see
Lucas's note on the passage). Harris's solution is simpler. He will have
nothing to do with either murder or suicide. Clara explains to Friendly
that the best friend of a lover is love itself.

This is not the place to enumerate all the differences between _A Cure
for a Cuckold_ and _The City Bride_; indeed the reader may prefer making
the comparisons for himself. Harris's alterations follow the general
pattern of Restoration adaptations from the earlier drama, it is true.
On the other hand, a relatively small number of such plays allow us to
see the professional actor feeling his way through the emotions and
actions of the scenes. To compare a play like _The City Bride_ with its
source is like visiting the rehearsals of an acting company of the time.
Such a play has an immediacy and liveness that strongly appeals to those
who delight to image forth the past.

_The City Bride_ has never been reprinted. The present edition
reproduces, with permission, the copy in the Henry E. Huntington
Library, omitting Harris's signed dedication to Sir John Walter, Bart.,
on A2^r-A3^r (A1^v in the original is blank). The top line on page 44,
which is partly cut away, reads: _Cla._ Who (if thou ever lov'dst me ...

Vinton A. Dearing
University of California
Los Angeles