rest
Home in Philadelphia, that either the manuscript of that play has
irrevocably been destroyed, or else has been preserved so carefully
that no one remotely connected with the actor Forrest has thus far
been able to locate it. Only a few well remembered speeches and
isolated scenes are seemingly left of a play which increased so
largely the fame of Mr. Forrest.

In the selection of _types_ my attention naturally became centered
on the characters of _Colonel Mulberry Sellars_, and _Judge Bardwell
Slote_, the former in a dramatization of "The Gilded Age," by Mark
Twain and Charles Dudley Warner, and the latter, in a play by
Benjamin E. Woolf, called "The Mighty Dollar." Extended
investigation revealed the fact that, even if the plays are not
lost, they are still unlocated, by the literary executors of Mark
Twain on the one hand, and by the family of Mr. Woolf on the other.
It is well to mention these instances, because, until the recent
interest in the origins of American drama, manifest on all sides,
there has been a danger that many most valuable manuscript plays
would be lost to the student forever.

At a revival of individual scenes from distinctive American Plays,
given in New York, on January 22, 1917, considerable difficulty was
experienced before the stock-company manuscript of Frank E.
Murdoch's "Davy Crockett" was procured. This play, old-fashioned in
its general development, is none the less representative of old-time
melodramatic situation and romantic manipulation, and there is every
reason to believe that, with the tremendous changes in theatrical
taste, unless this play is published in available printed form, it
will be lost to the student of ten years from now. The play would
have been included in the present edition if space had allowed.

When I came to a consideration of the modern section, there were
many omissions which had to be made, due very largely to the fact
that authors and owners of copyright were loath to forego their
rights. A collection of this kind should undoubtedly have the name
of James A. Herne represented in its contents, inasmuch as none of
Mr. Herne's plays have heretofore been published, and two of his
most distinctive dramas in original manuscript, "Margaret Fleming"
and "Griffith Davenport," have been totally destroyed by fire. But
representatives of Mr. Herne's family have declined, at the present
time, to allow his plays to be published. This is to be regretted,
inasmuch