English Comic Dramatists

It is well thus to make a somewhat dogmatic definition of Comedy, that the critical reader may know what he is to expect in the selections from our English Comic Dramatists. He will see at once how far afield his selector has been able to go, and where he has had to draw the line. Having regard only to the providing of good and interesting reading, he might have quoted largely from our Romantic Drama, in which our literature is exceptionally rich, or from our Farce Drama, to which we have something of an Italian leaning, but to do this would have required folios, not a single small volume. In making the selections from the Comic Dramatists which are to follow, it has been the endeavour of the author not merely to put together at haphazard a number of comedy scenes that shall amuse and entertain the reader of them, but to give him in a succinct form something which shall thoroughly represent English comedy literature. Each scene from a play is preceded by a sketch of the plot sufficient to make the scene intelligible. A short critical note upon each of the dramatists quoted will also be found in the body of the work.