INTRODUCTION.

EVER since Pope's famous couplet, the solemn protestations of authors that they print at the "request of friends," has been held to be a false and cowardly pretence, and scorned and derided accordingly. Now and then, however, that most improbable assertion happens to be true-in the present instance it undoubtedly is so. For the publication of these volumes, the excellent friend to whom they are inscribed is solely accountable: a heavy weight of responsibility which he will redeem, some day or other, by giving to the world lyrics of his own writing that nobody will wish shorter.

How he chanced upon these plays of mine, I hardly know. I think he picked them up in the library of a great country-house where he was visiting. They had fallen into such utter oblivion,