The second imitation of _Sganarelle_ is "_Tom Essence, or the
Modish Wife_, a Comedy as it is acted at the Duke's Theatre, 1677.
London, printed by T. M. for W. Cademan, at the _Pope's Head_, in
the Lower Walk of the _New Exchange_ in the _Strand_, 1677."
This play is written by a Mr. Thomas Rawlins, printer and engraver to
the Mint, under Charles the First and Second, and is founded on two
French comedies---viz., Moliere's _Sganarelle_, and Thomas
Corneille's _Don Cesar d' Avalos_. The prologue is too bad to be
quoted, and I doubt if it can ever have been spoken on any stage. This
play is written partly in blank verse, partly in prose; though very
coarse, it is, on the whole, clever and witty. Old Moneylove, a
credulous fool, who has a young wife (Act ii., Scene I), reminds one at
times of the senator Antonio in Otway's _Venice Preserved_, and is,
of course, deceived by the gallant Stanley; the sayings and doings of
Mrs. Moneylove, who is "what she ought not to be," and the way she
tricks her husband, are very racy, perhaps too much so for the taste of
the present times.
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