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      INTRODUCTION

      It is a privilege to have a part in this reprint of what is certainly one of the wittiest plays in the language, and one of the most neglected.[A] Its tripartite authorship and raffish character have encouraged editors to bypass it. The 1717 London edition and Dublin reprint the same year bore no author's name on the title-page, but as Gay signed the Advertisement one would think his editors would have felt it somewhat incumbent on them to keep the play alive. However, so far as I have been able to discover, only the 1795 collected edition of Gay does its duty in this respect, and the editor of Gay's plays in the Abbey Classics (2 vols., 1923) refused to admit it there, claiming that though "this justly abused piece" had been ascribed to Gay, "the authors of the greater part were Pope and Arbuthnot." Three Hours has fared somewhat better as a work of Pope, but interest in reprinting it under his aegis seems to have died out early in the nineteenth century, where the Twickenham Edition (VI, 180) locates two collections of writings attached to Pope that include it – very far to the back of the volume in each case. Since then, nothing, except for a few scraps in G. C. Faber's Poetical Works of Gay, 1926.

      Not much can be done with the play in the space here available, but neither is a complete treatment attempted. Our purpose is to dispel the impression that Three Hours is "dull"[1] (or so risqué that in the public interest it should be kept from general circulation) and to bring it to the attention of more scholars. Certainly the present discussion does not aim to pre-empt the possibilities for study; much will remain to conquer still-for example, the knotty problem of which author wrote precisely which parts of the play, if anyone wants to try an untangling here – I prefer to think it a collaboration through and through, though some tracks of individuals may be made out.

      In the selection of the text to be reproduced for this series the first edition (somewhat unexpectedly) had competition, not from the London 1757 Supplement to Pope's works, but from the version of the play given in the three Dublin printings of the collection of this title: 1757, 1758, 1761. The Dublin play is not merely a debased version of 1717: it is in five acts, 1717 in three, and it contains a sentence of dialogue that 1717 does not: these differences, when taken in conjunction with the prefatory remarks that Gay wrote for the 1717 printing, made it possible to determine (readers will find the argument set forth further on, in a note to the Advertisement) that Dublin, though printed so long after the event (and somewhat butchered by the type-setter, we admit, but corrections of his worst misreadings and typos will be found in the notes) dates from the year 1717 just as the other does, was the script used in the production of the play, and actually was the one that Gay thought Lintot would use in the edition he published. The other consideration inclining us toward the Dublin version of the play was that only in its printings can one get the Key and Letter which, a number of years ago, George Sherburn had in a copy of 1761 and used with such striking effect in his article on the "Fortunes and Misfortunes" of the play;[2] he quoted liberally from both documents but they seemed to us so interesting as to be worth putting into the reader's hands entire.

      Thus it boiled down to a choice between the two earlier Dublin printings; 1761, it seemed, would not need to be checked. The kindness of the Harvard College Library made it possible to compare its copy of 1757 with the Clark Library's copy of 1758, and in the light of the data furnished by the Clark's Supervising Bibliographer, Mr. William E. Conway, the Clark copy could be settled upon; the differences, though slight – there was little resetting from 1757 to 1758, and none in the play proper – were in its favor.

      Any study of the play must begin with Professor Sherburn's article – it is still indispensable, factually – but in its findings scholars have perhaps let it influence them more than they should have. John Wilson Bowyer was exceptional in challenging one of its identifications[3] (successfully, I thought); perhaps the time has now come for re-examining some of its other theses – for example, the doctrine (which has become so firmly embedded in the scholarship on the play) that the authors intended the role of Plotwell as a satire on Cibber. This was suggested at the time in the Key to the play by E. Parker, but any charge brought by this person might well have been looked at askance; for, whoever he was, he was avowedly a champion of "that elaborate Gentleman," "the learned Dr. W – d – d" (Woodward, one of the real people attacked in the play) and might be suspected of hoping to cause an embroilment. It seems clear that prior to the play's première there was no rift between the management at Drury Lane and the authors. Parker says that they were constantly in attendance at rehearsals, and our Letter (p. 216) avers that they were more than satisfied with what Cibber was doing with their work. It rings true; the line attributed to Gay, "We dug the ore, but he [Cibber] refined the gold" exaggerates greatly no doubt, but seems beyond the powers of our female informant to have contrived in support of a thesis. An atmosphere of happy optimism prevailed; Lintot (Parker says) predicted that the play "would surprize the whole Town," and it was reported that he had given 50 guineas for the publishing rights (this item from John Durant Breval – signing himself "Joseph Gay" – p. 30 of The Confederates, 1717).[4]

      That in all this sweetness and light there should have been a plan to make Cibber ridiculous, and he too stupid to realize this until he had trod the stage as Plotwell and felt the impact of the lines directed at him personally, is unbelievable on the face of it. How could the alleged plotters have been sure that when Colley came to cast the play he would not frustrate their deep-laid plan by assigning Plotwell to some other actor, if only by mere chance?

      The theory has fed on some misreadings of the play that must have an end put to them if this ghost is to be laid. If the reader, then, will pardon the obviousness of the following, it is true that Cibber wrote plays, but the name Plotwell should not be taken in this sense, but merely as suggesting the gallant skilled in the stratagems which, in the older comedies, males of this class had been accustomed to use in their cuckolding operations. Plotwell in the play has never set pen to paper except for notes sent to wives, and he is not an "actor-manager" or the like. He and Underplot are simply gentlemen who spend so much of their time in intrigues in real life that they would have no time for play-writing.[5] In the part of Three Hours that has led scholars down this false path – the scene in which the manuscript is judged by Sir Tremendous and the players – it must be kept in mind that the actual author of the work being dismembered is Phoebe Clinket, not Plotwell, who, since he is merely fronting for her, is enabled to meet such strictures as "Between you and I, this gentleman knows nothing of poetry" with perfect sang-froid; it is Phoebe whose withers are comically wrung. Thus there was nothing in the part to offend Cibber, much less can resentment on his part be deduced from the intermission of the play after the seventh night.[6]