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to be Acted on Twelfth Night.' The final dictum of Pepys on Twelfth Night as revived in 1669 was, 'one of the weakest plays that ever I saw on the stage.'

The not infrequent comment that Twelfth Night escaped the perversion so frequently visited on Shakespeare's plays by Restoration adapters apparently neglects Wycherley's abuse of the Viola-Olivia theme in The Plain Dealer (1674)). Wycherley's Fidelia is a debased Viola, his Olivia a wanton who sullies her borrowed name. But despite his disfigurement of character and incident, Wycherley has not defaced his great originals beyond recognition. Early in the eighteenth century, Charles Burnaby, a playwright devoid of Wycherley's undeniable dramatic vigor and vitality, followed him in borrowing from Twelfth Night. Love Betray'd, or the Agreeable Disappointment, produced at Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre in 1703, took from Shakespeare's comedy its main incidents and characters and, according to Burnaby's own preface, 'about 50 of the Lines.' He adds: 'Those that are his, I have mark'd with Inverted Commas, to distinguish 'em from mine. I endeavoured where I had occasion to introduce any of 'em, to make 'em look as little like Strangers as possible.' With equal courtesy Burnaby strove to set at ease Shakespeare's characters in the novel depths to which he made them descend. Viola and Sebastian retain their names, but the others are more happily, though but partially, shielded by new masks for old faces. A confidant for Viola and a servant for Sebastian are generously supplied, and the uneasy distinctions of rank and title are thoughtfully minimized in the poverty of dialogue common to all the characters. Apart from the actual verbal borrowings from Shakespeare's text, the consistency with which Burnaby 'transprosed' Twelfth Night will not be questioned seriously. Happily Burnaby's piece failed to gain the success which was