The City Bride | Page 2

new dialogue is remarkable good.
The reader will notice that it is, except for the last half of the first act,
printed as prose. The quarto of A Cure for a Cuckold, from which
Harris worked, is also largely printed as prose, but has correct verse
lineation in the same portion of the first act. It is the more remarkable
that Harris, following thus closely the apparent form of his original,
could vary from it so successfully. Most notable, probably, are the
passages in which he intensified the expression of his source. They may
indicate no more than the eternal "ham" in our author; but I think they
probably indicate as well a new style of acting, more rhetorical in one
way, more natural in another. A good example, in which the new
rhetoric is not oppressive, is the account of the sea fight at the end of
Act III. Even when Harris followed his original most closely, we seem
to hear the actor, speaking in a new tongue, in a more relaxed and
colloquial rhythm. The reader will find it both amusing and instructive
to compare the two versions of Act II, scene ii. The new cadences do
more than merely prove that Harris had no ear for blank verse.
The City Bride does not conform to the dominant type of Restoration
comedy, but it belongs to a thriving tradition. Domestic comedy, in
adaptations from the Elizabethans, had been staged at intervals for
twenty years before The City Bride appeared, and the type was of

course destined to supplant gay comedy in the near future. Harris was
not, therefore, going against the taste of the town; on the contrary he
was regularly guided by contemporary taste and practice. His stage is
less crowded: he amalgamated the four gallants of A Cure for a
Cuckold in the person of Mr. Spruce, at the expense of a dramatic scene
(I, ii, 31-125); and he ended the sub-plot with the fourth act instead of
bringing its persons into the final scene, with some loss of liveliness
and a concomitant gain in unity of effect. He modernized his dialogue
entirely, bringing up to date the usage and allusions of his original, and
restraining the richness of its metaphor by removing the figures
altogether or by substituting others more familiar. He omitted a good
deal of bawdry, especially in Act II, scene ii. All these changes have
parallels in other Restoration adaptations. Again, the songs and dances,
which are all of Harris's composition, reflect the demand of the
Restoration audience for excitement, variety, novelty, in their dramatic
fare. When in Act III, scene i, Harris meets this demand by making
Bonvile bare his breast to Friendly's sword, and Friendly a little later
grovel at Bonvile's feet for pardon, we may condemn the new business
as bathetic; but when in Act IV, scene i, he substitutes for Webster's
emaciated jokes the bustle of drawers, the sound of the bar bell, and
healths all around, we can only applaud the change.
We must also commend Harris for supplying a consistent and relatively
believable motivation for the main action. In both A Cure for a Cuckold
and The City Bride, Clare (Clara) begins the action by giving her suitor,
Lessingham (Friendly), a cryptic message: he is to determine who his
best friend is and kill him. In A Cure for a Cuckold, it is never made
clear whether the victim should have been Bonvile or Clare herself (she
apparently intended to trick Lessingham into poisoning her). This
uncertainty has only recently been noticed by students of the drama,
who have been forced to emend the text at IV, ii, 165 (see Lucas's note
on the passage). Harris's solution is simpler. He will have nothing to do
with either murder or suicide. Clara explains to Friendly that the best
friend of a lover is love itself.
This is not the place to enumerate all the differences between A Cure
for a Cuckold and The City Bride; indeed the reader may prefer making

the comparisons for himself. Harris's alterations follow the general
pattern of Restoration adaptations from the earlier drama, it is true. On
the other hand, a relatively small number of such plays allow us to see
the professional actor feeling his way through the emotions and actions
of the scenes. To compare a play like The City Bride with its source is
like visiting the rehearsals of an acting company of the time. Such a
play has an immediacy and liveness that strongly appeals to those who
delight to image forth the past.
The City Bride has never been reprinted. The present edition reproduces,
with permission, the copy in the Henry E. Huntington Library, omitting
Harris's signed dedication to Sir John Walter, Bart., on A2^r-A3^r
(A1^v in the original