The Augustan Reprint Society

CHARLES MACKLIN

A WILL AND NO WILL,
OR A Bone for the Lawyers.
(1746)

THE NEW PLAY CRITICIZ'D,
OR The Plague of Envy.
(1747)

Introduction by
Jean B. Kern

PUBLICATION NUMBERS 127-128
WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK MEMORIAL LIBRARY
University of California, Los Angeles
1967

GENERAL EDITORS

• George Robert Guffey, University of California, Los Angeles
• Maximillian E. Novak, University of California, Los Angeles
• Robert Vosper, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library

ADVISORY EDITORS

• Richard C. Boys, University of Michigan
• James L. Clifford, Columbia University
• Ralph Cohen, University of Virginia
• Vinton A. Dearing, University of California, Los Angeles
• Arthur Friedman, University of Chicago
• Louis A. Landa, Princeton University
• Earl Miner, University of California, Los Angeles
• Samuel H. Monk, University of Minnesota
• Everett T. Moore, University of California, Los Angeles
• Lawrence Clark Powell, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
• James Sutherland, University College, London
• H. T. Swedenberg, Jr., University of California, Los Angeles

CORRESPONDING SECRETARY

Edna C. Davis, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library

INTRODUCTION

The manuscript copies of these two plays by Charles Macklin, A WILLAND NO WILL, OR A BONE FOR THE LAWYERS (1746) and THE NEW PLAYCRITICIZ'D, OR THE PLAGUE OF ENVY (1747), are in the LarpentCollection of the Huntington Library along with a third afterpieceThe Covent Garden Theatre, or Pasquin Turn'd Drawcansir (1752)already reproduced in facsimile as Number 116 of the Augustan ReprintSociety.[1] Since the introduction to Covent Garden Theatre(ARS 116) already gives general biographical information on thisactor-playwright, Charles Macklin, as well as an indication of therevived interest in his plays, this introduction will be limited tothe two afterpieces here reproduced.

A WILL AND NO WILL, OR A BONE FOR THE LAWYERS (Larpent 58) was firstproduced in 1746 and revived many times up to March 29, 1756, unlikeThe Covent Garden T