Although three centuries have lapsed since most of John Crowne's plays were produced, he remains worth remembering, not only because some of his songs and at least one of his comedies, Sir Courtly Nice (1685), continue to offer literary delight, but also because, like Samuel Pepys, both his life and works in their typically offer genuine insight into Restoration living. His life helps us to understand that most politicized of all times because, no less than the king's ministers (or mistresses) or Pepys himself, Crowne led a life of politic compromise, "a career of loyalty" as John Genest terms it in his Some Account of the English Stage, from the Restoration in 1660 to 1830 (1832). And his works, besides the varying degree of pleasure they still provide, are historically valuable because of the ways their plots and characters reflect political events. Furthermore, since Crowne was not of independent means and, therefore...