SOURCE: Beatty, Joseph M., Jr. “Garrick, Colman, and The Clandestine Marriage.” Modern Language Notes 36, no. 3 (1921): 129-41.

In the following essay, Beatty attempts to determine which sections of The Clandestine Marriage were written by Colman and which sections should be attributed to David Garrick.

With the exception of the plays of Goldsmith and Sheridan, The Clandestine Marriage was probably the best English comedy of the second half of the eighteenth century. Its authors were George Colman, the elder, and David Garrick, respectively one of the most widely known dramatists of his generation and one of the greatest actors that England has produced. The part each had in the writing of the play was in dispute even during their lives, and has remained in dispute until the present. It is my purpose to examine the evidence both internal and external that has any bearing upon the indebtedness of the play...