SOURCE: Sprague, Arthur Colby. “The Alterations and Adaptations.” In Beaumont and Fletcher on the Restoration Stage, pp. 129-262. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1926.

In the following excerpt, Sprague discusses two plays adapted by Buckingham: The Chances, originally by Fletcher, and The Restauration from Philaster, or Love Lies a Bleeding, by Beaumont and Fletcher.

Buckingham (?), the Restoration

In The Miscellaneous Works of His Grace George, Late Duke of Buckingham, printed nearly twenty years after his death, appeared two excellent pieces entitled respectively, A Prologue to Philaster and The Epilogue, to be spoken by the Governour in Philaster.¹ Both, it is expressly stated, were written “by the Duke of Buckingham,” and I see no reason to question the attribution.

Our next notice of the play is from the anonymous preface to the octavo Beaumont and Fletcher of 1711—in general a mere scrapbook. Buckingham, we are told, after writing The Chances...