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THE DRUMMER OF HERSTMONCEUX. 195
Inquisition to be burnt. Destouches' version is in prose, but there was another adaptation issued in 1737, in verse par M[onsieu]r D* D* [Des-caseaux Desgranges]. It also attracted the notice of J. C. Gottsched, and " Das Gespenste mit der Trummel" is included in the second volume of his " Deutsche Schaubuhne," Leipzig, 1742. Gottsched translated, amongst many other things, Addison's "Cato."
It frequently happens that the origin of a play can be definitely traced, and plots have often been freely appropriated. The Drummer is, however, an original drama, and no real analogue has yet been indicated. Addison's latest biographer, Mr. Leslie Stephen, calls The Drummer "a prose comedy founded on the story of the drummer of Tedworth, told in Glanvil's ' Saducismus Tri-umphatus." This assertion, which appears to have no solid foundation, I have not been able to find any trace of before the appearance of a paragraph in the Gentleman s Magazine for 1796 (p. 6). The statement, not made very positively, was included in " Addisoniana," in 1803. This book is an amusing, but not very authoritative, publication, issued by Sir Richard Phillips. " Upon this story, related to him in early life, it |
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