From A Bibliography of Alexandre Dumas père by Frank Wild Reed: A prose comedy in five acts.
A most amusing little piece, staged at London and Windsor, at the time of the outbreak of the Great Plague. Charles II., Buckingham and Nell Gwynn are prominent characters. The laird, though it must be confessed he is not very Scotch, is a more than usually amusing character, even of Dumas' creation. In his "Mémoires" the author states that this play was one of only two which had been complete failures on their first nights. It is very difficult to understand this, unless Gautier is correct when he surmises that the title was unhappy, in that it gave the public the expectation of seeing some snuffy old Scotchman taken from one of Walter Scott's less appreciated, at least on the continent, productions. In this they were wrong, and the spectacle offered them was worthy to hold its own with his best comedies.
It is usually considered to have been produced with the assistance of de Leuven and Léon Lhérie.
First performed at the Odéon Théâtre on the 30th of December, 1843.
Original edition : Paris, Marchant. 1844, large 8vo. of two columns, forming part of the "Magasin Théâtral," pp. 44, with a vignette on the title-page.
It was included in Vol. III. of Passard's continuation of Charpentier' s collected plays, 1846.
It is now to be found in Vol. VI. of the 15 Vol. collection, and in Vol. IX. of that in 25 Vols. as issued by Calmann-Lévy.
References :—
Dumas: "Mes Mémoires," Chapter CCLIII. Gautier: "Art Dramatique," Série III., pp. 148-51. Parran: "Bibliographie d'Alex. Dumas," page 29. Quérard: "Supercheries Littéraires Dévoilées," Vol. I., Column 1077. Glinel: "Alexandre Dumas et Son Œuvre," page 383.
