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Glander Guch

THE

B Bo Leene

DOUBLE-DEALER,

A

COMEDY.

Written by Mr. CONGREVE.

LONDON:

Printed for JACOB TONSON in the Strand.

MDCCXXXV,

OXFOR

To the Right Honourable

CHARLES MONTAGUE,

One of the

Lords of the Treasury.

SIR,

I

Heartily wish this Play were as perfect as I intended it, that it might be more worthy your Acceptance; and that my Dedication of it to you, might be more becoming that Honour and Efteem which I, with every Body who is so fortunate as to know you, have for you. It had your Countenance when yet unknown; and now it is made publick, it wants your Protection.

I would not have any Body imagine, that I think this Play without its Faults, for I am Confcious of feveral. I confefs I defign'd (whatever Vanity or Ambition occafion'd that Defign) to have written a true and regular Comedy: but I found it an Undertaking which put me in mind of-----Sudet multum, fruftraque laboret aufus idem. And now to make Amends for the Vanity of fuch a Defign, I do confefs both the Attempt, and the imperfect Performance. Yet I must take the Boldness to say, I have not mifcarry'd in the whole; for the Mechanical part of it is regular. That I may fay with as little Vanity, as a Builder may fay he has built a House according to the Model laid down before him; or a Gardiner that he has fet his Flowers in a Knot of fuch or fuch a Figure. I defign'd the Moral firft, and to that Moral I invented the Fable, and do not know that

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