Add MS 37761

BERRY PAPERS. Vol. XXXVI. (ff. 177). "The Fashionable Friend. A Comedy in Five Acts." In Mary Berry's, hand. Printed in England and France, etc., 1844, p. 315, where the following Advertisement occurs: "This Comedy found among the papers of the late Earl of Orford, and remaining unclaimed in the hands of his Executors for five years, was brought forward at the request of Mr. Kemble, on the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane [1802]. After the extraordinary abuse that has been lavished on it, the Executors considered it as a duty to the unknown Author to publish it."It had been first produced at Strawberry Hill, 1801, with prologue and epilogue by Joanna Baillie; Mr. Berry, Agnes Berry and Mrs. Damer being in the cast. See Extracts, ii. p. 116, where Lady T. Lewis attributes the composition to Mary Berry. At the end are an undated dedication (f. 173) to some lord unnamed [? Lord Orford], in which the author speaks of the play as "a piece which the Public have thought fit to receive favourably" (possibly a draft of a dedication to be prefixed to a printed edition, if the play succeeded), a Prologue (f. 175) without author's name, dat. Nov. 1796, and a "Ballad to be sung by Mr. Suet," which was perhaps intended to be introduced in the stage performance.