THOMAS SOUTHERNE'S tragi-comedy The Fatal Marriage, or The Innocent Adultery (1694) may be said to consist of two independent plays. It contains a tragedy the subject of which is fairly accurately described by its two titles, and which owes nothing, it may be added, to Scarron's novel, L'AdultWre innocente. This tragedy was separated out by Garrick and printed in 1757 under the title Isabella, or the Fatal Marriage. The second element is an unsavoury comic underplot, which, as the author has himself admitted, is cumbersome for the progress of the main action: 'I have given you a little taste of comedy...not from my own opinion, but the present humour of the town: I never contend that, because every reasonable man will, and ought to govern in the pleasures he pays for. I had no occasion for the comedy, but in the three first acts,' etc.' Garrick had thus the best excuse for remodelling the play, and he has done so with complete success.