Excerpt from Patience: Or Bunthorne's Bride

The genesis of "Patience" is to be found in the "Bab Ballad, " called "The Rival Curates." In the original draft of the MS. of my play Reginald Bunthorne and Archibald Grosvenor were two clergymen belonging to adjoining parishes, as in the ballad, and the Reverend Mr. Bunthorne was attended by a team of enthusiastic lady worshippers who had been fascinated by the lamb-like meekness of his demeanour. In the course of the piece this body of devotees, having discovered that the Reverend Mr. Grosvenor was even meeker than Mr. Bunthorne, transferred their affections, en bloc, to Mr. Grosvenor, one admirer only, Lady Jane, remaining faithful to Mr. Bunthorne. Enraged at this successful opposition, Mr. Bunthorne commissioned Lady Jane to go to Mr. Grosvenor and explain to him, in the fiercest and most uncompromising terms, that unless he abandoned, at once, his blameless attitude, and forthwith became a reckless and unconventional renegade, holding the broadest possible views of his duties as a clergyman, the consequences to him would be of the most painful and humiliating description.

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