462 Lady R. Well dost thou counsel, Anna; Heaven bestow Anna. The moments of deliberation pass, Pris. If I, amidst astonishment and fear, Thou art the daughter of my ancient master; Lady R. With thee dissimulation now were vain. The child thou rescuedst from the flood is mine. Pris. Blessed be the hour that made me a poor man! Lady R. Thy words surprise me; sure thou dost not feign! Sir Malcolm's house deserved not, if aright Thou told'st the story of thy own distress. Pris. Sir Malcolm of our barons was the flower; After that battle, where his gallant son, Your own brave brother, fell, the good old lord To overlook the conduct of his servants. By them I was thrust out, and them I blame; May heaven so judge me as I judged my master, And God so love me as I love his race! Lady R. His race shall yet reward thee. On thy faith Rememberest thou a little lonely hut, That like a holy hermitage appears Among the cliffs of Carron? Pris. I remember The cottage of the cliffs. Lady R. 'Tis that I mean; There dwells a man of venerable age, Thy son so long shall call thee father still, And all the land shall bless the man who saved Mallet and Glover, though not distinguished in this department of literature, were authors of tragedies that must not be passed by unnoticed. Mallet's tragedy of Elvira was highly successful, and his Mustapha enjoyed a factitious popularity by glancing at the king and Sir Robert Wal pole. Glover also produced a tragedy, Boadicea, but it was found deficient. In this play we find the following gem: in interest for a mixed audience. FORGIVENESS. So prone to error is our mortal frame, Had not impressed a soft and yielding sense, The seeds of mutual mercy and forgiveness. HORACE WALPOLE was the author of a tragedy, The Mysterious Mother, which, though painful and revolting in the plot and incidents, abounds in vigorous description, and striking imagery. As this writer had a strong predilection for Gothic romance, and had also a dramatic turn of mind, it is much to be regretted that he did not devote himself to the service of the stage. The Mysterious Mother' has never, for want of adaptation, been ventured on the stage. Murphy, the last tragic writer whom we shall notice, produced, in 1772, the Grecian Daughter. The subject is purely classic, and though treated in the French style, is not destitute of tenderness. It has never, however, been a successful acting drama. In Otway and Southerne had marred the effect of some of their most pathetic and impressive dramas, by the intermixture of comic, and even farcical and licentious scenes and characters; but they were the last dramatic writers who committed this incongruity. After their day public sentiment demanded that tragedy and comedy should no longer be intermingled in the same performance; and it is rather remarkable that from the period of their separation, the comic muse has been more successful than her tragic sister, and has also greatly improved in moral tone and purity of sentiment. the reign of George the Second, the witty and artificial comedies of Vanbrugh and Farquhar, began to lose their ground, both on account of their licentiousness, and the formal system on which they were constructed. their room, Garrick, Foote, and other writers, placed a set of dramatic compositions, which though often of an humble and unpretending character, exercised great influence in introducing a taste for more natural portraitures and language; and these again led the way to the higher productions, which we are still accustomed to refer to with veneration, as the legitimate English comedies. Amongst the first five-act plays in which this improvement was seen, was The Suspicious Husband, of Hoadly. In this comedy there is little of the license of Farquhar, and Ranger, its leading character, is still a favorite on the stage. In DR. BENJAMIN HOADLY, the author of this drama, was the eldest son of the bishop of Winchester, and was born in London, on the tenth of February, 1705. He prepared for the university at Newcome's school, Hackney, and in 1722, entered Bennet College, Cambridge. Having studied medicine and taken his doctor's degree, he became, in 1742, physician to the king, and four years after, to the Prince of Wales. In his profession, Dr. Hoadly greatly distinguished himself by three letters on Respiration, read before the college of physicians, in 1740. His death occurred on the tenth of August, 1757. GEORGE COLMAN, the manager of Covent Garden theatre, was an excellent comic writer, and produced more than thirty plays, some of which still keep possession of the stage. His Jealous Wife, founded on Fielding's 'Tom Jones,' has some highly effective scenes and well-drawn characters. This play was produced in 1761, and five years afterwards Colman, in connection with Garrick, brought out The Clandestine Marriage, in which the character of an ancient beau, affecting gayety and youth, is strikingly personified, in Lord Ogleby. George Colman was of good parentage, and was born at Florence, in Italy, where his father was British resident, in 1733. On the return of the parent to England, the son was placed at Westminster school, and thence passed to Christ Church College, Oxford, where he remained, and with honor completed his university studies. Having returned to London, he entered Lincoln's Inn, as a student of law; but though he was afterwards called to the bar, he never practiced his profession, the pursuits of literature being much more congenial to his taste and feelings. He commenced his literary career by writing fugitive poems for the magazines; but from these he soon turned his attention to the drama, and besides the comedies already mentioned, he brought out, in the course of a few years, Polly Honeycomb, The English Merchant, The Oxonian in Town, The Man of Business, The Spanish Barber, Suicide, The Separate Maintenance, The Manager in Distress, and many others. He did not, however, confine his attention exclusively to the drama, but evinced his ability as a scholar and a critic, by his translation of Terence's comedies, and Horace's Art of Poetry. After successfully managing Covent Garden theatre for many years, Colman died, much respected, on the fourteenth of August, 1794. ARTHUR MURPHY, born in Ireland of respectable parents, in 1727, and educated at the school of St. Omers, added comedy as well as tragedy to the stage, and his Way to Keep Him is still occasionally performed. Murphy, after he left school, was placed under the care of a relation in London, engaged in commercial pursuits; but business had no attractions for him, and he soon left the house of his friend, to devote himself to the labors of a literary life. He had a strong inclination to become an actor, but after trying his powers in Othello and other characters, he gave up all pretensions to eminence on the stage, and determined to support himself by his pen. He studied the law, and was called to the bar; but as the dramatic muse 1811 A.D.] HUGH KELLY.-RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 465 absorbed his entire attention, he never entered into practice. As an author, he was eminently successful. The best of his dramas, after the Way to Keep Him,' are All in the Wrong, Know Your Own Mind, Three Weeks After Marriage, and the Citizen. Besides these plays, he produced various other works, the most important of which is his translation of Tacitus. The latter part of his life was passed in the midst of the affluence acquired by his literary performances, and his death occurred on the eighteenth of June, 1805. Murphy was followed by HUGH KELLY, a scurrilous newspaper writer, who surprised the world by producing a comedy, False Delicacy, the success of which was remarkable in its effects, both on the fortunes and the character of the author. From the profits of the first third night he realized over one hundred and fifty pounds—a larger sum of money than he had ever before seen; 'and from a low, petulant, absurd, and ill-bred censurer,' says Davies, 'Kelly was transformed to the humane, affable, goodnatured, well-bred man.' Kelly's other successful comedies are A Word to the Wise, School for Wives, and the Romance of an Hour. He died comparatively young, in 1777. The marked success of Kelly's sentimental style, gave the tone to a much more able dramatist, RICHARD CUMBERLAND, who, after two or three unsuccessful attempts, brought out, in 1771, The West Indian, one of the best stage comedies in the English language. The plot, incidents, and characters, are all admirably sustained. This play is farther remarkable for containing the first draught of an Irish gentleman ever witnessed on the stage. Cumberland afterwards produced with success, The Wheel of Fortune, The Fashionable Lover, and some other pieces, but they are too stiff and sentimental for an audience of the present day. This interesting writer was born on the nineteenth of February, 1732. He studied at Westminster school until the fourteenth year of his age, when he entered Trinity College, Oxford, and there, in 1750, took his bachelor's degree. Soon after he left the university, he became secretary to Lord Halifax, viceroy of Ireland. On his return to England he obtained the place of clerk of reports in the office of trade and plantations; and afterwards was appointed secretary to that board. In 1780, he went on a mission to Lisbon and Madrid, but was recalled in the following year, in consequence of having exceeded his powers. He was also deprived of his situation at the board of trade, and from this time until his death, which occurred on the seventh of May, 1811, his circumstances were much embarrassed. Of Cumberland's other works, his Observer, a series of miscellaneous papers, is the most valuable, and still holds a distinguished rank among the British classics. Goldsmith, whom we have already noticed in connection with another department of literature, thought that Cumberland had carried the refinement of comedy to excess, and he therefore attempted to correct the fault. His VOL. II.-2 G first dramatic performance, The Good-Natured Man, produced, in 1772, presents one of the happiest of his delineations, in the character of Croaker; but as a whole, the play wants point and sprightliness. His second drama, She Stoops to Conquer, performed in the following year, has all the requisites for interesting and amusing an audience; and Dr. Johnson said, 'he knew of no comedy for many years that had answered so much the great end of comedy-making an audience merry.' The plot turns on what may be termed a farcical incident-two parties mistaking a gentleman's house for an inn. But the excellent discrimination of character, and the humor and vivacity of the dialogue throughout the play, render this drama one of the richest contributions that have been made to modern comedy. The native pleasantry and originality of Goldsmith were never more happily displayed, and his success, as Davies remarks, 'revived fancy, wit, gayety, humor, incident, and character, in the place of sentiment and moral preachment.' RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN, the greatest comic writer of modern times, appeared before the public two years after Goldsmith obtained his dramatic triumph. On the seventeenth of January, 1775, his play of The Rivals was brought out at Covent Garden. In this first effort of Sheridan there is more humor than wit. He copied some of his characters from 'Humphrey Clinker,' and the testy but generous Captain Absolute, evidently borrowed from Matthew Bramble, and Mrs. Malaprop, whose mistakes in words are the echoes of Mrs. Winifred Jenkin's blunders. Some of these are farcical enough; but as Moore observes, the luckiness of Mrs. Malaprop's simile, ' as headstrong as an allegory on the banks of the Nile,' will be acknowledged as long as there are writers to be run away with by the wilfulness of this species of composition. In the same year, St. Patrick's Day and The Duenna were produced; and such was the popularity of the latter that it had a run of seventy-five successive nights. His popularity did not, however, reach its height until 1777, when he produced The Trip to Scarborough, and The School for Scandal. In plot, character, and incident, dialogue, humor, and wit, 'The School for Scandal' is acknowledged to surpass any other comedy of modern times. The author selected, arranged, and moulded his language with such consummate skill, as to render it a transparent channel for the communication of his thoughts. As in his first comedy Sheridan had taken hints from Smollett, so in this, his last, he had recourse to Smollett's rival novelist, Fielding. The characters of Charles and Joseph Surface are evidently copied from Tom Jones and Blifil. Nor is the moral of the play an improvement on that of the novel. The careless, extravagant rake, is generous, warm-hearted, and fascinating; seriousness and gravity are rendered odious by being united to meanness and hypocrisy. The dramatic art of Sheridan is evinced in the ludicrous incidents and situations with which 'The School for Scandal' abounds: his genius shines forth in his witty dialogues. The entire comedy,' says Moore, ' is an El Dorado of wit, where the precious metal is thrown about by all |