ticular account of his behavior, and of everything that happened.—You'll find me here with Miss Lucy. [Exit FILCH.] But why is all this music?

Lucy. The prisoners, whose trials are put off till next sessions, are diverting themselves.

Polly. Sure there is nothing so charming as music! I'm fond of it to distraction!But alas!-now, all mirth seems an insult upon my affliction. Let us retire, my dear Lucy, and indulge our sorrows. The noisy crew, you see, are coming upon us. [Exeunt. A dance of prisoners in chains, etc.

SCENE XIII

THE CONDEMNED HOLD.
MACHEATH, in a melancholy posture.

AIR LVIII-Happy groves.

O cruel, cruel, cruel case!
Must I suffer this disgrace?

AIR LIX-Of all the girls that are so smart.
Of all the friends in time of grief,
When threat'ning death looks grimmer,
Not one so sure can bring relief,
As this best friend, a brimmer.

AIR LX-Britons, strike home.

[Drinks.

Since I must swing,-I scorn, I scorn wince or whine.

AIR LXI-Chevy Chase.

But now again my spirits sink;
I'll raise them high with wine.

to

[Rises.

AIR LXV-Did you ever hear of a gallant sailor.
But can I leave my pretty hussies,
Without one tear, or tender sigh?

AIR LXVI-Why are mine eyes still flowing.
Their eyes, their lips, their busses,
Recall my love.-Ah, must I die?

AIR LXVII-Greensleeves.

Since laws were made for ev'ry degree,
To curb vice in others, as well as me,
I wonder we han't better company,
Upon Tyburn tree!

But gold from law can take out the sting;
And if rich men like us were to swing,
'Twould thin the land, such numbers to
string

Upon Tyburn tree!

Jailor. Some friends of yours, captain, desire to be admitted. I leave you together.

SCENE XIV

MACHEATH, BEN BUDGE, MATT OF THE MINT.

Mach. For my having broke prison, you see, gentlemen, I am ordered immediate execution. The sheriff's officers, I believe, are now at the door. That Jemmy Twitcher should peach me, I own surprised me! 'Tis a plain proof that the world is all alike, and that even our gang can no more trust one another than other people. Therefore, I beg you, gentlemen, look well to yourselves, for in all probability you may live some months longer.

Matt. We are heartily sorry, captain, for your misfortune.-But 'tis what we must all come to.

Mach. Peachum and Lockit, you know, are

[Drinks a glass of wine. infamous scoundrels. Their lives are as

AIR LXIII-Joy to great Cæsar.
If thusa man can die.
Much bolder with brandy.

much in your power, as yours are in theirs. Remember your dying friend!-'Tis my last request. Bring those villains to the gallows before you, and I am satisfied.

Mach. My dear Lucy-my dear Polly[Pours out a bumper of brandy. Whatsoever hath passed between us is now

AIR LXIV-There was an old woman.

So I drink off this bumper.-And now I can
stand the test.

And my comrades shall see that I die as
brave as the best.
[Drinks.

at an end. If you are fond of marrying again, the best advice I can give you, is to ship yourselves off for the West Indies, where you'll have a fair chance of getting a husband apiece; or by good luck, two or three, as you like best.

Polly. How can I support this sight?

SO the prisoner be brought back to his wives in triumph.

Play. All this we must do, to comply with

AIR LXVIII-All you that must take a leap, etc. the taste of the town.

Mach. But hark! I hear the toll of the am sure she who thinks herself my wife will bell!

HENRY FIELDING

TOM THUMB THE GREAT

HENRY FIELDING lived in the flourishing period of the eighteenth century, before reason and common sense in matters literary had given way to the sentimentalism and pseudo-romanticism of the later decades,. and he was one of the most robust representatives of this robust time. In his youth he went a merry pace, though not quite to the extent indicated in Thackeray's engaging picture, and in his later life with fearlessness and thoroughness he became as the simple London magistrate a terror to evildoers and a praise to them that do well. His abounding vitality and his devotion to right kept him at his task when stricken with disease; his thoughtfulness for others made him forget his own pain in theirs, and his hatred of wrong and love of right made him one of the greatest satiric writers of his age.

Born of good family at Sharpham Park, Somerset, on April 22, 1707, Fielding was educated at Eton College and at the University of Leyden, where he took his degree in the Faculty of Letters in 1728. The same year he was in London with extravagant tastes and an unpaid income of £200 a year. Like many another youth of genius he turned to the stage for support and produced with moderate success two plays imitative of Congreve. By 1730 he had discovered that his bent lay towards satire, and using his own experiences as subject for farce, he wrote The Author's Farce and the Pleasures of the Town (1730). Then he made fun of others in his admirable burlesque Tom Thumb (1730), which after a successful run he enlarged and to which he appended a critical preface and commentary as solemn and ridiculous as the play, with the title, The Tragedy of Tragedies; or, The Life and Death of Tom Thumb the Great with the Annotations of H. Scriblerus Secundus (1731). Plays now came thick and fast but of decidedly second-rate quality. In 1736 he took over the so-called French theatre in the Haymarket and presented his own burlesque Pasquin, which was modelled on The Rehearsal, and is only inferior to Tom Thumb. The Historical Register for 1736, which attacked Walpole's corrupt methods, led to governmental interference, with the result that the Licensing Act was passed on June 21, 1737, and so put an end to Fielding's direct connection with the stage.1

1

In addition to the plays mentioned above Fielding wrote Love in Several Masques (1728); The Temple Beau (1730); The Letter-Writers,

Fielding now began to study law, and was admitted to the bar in June, 1740. In the same year his real genius accidentally discovered itself when he undertook to parody Richardson's Pamela. Its sentimentality and hot

house morality aroused Fielding's masculine mirth and incited him to depict a virtuous hero who would be the fitting counterpart to the excellent Pamela. But Joseph Andrews, the hero, soon came to have an independent interest in the eyes of the satirist, and his adventures grew into a plot sufficient in itself. Accordingly we have The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews (1742), the first great novel in English literature. The following year appeared three volumes of Miscellanies, including A Journey from This World to the Next, and his ironical masterpiece The History of the Life of the Late Jonathan Wild the Great. The death in 1743 of his wife, whom he had married in 1735, almost broke his heart. His sole consolation was in the sympathetic grief of her maid, whose sorrow was only less than his own. Four years later he married this maid and lived happily with her till his death, despite the vilest kind of calumnies, directed against them both. Meanwhile he is writing political articles for The True Patriot and The Jacobite's Journal, and is practising his profession. In December, 1748, he was made Justice of the Peace for Westminster, and henceforth till within a few months of his death he spent laborious days putting down crime so that there was in London, it was said, no such thing as a murder, but not even a street robbery."

not even

His. greatest work, the supreme novel of the century, The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling, was published in February, 1749, and was at once acclaimed at its true worth. Amelia, his last novel, was published in December, 1751. There are two testimonials to the contemporary appreciation of the work: Johnson stayed up all night to read it through, and Fielding's publisher paid him £1000 for it and lost nothing by the transaction. Journalistic work and his untiring zeal as a magistrate kept him busy till ill health demanded rest. With his wife and eldest daughter he sailed for Lisbon on June 26, 1754, but he reached his destination only to die there on October 8. The charming and pathetic record of the journey is the last product of his pen.

During the period covered by the plays in our volume there appeared three notable burlesques on the drama and on dramatic conditions, Buckingham's Rehearsal (1671), Fielding's Tom Thumb (1731), and Sheridan's The Critic (1779). The first was intended more as a personal attack on Dryden than as a burlesque of the heroic play; the second was a joyous satire on dramatists and critics for their creative and critical absurdities; The Grub-Street Opera, The Lottery (1731); The Modern Husband, The Debauchees, The Covent-Garden Tragedy, The Mock Doctor (1732); The Miser, an adaptation of Molière's L'Avare, Deborah (1733); The Intriguing Chambermaid, Don Quixote in England (1734); The Virgin Unmasked, The Universal Gallant (1735): Eurydice. Eurydice Hissed (1737); The Wedding Day (1743); Tumble-Down Dick (1744).

the third was a lively attack on would-be patrons of the stage, affected authors, and the bombastic style of the contemporary drama. The first and third present the rehearsal of a play with the comments and criticisms of interested spectators; the second is a pure mock-heroic burlesque with learned footnotes parodying the erudite commentaries of scholars and ironically justifying extravagant diction in dramatic productions.

When Buckingham produced his Rehearsal, Dryden's Conquest of Granada, the greatest of the heroic plays, was on the crest of its popularity. A very keen eye was, however, not required to see the possibilities of ridicule in the extravagances of Almanzor and his kind, and since personal enmity was the real motive, Buckingham entered into the fun of his burlesque with malicious zest. He represents Dryden as a fool and a knave, who steals his ideas and keeps a mistress, and who makes no secret of either offence. Bayes (as Dryden is called) follows purely mechanical methods in constructing his plays, is awkward in his technique, and is extravagant in his diction, but with it all he is highly complacent. He clumsily conveys information to his audience, he subordinates plot to fine speeches, he fails to motivate events and he confuses his audience by hopelessly confounding events and characters. He unwittingly amuses his critics with his "snip-snap" dialogue, his reasoning in verse, and his portrayal of the eternal conflict between love and honor, which he reduces to an absurdity. He seriously presents scenes of impossible operatic magnificence and a stupendous battle is waged by two single contestants. Above all, he surpasses Almanzor in Drawcansir, who can

"make proud Jove, with all his thunder, see This single arm more dreadful is than he."

Sheridan gratified no personal spite when he wrote The Critic. The patron of the stage as presented in Dangle is an ever-living type and is drawn from no special individual; Sir Fretful Plagiary, who stands for Cumberland, the boresome author of sentimental plays, is portrayed with much truth but without malice. Sheridan was interested in satirizing not persons but classes, the puffing critics, the jealous and vain playwrights, and in ridiculing absurd dramatic ideas and methods. So he took a final fling at the sentimental drama, which he had wounded unto death in his other plays: "The theatre in proper hands," says Sneer, the conventional critic, "might certainly be made the school of morality; but now, I am sorry to say it, people seem to go there principally for their entertainment." Like Buckingham, Sheridan ridicules the awkwardness of many a dramatist in conveying necessary information to his audience, the lack of connection between the two plots of many tragedies, the mixture of the love motive with the historical without regard to dramatic unity. He ridicules stock situations, as when a deadlock is suddenly broken, a hidden identity is revealed, a disguise is thrown off,-all in order that complica