Hercules to succeed him." Isaac Reed has, in the Biographia Dramatica, very slightly alluded to an assertion that has been made that the plan was taken from a manuscript which had been previously delivered at Drury Lane by a young lady, who afterwards died of a pectoral disease; he observes that this is probably mere scandal, founded on envy of the great success of the piece. Dr. Watkins has somewhat laboriously expatiated on this report, and drawn upon himself the severe censure of Moore, who was enabled to detect the falsehood, and to show how utterly unfounded was the stupid rumour; not content with borrowing this idea from Isaac Reed, and setting it off with as much ingenuity as he could muster, Dr. Watkins throws out a surmise that Mrs. Sheridan was the person to whom the rank of the first dramatic writer of the day ought to have been assigned. He indulges, too, in some hypercritical remarks, which are only worthy of notice as exhibiting the anxiety of the biographer to scrape up from every source some material for his labour, regardless both of the useless information he was bestowing and the nothingness of the detraction to which he was giving circulation. In spite of all that has been written, from the first night of its performance up to the present hour, the "School for Scandal" has maintained its position, and even when indifferently brought forward, proves an unceasing attraction. Its uninterrupted run, its certainty of producing money to the treasury, its collecting together all the playgoers, are the best proofs of the estimation in which it is held its intrinsic merit carries everything before it. Cumberland, the irritable opponent of all merit but his own, has praised the judicious introduction of the screen; but there

is an anecdote on record that he was with his young family at an early performance of the "School for Scandal." They were seated in the stage-box; the little children screamed with delight, but the less easily pleased, fretful author pinched them, exclaiming, "What are you laughing at, my dear little folks? You should not laugh, my angels, there is nothing to laugh at!" and then in an undertone, "Keep still, you little dunces." When Sheridan was told of this, he said, "It was ungrateful of Cumberland to have been displeased with his children for laughing at my comedy, for when I went to see his tragedy I laughed from beginning to end."

There is another version of the story extant; for the friends of Sheridan were most anxious to find a reason for the hostile feelings which he was supposed to bear towards Cumberland, and which induced him to use such an unmerciful rod of flagellation in the "Critic." It is that Sheridan, being most anxious to collect the opinions of the acknowledged judges of dramatic merit, earnestly asked what Mr. Cumberland had said on the first night of the performance. "Not a syllable," was the answer. "But did he seem amused?" "Why, faith, he might have been hung up beside Uncle Oliver's picture. He had the damned disinheriting countenance, like the ladies and gentlemen on the walls; he never moved a muscle." "Devilish ungrateful that," said Sheridan, "for I sat out his tragedy last week, and laughed from beginning to end." Cumberland, however, most strenuously denied that he was present when the "School for Scandal" was first performed. The tragedy alluded to is said to be the "Carmelites," which was the theme of ridicule of Sheridan's friends. In the

"Rolliad" they heap upon it the most extravagant and ludicrous praise, calling Cumberland "the most exalted genius of the present age," and in describing this tragedy, say, "the beauties of which, we will venture confidently to assert, will be admired and felt when those of Shakespeare, Dryden, Otway, Southerne, and Rowe, shall no longer be held in estimation." Again, "Our readers, we trust, will pardon our having been diverted from the task we have undertaken by the satisfaction of dwelling upon a few of the many beauties of this justly popular and universally admired tragedy, which, in our humble opinion, infinitely surpasses every other theatrical composition, being, in truth, an assemblage of every possible dramatic excellence; nor do we believe that any production, whether of ancient or modern date, can exhibit a more uncommon and peculiar selection of language, a greater variety of surprising incidents, a more rapid succession of extraordinary discoveries, a more curious collection of descriptions, similes, metaphors, images, storms, shipwrecks, challenges, and visions; or a more miscellaneous and striking picture of the contending passions of love, hatred, pity, madness, rage, jealousy, remorse, and anger, than this unparalleled performance presents to the admiration of the enraptured spectator. Mr. Cumberland has been represented, perhaps unjustly, as particularly jealous of the fame of his contemporaries, but we are persuaded he will not be offended when, in the rank of modern writers, we place him second only to the inimitable author of the 'Rolliad.'" Such at any rate was the feeling which took possession of Sheridan's mind, that he gladly sought the opportunity of holding him up to public ridicule; whenever

the occasion offered, his name was dragged forth. It was also alleged that every piece presented at Drury Lane by Cumberland met with a decided refusal; and the newspapers seemed willing to support the disappointed author. Criticisms, ill-natured, were hurled against the "School for Scandal," and comparisons were drawn between the moral tendency of the plays that issued from the prolific pen of Cumberland and those which Sheridan had furnished to the world. This only continued to aggravate the quarrel, and led to further jealousies, which soon exhibited themselves in the production of Cumberland upon the stage as Sir Fretful Plagiary.

It would be hypercriticism to descant upon the beauties and defects of a play that has undergone, from its very first appearance up to the present moment, investigation the most severe; that has been the theme of every dramatic censor who has examined into its construction, or pointed to it as a fair subject of comparison with the works of those who have either preceded or succeeded its author. The too constant sparkle of the dialogue, the want of connection of the scandalous college with the plot of the play, the imitation of Fielding's Blifil and Tom Jones, the investment of such a libertine as Charles with qualities that make us forget his vices, and a vast number of incongruities have been very wisely and very learnedly pointed out, and have been descanted upon with very commendable severity; but, after all, we are SO charmed with the ingenuity, with the endless richness of the dialogue, that we are never tired with reading it, or with seeing it on the stage. We admire Sir Peter Teazle in spite of his uxoriousness, his oldbachelor ideas; in the hand of any other dramatist he

would have been ridiculous, but he is invested with a certain dignity, a tenderness of feeling, and a sense of honour, that although we must laugh at him when his unenviable position is discovered, we are glad to find that he is likely to become a happy husband, after all his mortifications. We are just on the point of thinking that Lady Teazle must become the victim of her taste for extravagance and shining in scandalous society, whilst we feel she deserves a better fate, when we gladly find that she is rescued from her false position. Even Joseph Surface is delightful to us; the duplicity of his conduct, the sentimental hypocrisy of his heart are so thoroughly laid open to us, that we are convinced that he cannot be ultimately successful; we are not so anxious for even-handed justice being done to him, as we are to the dramatic villain of a novel, and we are perfectly satisfied with the punishment he meets in the exposure of his schemes. Charles's irregularities do not shock or disgust us; they are punished by the reproaches which he has to encounter from every one. We are happy in the conclusion that everything that annoyed the different parties is amicably arranged; it is this that reconciles us to the fifth act, for at the end of the fourth act the denouement has taken place, the fall of the screen in a common play would have been the be-all and end-all, and, as occurs in the "Merchant of Venice," the act after the condemnation of the principal character, however beautiful is the poetry, the interest would altogether have ceased. Yet after this exciting scene we are pleased that there is another act to wind up the story, and to tell us how everybody has got out of the scrape. Of the original acting we have heard much. That Garrick was delighted with it, we may conclude