say things at pleasure. That you can address a lady in private, and deny it in public; that you have one story for us, and another for my daughter! Marlow. Daughter!-this lady your daughter!

Hard. Yes, sir, my only daughter. My
Kate, whose else should she be?
Marlow. Oh, the devil!

Miss Hard. Yes, sir, that very identical tall squinting lady you were pleased to take me for. (Curtseying.) She that you addressed as the mild, modest, sentimental man of gravity, and the bold, forward, agreeable Rattle of the Ladies' Club: ha, ha, ha!

Marlow. Zounds, there's no bearing this; it's worse than death!

Miss Hard. In which of your characters,

sir, will you give us leave to address you? As the faltering gentleman, with looks on the ground, that speaks just to be heard, and hates hypocrisy: or the loud confident creature, that keeps it up with Mrs. Mantrap, and old Miss Biddy Buckskin, till three in the morning; ha, ha, ha! Marlow. 0, curse on my noisy head. I never attempted to be impudent yet, that I was not taken down. I must be gone. Hard. By the hand of my body, but you shall not. I see it was all a mistake, and I am rejoiced to find it. You shall not, sir, I tell you. I know she 'll forgive you. Won't you forgive him, Kate? We'll all forgive you. Take courage, man. (They retire, she tormenting him to the back scene.)

(Enter Mrs. Hardcastle, Tony.) Mrs. Hard. So, so, they're gone off. Let them go, I care not. Hard. Who gone?

Mrs. Hard. My dutiful niece and her gen tleman, Mr. Hastings, from town. He who came down with our modest visitor here.

Sir Charles. Who, my honest George Hastings! As worthy a fellow as lives, and the girl could not have made a more prudent choice.

Hard. Then, by the hand of my body, I'm proud of the connection.

Mrs. Hard. Well, if he has taken away the lady, he has not taken her fortune, that remains in this family to console us for her loss.

Hard. Sure, Dorothy, you would not be so mercenary?

Mrs. Hard. Ay, that's my affair, not

yours. But you know, if your son, when of age, refuses to marry his cousin, her whole fortune is then at her own disposal. Hard. Ah, but he's not of age, and she has not thought proper to wait for his refusal.

(Enter Hastings and Miss Neville.) Mrs. Hard. (Aside.) What! returned so soon? I begin not to like it. Hastings. (To Hardcastle.) For my late attempt to fly off with your niece, let my present confusion be my punishment. We are now come back, to appeal from your justice to your humanity. By her father's consent, I first paid her my addresses, and our passions were first founded in duty.

Miss Neville. Since his death, I have been obliged to stoop to dissimulation to avoid oppression. In an hour of levity, I was ready even to give up my fortune to secure my choice. But I'm now recovered from the delusion, and hope from your tenderness what is denied me from a nearer connection.

Mrs. Hard. Pshaw, pshaw! this is all but the whining end of a modern novel. Hard. Be it what it will, I'm glad they're come back to reclaim their due. Come hither, Tony, boy. Do you refuse this lady's hand whom I now offer you? Tony. What signifies my refusing? You know I can't refuse her till I'm of age, father.

Hard. While I thought concealing your age, boy, was likely to conduce to your improvement, I concurred with your mother's desire to keep it secret. But since I find she turns it to a wrong use, I must now declare, you have been of age these three months.

Tony. Of age! Am I of age, father?
Hard. Above three months.
Tony. Then you'll see the first use I'll
make of my liberty. (Taking Miss
Neville's hand.) Witness all men by
these presents, that I, Anthony Lumpkin,
Esquire, of blank place, refuse you, Con-
stantia Neville, spinster, of no place at
all, for my true and lawful wife. So
Constance Neville may marry whom she
pleases, and Tony Lumpkin is his own
man again!

Sir Charles. O brave 'Squire!
Hastings. My worthy friend!
Mrs. Hard. My undutiful offspring!
Marlow. Joy, my dear George, I give you
joy, sincerely. And could I prevail upon

my little tyrant here to be less arbitrary, I should be the happiest man alive, if you would return me the favor. Hastings. (To Miss Hardcastle.) Come, madam, you are now driven to the very last scene of all your contrivances. I know you like him, I'm sure he loves you, and you must and shall have him. Hard. (Joining their hands.) And I say so, too. And Mr. Marlow, if she makes as good a wife as she has a daughter, I don't believe you 'll ever repent your bargain. So now to supper, to-morrow we shall gather all the poor of the parish about us, and the Mistakes of the Night shall be crowned with a merry morning; so boy, take her; and as you have been mistaken in the mistress, my wish is, that you may never be mistaken in the wife. EPILOGUE

By Dr. Goldsmith.

Well, having stooped to conquer with suc

cess,

And gained a husband without aid from dress,

Still as a barmaid, I could wish it too,
As I have conquered him to conquer you:
And let me say, for all your resolution,
That pretty barmaids have done execution.
Our life is all a play, composed to please,
"We have our exits and our entrances." 38
The first act shows the simple country maid,
Harmless and young, of everything afraid;
Blushes when hired, and with unmeaning
action,

I hopes as how to give you satisfaction.
Her second act displays a livelier scene,-
Th' unblushing barmaid of a country inn,
Who whisks about the house, at market
caters,

Talks loud, coquets the guests, and scolds the waiters.

Next the scene shifts to town, and there she

40

And madam now begins to hold it higher; Pretends to taste, at Operas cries caro,* And quits her Nancy Dawson, for Che Faro.4 41

Doats upon dancing, and in all her pride,
Swims round the room, the Heinel of
Cheapside:

Ogles and leers with artificial skill,
Till having lost in age the power to kill,
She sits all night at cards, and ogles at
spadille.43

Such, through our lives, the eventful his tory

The fifth and last act still remains for me. The barmaid now for your protection prays Turns female barrister, and pleads for Bayes.44

Why should not I in the great world appear?

I soon shall have a thousand pounds a year: No matter what a man may here inherit, In London-gad, they 've some regard to spirit.

I see the horses prancing up the streets,
And big Bet Bouncer bobs to all she meets:
Then hoikes to jiggs and pastimes ev'ry
night-

Not to the plays-they say it a'n't polite,
To Sadler's-Wells 45 perhaps, or Operas go.
And once by chance, to the roratorio.
Thus here and there, for ever up and down,
We'll set the fashions too, to half the town;
And then at auctions-money ne'er regard.
Buy pictures like the great, ten pounds a
yard:

Zounds, we shall make these London gentry

say,

We know what's damned genteel, as well as they.

an

Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816), like Goldsmith, was Irish in blood and somewhat in temperament; he was born in Dublin, though in boyhood he came to England, his home thereafter. Through his father, actor and theater-manager, he was doubtless from the first thoroughly familiar with the stage. His six plays were all written in his youth; of the two best and most permanently popular, The Rivals was first acted in 1775 and The School for Scandal in 1777. His later eminence was political; he was in Parliament for many years, rose high in the government, and was celebrated as an eloquent and brilliant speaker.

The School for Scandal is the finest example in the eighteenth century of the comedy of manners. As usual with this type, the characters are many, the dialogue is sparkling, action bustling, and plot somewhat loose. It has often been noticed that the title of the play is derived from a very minor element in it, Lady Sneerwell and her sisterhood, and their irresponsible and venomous gossip. It is hardly true, however, that the scandal scenes are without function, for they give an extensive background, a sense that the action of the play is typical of a large society, which is essential to the comedy of manners. They also sharpen the satire; scandal half the time is mistaken, as the audience is shown in advance (Sheridan fully understood the advantage of flattering his audience); the tattlers make out Joseph Surface to be Lady Sneerwell's lover instead of Lady Teazle's, and him to be the saint and his brother Charles the sinner, instead of the nearly opposite truth; and no one will forget the immortal satire on scandal-mongering in act V. ii, where a purely imaginary bullet is said to have rebounded from the little bronze Pliny "and wounded the postman, who was just coming to the door with a double letter from Northamptonshire."

The essentials of the plot are neither especially original nor striking. Domestic quarrels and intrigues, the exposure of hypocrisy and the rewarding of generosity, are no more entertaining and pleasing than they are usual in comedy. Even the gossip-club is foreshadowed in Congreve's The Way of the World (I. i) and elsewhere. Much the same is true of the characters. The humor of the old man who marries a young wife, brags to her of the exploits of his youth, and is cajoled, managed, and deceived by her, is at least

as old as Chaucer's Merchant's Tale; the two brothers, one plausible and unlovely, the other reckless but good-hearted, are familiar in Fielding's Tom Jones (not to mention the parable of the Prodigal Son). In this play, as often, the comedy of manners verges into the comedy of humors. That each character is intended to embody a single trait is announced in the names of most of them Teazle, Surface, Crabtree, etc. The characterization is broad and simple, with little aim at subtlety. But it is endlessly diverting and vigorous; every stroke counts, and its force makes it seem more lifelike than it is. Nor is it wanting in original discernment, as in the person of Mrs. Candour, who gets a reputation for charity by professing disbelief in the malevolent gossip she spreads.

The vitality of the play consists chiefly in its situations and its dialogue. Every action and line show Sheridan's keen eye for the dramatically effective. Two scenes are especially celebrated. One (IV. i) is where Charles has his ancestors' portraits auctioned off, the other (IV. iii) where the screen is thrown down and Lady Teazle is disclosed. In each of them every speech makes the situation more tense. The comedy is made more piquant in each by the spectator being in the secret, which is not shared by the characters; he rejoices that Charles' loyalty to his uncle is serving him better than he knows, and that Joseph's agonized struggles (unseen by the other persons) are entangling him more and more. The scenes where Joseph rejects his disguised uncle's request (V. i), where Sir Peter walks in upon the gossips (V. ii), and the general clearing up at the end, are also admirable. It is perhaps chiefly the effectiveness on the stage of such scenes in this play and The Rivals that has enabled Sheridan to outlive all other men of the eighteenth century except Goldsmith as an acting dramatist; and that made Sir Henry Irving call this play the most popular comedy in the English language.

His popularity on the stage has been hardly less helped by his dialogue; which is the chief reason for his popularity among readers. He and Congreve are the most constantly brilliant of the older English dramatists, and Congreve is perhaps less epigrammatic and quotable. Sheridan's dialogue resembles those fireworks which emit a steady shower of sparks, and now and then an exploding ball of fire. Its sheer cleverness cannot be sur

passed, and justifies the sacrifices he makes to it. The chief of these is realism. It was said of Ben Jonson that he would rather lose his friend than his jest; Sheridan would rather lose his truth to nature than his jest. Snake declares that, since he lives by the badness of his character, "if it were once known that he had been betrayed into an honest action, he should lose every friend he has in the world." The cynical impudence is of the stage, not of life. It is acceptable because the play is a work of art, not a study of human character. Even the fop Sir Benjamin Backbite says clever things, and the clever Trip is rather the roguish servant of fiction than of life. The vigor of the play carries us over the obstructions of sober truth. Sheridan neglects no source of mirth; he is fond of leading his characters, especially Sir Peter Teazle, into verbal pitfalls whence they scramble out covered with ridicule. When Lady Teazle in her new station aspires to be thought a woman of taste, he sputters back, "Zounds, madam! You had no taste when you married me (II. i).

No play is a more lifelike reflection of the age when it was written than The School for Scandal. Being a comedy of manners, it illustrates social life and conceptions; we are conscious of the dress and bearing of modish society, of its amusements, and its moral standards. The play vividly illustrates the differing moral standards for the two sexes, and the petty vices with which what used to be called the softer sex was allowed to solace itself for strictness in weightier matters. Maria, the model young woman, declares, "We have pride, envy, rivalship, and a thousand motives to depreciate each other; but the male slanderer must have the cowardice of a woman before he can traduce one" (I i).

In a literary way, too, the play is of its time, just as Goldsmith's are. It embodies sentimentalism even more than She Stoops to Conquer does; but in the main satirizes it. It makes some concession to the popular taste in the complete poetic justice of the close, and in the ease with which the characters mend their ways. Lady Teazle is to settle down to rural domesticity (at least according to the epilogue). Charles is to illustrate the good old-fashioned theory that the reformed rake makes the best husband, though he is cautious enough to "make no promises " as to reforming." He is the sentimental type of hero, almost to the present day beloved on the

66

To

suburban stage, and inherited by the nineteenth century from the eighteenth, the reckless dare-devil fellow, his own worst enemy, who rises to an occasion for loyalty and generosity where the plausible and well-behaved fails; a type more attractive than true to morals and life. Sentimental love appears but little; it is said because Sheridan doubted the success in a love-scene of the actor who was to play Charles. The play was called in its own day an "attempt to destroy the taste for sentimental comedy revived by Mr. Cumberland" (whose West Indian and other plays had met great success). Sheridan ridicules sentimentalism chiefly in the person of Joseph Surface, "a man of sentiment." the world he is a highly moral young man, who hardly opens his mouth without dropping edification. In reality he is a cynical hypocrite, who throws off his mask when he fancies it unnecessary. "O Lud," says Lady Sneerwell," you are going to be moral, and forget that you are among friends.” “Egad. that's true," says he; "I'll keep that sentiment till I see Sir Peter." He is a very difficult character to play. He must not seem shifty and unctuous, for he appears honest enough to deceive the world, and dashing enough to be the lover of the frivolous Lady Teazle, and to pass for the lover of the experienced Lady Sneerwell. Though heightened beyond ordinary reality, he is exceedingly effective dramatically.

The greatest charm of The School for Scandal is its combination of cleverness with geniality; in which it contrasts with Restoration comedy. We laugh with a clearer heart at the cynical wit of the scandalmongers because we are not expected to sympathize with them. Nothing is made ridiculous that does not deserve to be; the dramatist spares us the ordinary stage Jew, even Moses has his good points.1 We accept characters analysis somewhat conventional, situations a little forced, and poetic justice far more complete than squares with experience, because of the brilliant dash and good spirits with which it all goes through. It is all no more artificial than art has the right to be. It shows us something better than life, but with such originality and energy as insures sufficient illusion for supreme effectiveness.

on

1 Some seventeen years later the sentimental dramatist Cumberland produced a still more chivalrous picture in his play The Jew.

PROLOGUE

Written by Mr. Garrick.

A School for Scandal! tell me, I beseech you,

Needs there a school this modish art to teach you?

No need of lessons now, the knowing think; We might as well be taught to eat and

drink.

Caused by a dearth of scandal, should the

1 vapors

Distress our fair ones-let them read the papers;

Their powerful mixtures such disorders hit; Crave what you will-there's quantum sufficit.2

"Lord!" cries my Lady Wormwood (who loves tattle,

And puts much salt and pepper in her prattle),

Just risen at noon, all night at cards when threshing

Strong tea and scandal—“Bless me, how refreshing!

Give me the papers, Lisp-how bold and free! (Sips.)

Last night Lord L. (Sips) was caught with Lady D.

For aching heads what charming sal volatile! (Sips.)

If Mrs. B. will still continue flirting, We hope she'll draw, or we'll undraw the curtain.

Fine satire, poz 3-in public all abuse it,

SIR PETER TEAZLE.

SIR OLIVER SURFACE.

YOUNG SURFACE.

CHARLES, his Brother.

CRABTREE.

SIR BENJAMIN BACKBITE.

ROWLEY.

SPUNGE.

MOSES.

ACT I.

SCENE 1. Lady Sneerwell's House. (Lady Sneerwell at her dressing table with Lappet; Miss Verjuice drinking chocolate.)

1 A fit of melancholy.

3 positively.