entertainment that received more than fifty performances at Drury Lane.

70. Romanticism: John Home. In the general poverty of original drama in the middle of the century John Home (1722-1808), of Scotland, stands out with unusual distinctness. A keen student of classical literature, and a minister at East Lothian, Home wrote altogether six plays, and by the great success of his Douglas he so awakened the opposition of his kirk that he was forced to anticipate dismissal by withdrawal. On its com

pletion in 1754 he offered to Garrick his first tragedy, Agis, but met a refusal. The next year he made a horseback journey to London to offer Douglas to the same manager, but met a similar response. In his own Scotland, however, Home fared better, and Douglas was produced at the Canongate Theatre in Edinburgh December 14, 1756. The success of the play surpassed all expectations, and Home received from his countrymen the most extravagant compliments. Hume, the philosopher and historian, said that he possessed " the true theatric genius of Shakespeare and Otway, refined from the unhappy barbarism of the one and the licentiousness of the other." following March, Rich, ever on the alert, produced the play at Covent Garden; and its London success was so great that Garrick now accepted Agis and himself played the leading part. This play, however, impressed the public as cold and dull and Home's other productions fared little better. He received various honors and lived for some years into the next century; but he had to be content with his one great success.

The

The story of Douglas 10 is as follows: Lady Randolph, 10 See Gipson: John Home, for this and other relevant discussion.

years before the time of the play, had entered into a secret marriage with Douglas, whose family and hers were bitter enemies. Soon after the marriage Douglas went to war and was killed. Lady Randolph, fearing her father's anger, sent her child away when it was born and did not hear again of her son or of the servant who took him away, though she never ceased to grieve for her husband and the boy. In the play Lord Randolph enters bringing a youth who has saved him from a band of outlaws. To this youth, a shepherd in whom Lady Randolph feels the deepest interest, Lord Randolph promises his protection. Glenalvon, the villain of the play, however, is in love with Lady Randolph and has resolved to destroy her husband at the first opportunity. After Lord Randolph and the youth, Young Norval, have left for the camp, an old shepherd is brought to Lady Randolph. By the jewels found upon him she learns that Young Norval is her son, that he had been rescued by Old Norval in a storm and brought up as a shepherd. Lady Randolph now makes arrangements for a secret interview with her son. One is held and another arranged for. Glenalvon, hearing of the plan, leads Lord Randolph to the secret meeting-place, and he and the youth fight. Glenalvon, coming up in the rear, stabs Young Norval, who, however, kills him before he himself dies. Lady Randolph, distracted at all that has happened, leaps off a cliff; and Lord Randolph, having learned how he was deceived, in his remorse leaves for the wars, from which he hopes never to return.

This play has been much discounted within recent years, and even in its own day Johnson said that there were not ten good lines in it. The reasons for its success with its generation, however, are evident. The drama was essen

tially romantic and has many sympathetic and natural touches. Douglas really sounded a note that was to be heard more or less frequently for a hundred years. If such a speech as

My name is Norval: on the Grampian hills,
My father feeds his flocks,

now seems heckneyed, the part of Lady Randolph in the hands of Peg Woffington, or, later, of Mrs. Siddons, was triumphant; and when all possible discount is made, Douglas still remains the strongest original English drama that appeared between George Barnwell (1731) and She Stoops to Conquer (1773).

71. Pure Comedy: Foote and Colman. Meanwhile something of the spirit of pure comedy and the tradition of Fielding was preserved and carried forward in the work of Samuel Foote and George Colman, so-called the elder, to distinguish him from his son of the same name who was a dramatist nearer the close of the century.

Samuel Foote (1720-1777), comedian and mimic, was famous in his day for his impersonations. In his earlier years on the stage, in Dublin, he introduced various caricatures into the part of Bayes in The Rehearsal. Later there seemed to be no limit to the freedom with which he mimicked on the stage prominent figures of the day, though seldom did he really offend by his work. "Did he not think of exhibiting you, sir?" asked Boswell of Johnson. "Sir," replied the sage, "fear restrained him, for he knew I would have broken his bones." Foote's original productions were most frequently short clever farces, sometimes satirical in quality. The Englishman at Paris (1753) and The Englishman Returned from

Paris (1756) dealt with the French character so as to appeal to the English. The Minor (1760) satirized Whitefield and the Methodists, while The Maid of Bath (1771) handled rather freely the early life of Elizabeth Linley, the popular singer of the day who became the wife of Sheridan. Foote's work may easily be overrated. It depended for its strength mainly upon personal caricature and the gossip of the hour.

Of somewhat different quality was George Colman (1732-1794), who enjoyed the benefit of education at Westminster and at Christ Church, Oxford. The Jealous Wife (1761), one of the most popular comedies of the day, was mainly a dramatization of Tom Jones, several of the prominent characters being changed only in name. The Clandestine Marriage (1766) has already been remarked as the result of collaboration with Garrick. A quarrel arose between the two men over the refusal of Garrick to assume the rôle of Lord Oglesby in this play, and affairs were not improved when Colman became manager of Covent Garden. Later, however, there was a reconciliation. "A member of the Literary Club, a successful dramatist and manager, a translator of the comedies of Terence, an editor of the dramatic works of Beaumont and Fletcher, a writer of prologues and epilogues, among them the epilogue to The School for Scandal, George Colman the elder was a notable figure in the theatrical and literary world of the last half of the eighteenth century." 11

72. Sentimentalism: Kelly and Cumberland. In the midst of pantomime and ballad-opera, burlesque and romanticism, however, sentimentalism moved steadily onward in its course and rose to its height. The origins of 11 Nettleton, 262-63.

this phenomenon are far to seek, and something of its story depends upon a misinterpretation of Plautus and Terence.12 For the present purpose, however, Cibber's Love's Last Shift (1696) is a convenient starting-point. This is the story of "a woman of strict virtue," Amanda, who, deserted by her husband, Loveless, later reclaims him by placing herself in a compromising position. Steele's The Lying Lover (1703) and Cibber's The Careless Husband (1704) had similar sentimental tendencies, and after these plays the type was fairly well established. Comparatively little original work was done in the drama between 1710 and 1728,13 when Cibber's The Provoked Husband appeared. In 1731 was produced George Barnwell; but between 1732 and 1750 the drama of sensibility languished, while Akenside and Collins in poetry and Richardson in the novel carried the influence over into other forms of literature. Then came revival with Moore's The Gamester (1753) and other work down to Kelly and Cumberland.

Hugh Kelly (1739-1777) lives primarily by reason of one strong and popular comedy, False Delicacy, presented at Covent Garden January 23, 1768. The leading characters in this play are unusually refined and are placed in a delicate situation. "Lady Betty [Lambton] has a dependent friend, Miss Marchmont. Lord Winworth requests Lady Betty to convey to Miss Marchmont his offer of marriage, and to urge its acceptance. The offer distresses both the young women; for Lady Betty is herself in love with Winworth, though she has formerly rejected him; and Miss Marchmont loves another man, but feels that her obligations to Lady Betty are so great as to make it im12 See Bernbaum, Chapter II. 13 Bernbaum, 225.