word, and perhaps misleading. What is not to be found in Sheridan's comedies is essential richness of inspiration. Liveliness there is, and dramaturgic skill, and comic invention, and animal spirits, and hearty enjoyment: these are gifts to be prized. To seek for more in the 'Rivals' and the School for Scandal' is to be disappointed.

Brauder Mattheure

MRS. MALAPROP'S VIEWS

From the 'Rivals'

The scene is Mrs. Malaprop's lodgings at Bath. Present, Lydia Languish. Enter Mrs. Malaprop and Sir Anthony Absolute.

MR

RS. MALAPROP-There, Sir Anthony, there sits the deliberate simpleton who wants to disgrace her family, and lavish herself on a fellow not worth a shilling.

Lydia - Madam, I thought you once

Mrs. Malaprop - You thought, miss! I don't know any business you have to think at all: thought does not become a young woman. But the point we would request of you is, that you will promise to forget this fellow; to illiterate him, I say, quite from your memory.

Lydia-Ah, madam! our memories are independent of our It is not so easy to forget.

wills.

Mrs. Malaprop-But I say it is, miss; there is nothing on earth so easy as to forget, if a person chooses to set about it. I'm sure I have as much forgot your poor dear uncle as if he had never existed and I thought it my duty so to do; and let me tell you, Lydia, these violent memories don't become a young

woman.

Sir Anthony-Why, sure she won't pretend to remember what she's ordered not! Ay, this comes of her reading!

Lydia What crime, madam, have I committed to be treated thus ?

Mrs. Malaprop-Now don't attempt to extirpate yourself from the matter; you know I have proof controvertible of it. But tell me, will you promise to do as you're bid? Will you take a husband of your friends' choosing?

Lydia - Madam, I must tell you plainly that had I no preference for any one else, the choice you have made would be my aversion.

Mrs. Malaprop- What business have you, miss, with preference and aversion? They don't become a young woman; and you ought to know that as both always wear off, 'tis safest in matrimony to begin with a little aversion. I am sure I hated your poor dear uncle before marriage as if he'd been a blackamoor; and yet, miss, you are sensible what a wife I made? and when it pleased Heaven to release me from him, 'tis unknown what tears I shed! But suppose we were going to give you another choice, will you promise us to give up this Beverley?

Lydia - Could I belie my thoughts so far as to give that promise, my actions would certainly as far belie my words. Mrs. Malaprop-Take yourself to your room. You are fit company for nothing but your own ill-humors.

Lydia - Willingly, ma'am—I cannot change for the worse.

[Exit.

Mrs. Malaprop-There's a little intricate hussy for you! Sir Anthony-It is not to be wondered at, ma'am: all this is the natural consequence of teaching girls to read. Had I a thousand daughters, by heaven I'd as soon have them taught the black art as their alphabet!

Mrs. Malaprop-Nay, nay, Sir Anthony: you are an absolute misanthropy.

Sir Anthony-In my way hither, Mrs. Malaprop, I observed your niece's maid coming forth from a circulating library! She had a book in each hand; they were half-bound volumes with marble covers! From that moment I guessed how full of duty I should see her mistress!

Mrs. Malaprop-Those are vile places indeed!

Sir Anthony-Madam, a circulating library in a town is as an evergreen tree of diabolical knowledge,- it blossoms through the year! And depend on it, Mrs. Malaprop, that they who are so fond of handling the leaves will long for the fruit at last.

Mrs. Malaprop- Fy, fy, Sir Anthony! you surely speak laconically.

Sir Anthony-Why, Mrs. Malaprop, in moderation now, what would you have a woman know?

Mrs. Malaprop─Observe me, Sir Anthony. I would by no means wish a daughter of mine to be a progeny of learning; I

don't think so much learning becomes a young woman: for instance, I would never let her meddle with Greek, or Hebrew, or algebra, or simony, or fluxions, or paradoxes, or such inflammatory branches of learning; neither would it be necessary for her to handle any of your mathematical, astronomical, diabolical instruments. But, Sir Anthony, I would send her at nine years old to a boarding-school, in order to learn a little ingenuity and artifice. Then, sir, she should have a supercilious knowledge in accounts; and as she grew up I would have her instructed in geometry, that she might know something of the contagious countries: but above all, Sir Anthony, she should be mistress of orthodoxy, that she might not misspell and mispronounce words so shamefully as girls usually do; and likewise that she might reprehend the true meaning of what she is saying. This, Sir Anthony, is what I would have a woman know; and I don't think there is a superstitious article in it.

Sir Anthony-Well, well, Mrs. Malaprop, I will dispute the point no further with you; though I must confess that you are a truly moderate and polite arguer, for almost every third word you say is on my side of the question. But, Mrs. Malaprop, to the more important point in debate: you say you have no objection to my proposal?

Mrs. Malaprop - None, I assure you. I am under no positive engagement with Mr. Acres; and as Lydia is so obstinate against. him, perhaps your son may have better success.

Sir Anthony - Well, madam, I will write for the boy directly. He knows not a syllable of this yet, though I have for some time had the proposal in my head. He is at present with his regiment.

Mrs. Malaprop - We have never seen your son, Sir Anthony; but I hope no objection on his side.

Sir Anthony-Objection! let him object if he dare! No, no, Mrs. Malaprop, Jack knows that the least demur puts me in a frenzy directly. My process was always very simple: in their younger days, 'twas "Jack, do this"; if he demurred I knocked. him down, and if he grumbled at that I always sent him out of the room.

Mrs. Malaprop- Ay, and the properest way, o' my conscience! Nothing is so conciliating to young people as severity. Well, Sir Anthony, I shall give Mr. Acres his discharge, and

prepare Lydia to receive your son's invocations; and I hope you will represent her to the captain as an object not altogether illegible.

Sir Anthony-Madam, I will handle the subject prudently. Well, I must leave you; and let me beg you, Mrs. Malaprop, to enforce this matter roundly to the girl. Take my advice - keep a tight hand: if she rejects this proposal, clap her under lock and key; and if you were just to let the servants forget to bring her dinner for three or four days, you can't conceive how she'd come about. [Exit.

Mrs. Malaprop— Well, at any rate I shall be glad to get her from under my intuition. She has somehow discovered my partiality for Sir Lucius O'Trigger: sure, Lucy can't have betrayed me! No, the girl is such a simpleton, I should have made her confess it. [Calls.] Lucy! Lucy! Had she been one of your artificial ones, I should never have trusted her.

SIR LUCIUS DICTATES A CARTEL

From the 'Rivals'

The scene is Bob Acres's lodgings at Bath. servant shows in Sir Lucius.

Acres is discovered as his

SIR

IR LUCIUS—Mr. Acres, I am delighted to embrace you.
Acres My dear Sir Lucius, I kiss your hands.

Sir Lucius-Pray, my friend, what has brought you so suddenly to Bath?

Cupid's Jack-a-lantern, and
In short, I have been very

Acres - Faith! I have followed find myself in a quagmire at last. ill used, Sir Lucius. I don't choose to mention names, but look on me as on a very ill-used gentleman.

Sir Lucius - Pray, what is the case? I ask no names.

Acres - Mark me, Sir Lucius, I fall as deep as need be in love with a young lady: her friends take my part-I follow her to Bath - send word of my arrival; and receive answer that the lady is to be otherwise disposed of. This, Sir Lucius, I call being ill used.

Sir Lucius - Very ill, upon my conscience. divine the cause of it?

Pray, can you

Acres Why, there's the matter: she has another lover, one Beverley, who, I am told, is now in Bath. Odds slanders and lies! he must be at the bottom of it.

Sir Lucius - A rival in the case, is there? and you think he has supplanted you unfairly?

Acres - Unfairly! to be sure he has. He never could have done it fairly.

Sir Lucius-Then sure you know what is to be done!

Acres Not I, upon my soul.

Sir Lucius - We wear no swords here, but you understand me.
Acres-What! fight him?

Sir Lucius-Ay, to be sure: what can I mean else?
Acres But he has given me no provocation.

Oh,

Sir Lucius-Now, I think he has given you the greatest provocation in the world. Can a man commit a more heinous offense against another than to fall in love with the same woman? by my soul! it is the most unpardonable breach of friendship. Acres Breach of friendship! ay, ay; but I have no acquaintance with this man. I never saw him in my life.

Sir Lucius - That's no argument at all: he has the less right then to take such a liberty.

Acres Gad, that's true.

I fire apace!

I grow full of anger, Sir Lucius! Odds hilts and blades! I find a man may have a deal of valor in him and not know it! But couldn't I contrive to have a little right on my side?

Sir Lucius-What the devil signifies right, when your honor is concerned? Do you think Achilles, or my little Alexander the Great, ever inquired where the right lay? No, by my soul: they drew their broadswords, and left the lazy sons of peace to settle the justice of it.

Acres Your words are a grenadier's march to my heart: I believe courage must be catching! I certainly do feel a kind of valor rising, as it were, a kind of courage, as I may say. Odds flints, pans, and triggers! I'll challenge him directly.

Sir Lucius Ah, my little friend, if I had Blunderbuss Hall here, I could show you a range of ancestry in the O'Trigger line that would furnish the new room, every one of whom had killed his man! For though the mansion-house and dirty acres have slipped through my fingers, I thank heaven our honor and the family pictures are as fresh as ever.