O give me not up to the Law, I'd much rather beg upon Crutches; Once in a Sollicitor's Paw, You never get out of his Clutches.
Moore thereupon prepares to start for the Dragon's den:
But first I'll drink, to make me strong and mighty, Six quarts of ale, and one of Aqua Vitæ.
Duly encountering the monster, Moore kills him (say the stage directions) with a kick in the rear, the Dragon crying "Oh, oh, oh! the Devil take your toe!" After that, Gubbins declares:--
The Loves of this brave Knight, and my fair Daughter, In Roratorios shall be sung hereafter. Begin your Songs of Joy; begin, begin, And rend the Welkin with harmonious Din.
Thereupon there is this general chorus:--
Sing, sing, and rorio An Oratorio, To gallant Morio, Of Moore Hall. To Margereenia Of Roth'ram Greenia, Beauty's bright Queenia, Bellow and bawl.
"The music," says the chronicler, "was made as grand and pompous as possible, to heighten the contrast between that and the words"--thus anticipating the comic method which has been utilised with so much success by Mr. Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan.
From "The Dragon of Wantley," which, as might be expected, had a very considerable vogue, we come to "The Critic, or a Tragedy Rehearsed"--the last, and not the least, of Sheridan's dramatic works, produced in Drury Lane in 1779. Of so familiar a piece, what is there to be said? Is it not played with tolerable frequency at "benefits," for the sake of the "exceptional casts" it can supply? Have not all middle-aged playgoers seen and admired the younger Mathews as Sir Fretful Plagiary and Mr. Puff? Assuredly there are certain features of "The Critic" which everybody remembers. Everybody remembers Sir Fretful's famous lines on the plagiarists, who "serve your best thoughts as gypsies do stolen children--disfigure them to make 'em pass for their own"; as well as his special addendum about the "dexterous" writer who "might take out some of the best things in my tragedy and put them into his own comedy." Everybody remembers, too, Mr. Puffs no less famous catalogue of the varieties of _réclame_; his remark that "the number of those who undergo the fatigue of judging for themselves is very small indeed"; his explanation of the fact that he and Shakespeare had made use of the same thought; Lord Burleigh's shake of the head, which meant so much, and has become proverbial; the Spanish fleet, which could not be seen because it was not yet in sight; Tilburina, "mad in white satin"--and the like. It must be recollected, however, that "The Critic" as played and "The Critic" as written and printed are two very different things. In the acting version, the earlier scenes between Puff and Dangle and Sneer, as well as the latter portion of the "tragedy rehearsed," are very much compressed--no doubt with advantage to the public, for, clever as "The Critic" is as a whole, certain portions of it are out of date, and would not "go" well with a modern audience.