Charles S. What! my old guardian !-What! turn inquisitor, and take evidence incog? O, fle! O, fle! Act IV. Scene 3. THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL: A COMEDY, En Five Acts, BY RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN Author of The Rivals, Trip to Scarborough, Critic, &c. PRINTED FROM THE ACTING COPY, WITH REMARKS, BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL, BY D--G. To which are added, A DESCRIPTION OF THE COSTUME,-CAST OF THE CHARACTERS, ENTRANCES AND EXITS,-RELATIVE POSITION OF THE PERFORMERS ON THE STAGE, AND THE WHOLE OF THE STAGE BUSINESS. As now performed at the THEATRES ROYAL, LONDON. EMBELLISHED WITH A FINE WOOD ENGRAVING, By MR. BONNER, from a Drawing taken in the Theatre, by MR. R. CRUIKSHANK. LONDON JOHN CUMBERLAND, 19, LUDGATE HILL. REMARKS. COMEDY may be divided into two distinct branches,-the old school, and the new. The former is distinguished by stronglymarked character, high-wrought poetical language and sentiment, profound knowledge of human nature, and an inexhaustible fund of wit, humour, and imagery, applicable to all persons and things. The Jeu de Theatre, the mere trick and pantomime of the scene, were unknown to, or despised by, the ancient dramatists. Their resources lay in the artful delineation of character, in tracing the remotest springs of action to their original source; and having drawn their characters with a firm and vigorous hand, leaving the plot to work by consistent means, and the catastrophe to be produced without violence either to sense or probability. With the wits of Charles's days, commenced what may be called the new school; the authors of that period were their own models: "Themselves they studied; as they felt, they writIntrigue was plot, obscenity was wit;" and the Crowns and the Ravenscrofts are now become synonimous with pertness and obscenity. Of this vice, all the dra. matic writers of that day, Addison and Steele excepted, mcre or less partook; and it is singular, that Colley Cibber, whose moral conduct and literary talents have been more abused than any body's, should have proved a chaste writer, in comparison with those, whose education and descent might have taught them better. Colley-("I'm bewitched with the rogue's company! If the rascal have not given me medicines to make me love him, I'll be hanged!") Colley Cibber, the dunce—and the player has the merit of having written the most valuable portion of, perhaps, the best modern comedy in our language, "The Provoked Husband." The latter part of this remark will be considered heretical by those who have been accustomed to pronounce "The School for Scandal," that chef d'œuvre of Sheridan, to be the highest standard of comedy that the modern school presents: and, certainly, possessing, as it does, the brightest coruscations of wit, united to the highest polish of which language is susceptible, it is entitled to the very foremost rank. But there are masculine points and powerful colouring about "The Provoked Husband,' that we, in vain, look for in the exquisitely polished gem of Sheridan indeed, the very nature of his subject would hardly have admitted it--the scandal of the tea-table is "Matter too soft, a lasting mark to bear." |