1  The  first  half  of  the  title  (The  London  Merchant,  or  G.  B.)  is  practically  never
used  and  would  probably  escape  identification  if  used  alone.  It  may  be  mentioned
that  what  makes  the  play  so  certain  to  provoke  irresistible  and  inextinguishable
laughter  is  not  msrely — not  perhaps  so  much — its  combination  of  priggishness  and
sentimentality  as  that  other  macedolne  of  limp  or  stilted  prose  with  limper  or  more
stilted  blank  verse,  all  mish-mashed  into  one,  which  the  (perhaps  unconscious)  imita-
tion of  Dickens  and  the  elaborate  satire  of  Thackeray  have  made  perennially
ludicrous.
SHERIDAN  275

It  is,  however,  of  course  true  that  the  comedy  is
better,  and  (almost  of  necessity)  more  amusing.
Writers  of  such  talent  as  Colman  and  Garrick,  especi-
ally in  combination,  could  hardly  be  dull ;  and  The
Clandestine  Marriage,  which,  after  long  exclusion  from
the  stage,  was  successfully  revived  with  some  alteration
a  few  years  ago,  is  anything  but  a  bad  play,  and  by  no
means  a  bad  piece  of  literature.  Yet,  as  a  rule,  the
British  Theatre,  and  other  collections  of  the  drama  of
the  time,  are  hard  reading,  whether  in  tragedy,  in
comedy,  or  in  farce,  despite  the  famous  names,  in  the
last-named  kind,  of  Foote  and  O'Keefe.
