THE POOR GENTLEMAN; A COMEDY, IN FIVE ACTS; BY GEORGE COLMAN, THE YOUNGER. AS PERFORMED AT THE THEATRE ROYAL COVENT GARDEN. PRINTED UNDER THE AUTHORITY OF THE MANAGERS FROM THE PROMPT BOOK. WITH REMARKS BY MRS. INCHBALD. LONDON: PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN, PATERNOSTER ROW. REMARKS. This is one of the inferior plays of a superior writer. Sterne is an author held in high estimation by his countrymen ; but never was author treated so cruelly as he has been by some of them. Writers, who have no language of their own, copy those who have; and poor Sterne has a peculiarity in his style, which every imitator can in some degree counterfeit :-counterfeits innumerable have at last diminished the value of the current coin. The author of "The Poor Gentleman," is not, of course, in the list of ordinary imitators; but where he looks towards the same object for a model, he is neither so good as Sterne, nor as Colman. Nevertheless, Corporal Foss, and his master, the poor Lieutenant, please, in this comedy, all those who are totally unacquainted with either of the above authors; for those persons can meet with no dis appointment equal to that, which is felt by their ardent admirers. Ollapod, the apothecary, is irresistibly comical in the reading. It seems certain, that the author studied the profession of physic while he wrote the part; and the idea of his searching into medical books for his medicinal terms, adds to the whim of his conceiving the character: but those terms, so humorous to the eye of the reader, sound somewhat uncouthly to the ear of an auditor, when the delivery is too energetic. The contempt of money in those who want it, and its charitable use in those who possess it, are examples in this drama, worthy of being followed both by the poor and the rich; and yet, if the propensity to give were a little less violent in the young man from Russia, the moral effect might, perhaps, be increased. As it is, the vehemence of his benevolence seems to leave all imitation hopeless. The sober charity of Sir Robert Bramble is by far more admirable-for as vice loses half its enormity when it proceeds from a heated imagination, so virtue, from the same cause, loses half its value. Amongst the numerous instances of the pen of a master, in "The Poor Gentleman," is the whole and entire part of Humphrey Dobbins. A novelty of nature and truth, in so small a compass, only a quick eye can discern in the reading; though on the first night of the play, Waddy presented it to the audience, by excellent acting, as the most finished character in the piece. |