The next character is Captain Clerimont, brother to the other gentleman, a man of fashion and of the world, who, being a younger brother, has his fortune to make; and we shall see presently how he proposes to make it.

The next is Pounce, an infamous jobber or broker of stocks, marriages, or anything-whose character be pleased to take in his own words: 'Now 'tis my profession to 'assist a free-hearted young fellow against an unnatural 'long-lived father-to disencumber men of pleasure of the ' vexation of unwieldy estates; to support a feeble title 'to an inheritance!'-One that, Mr. Clerimont says, by way of praise, he has seen prompting a stammering witness in Westminster Hall, that wanted instruction; and could venture his ears with great bravery for his friend!

A worse character than this, can there be? Yet is it not produced to be punished, neither.

The next person introduced is Hezekiah Tipkin, a banker in Lombard Street, a man of an infamous and sordid character, and a vile usurer; who has a beautiful niece, Miss Bridget Tipkin, over-run with affectation and romance; with a great fortune in money, which so attracts the captain, that he supposes, in a sordid but witty manner enough, all imaginable perfections in her person, before he has a sight of it. This young lady, by a treaty between her uncle Tipkin and Sir Harry Gubbin, a tyrannical, positive, hot-headed country gentleman, is designed to be married to Humphrey, the son of Sir Harry, a creature so savage, so rough, and so stupid, that there cannot be drawn a stronger contrast than between his character and that of Miss Bridget.

Mr. Pounce, who is employed as a broker in their match, is, for a reward of one thousand pounds, to cheat them and poor Humphrey, and to procure this young lady for Captain Clerimont. Admirable justice and morality, all round! you'll say, my lady. For this purpose, it was necessary that Mr. Pounce should find Mr. Humphrey so great a fool, that, though he never saw him before, he very easily sets him against his father, and against his cousin Bridget; and

all this on the wedding-day, in order to induce him to make court to a person he tells him of, but never saw: And who should this person be, as he tells him, but the sister of Fainlove, Clerimont's man-dressed mistress? Which sister, however, was to be Fainlove or Lucy herself, with a worthy intent to impose upon poor Humphrey, as a wife, this castoff mistress of Clerimont. A just, a generous, an exem

plary plot this!

The next character is an old maiden gentlewoman, aunt to Miss Bridget, an antiquated virgin, who, as Pounce says, has a mighty affectation for youth, and is a great lover of men and money-and she is set over her niece as a promoter of the match with Humphrey.-Over this lady Mr. Pounce has a great ascendant, half for sordid reasons, and half for amorous ones; and she makes a thorough ridiculous and improbable character. Pounce introduces Captain Clerimont into the company of the aunt and her niece; and entertains the former, while the captain engages the latter on the subject of her beloved romance. These, with Mrs. Clerimont's maid Jenny, are the principal characters.

I need not, my lady, take up much of your time or my own, to tell you how they proceed.

Mr. Clerimont, then, after bearing from his wife what hardly any gentleman could bear, surprises Fainlove, as a man (and a very wicked scene it is, in every part), taking shocking freedoms with her: and falling into a feigned rage, threatens to kill Fainlove. The lady at first menaces, and is haughty and arrogant; but finding by her husband's behaviour to Lucy, whom he then addresses with fondness before her face, that she is tricked by a woman in man's habit, in her turn would kill the impostor as Lucy, whom as Fainlove she tried to save; and a scene on this occasion occurs, to my thinking, very ridiculous. Mr. Clerimont then upbraids her with her guilt; and what was hardly ever known in nature, she reforms instantly on the spot, and expresses all the signs of contrition imaginable. He forgives and receives her, guilty as she is in her intention, her person only untainted, and an adulteress in her mind, as

she would have been in fact, had Fainlove been a man: and a moving scene, had it been from proper motives, follows. Yet (still more preposterous-excuse me, madam) afterwards she resumes all her travelled and nonsensical airs, all her improbable follies, to help to support the plot in favour of Captain Clerimont upon Miss Bridget, and the infamous one of Pounce's and Mr. Clerimont's against poor Humphrey, the only innocent character in the play, and the only suffering one: And this latter, as well as the former plot, being brought about, a laughing scene is produced, by Sir Harry's soundly cudgelling his stupid son, for permitting himself to be so foolishly drawn in.

Now, my good lady, can you see one character, and, I think, I have given them justly, fit to be set up for an example in this celebrated play of an author so celebrated? I must own, as I said before, I was greatly disappointed in my expectations of it. There is indeed a great deal of sprightly wit, and knowledge of the wicked part of the world, displayed in it, as it seems to me, by what I have heard Mr. B-talk sometimes; but there is not one character in it but what is shockingly immoral, and at the same time, either above or below nature; so that the ridicule which is intended in it, on the bad characters, cannot, in my poor opinion, be just or efficacious.

For, first, there never, I believe, could be a gentleman so foolishly tender, yet so plottingly cruel, to his lady, as Mr. Clerimont.

There never could be such a very fantastical lady as Mrs. Clerimont.-And there is such an improbability in the intimate access, which Lucy in man's clothes has to her; in that creature's lewd views, yet faithful and generous conduct, in giving back to Clerimont, who had not provided for her, two thousand pounds, won of the fantastical lady; and yet in her being so little delicate in her love to Clerimont, which one would expect should be her motive, as to join to trick and marry one of the greatest fools in the world; that it was surprising to me, that it could pass either author or audience.

Then Tipkin's character is unnaturally, stupidly, yet knavishly bad.

Sir Harry Gubbin is a father who never could have his fellow; and after furiously beating his son, is reconciled to his marriage, as instantly as Mrs. Clerimont is converted; and that to an unknown person, who appears to him in man's clothes, for the sake of three thousand pounds fortune only, although he had been quarrelling with Tipkin about one thousand pounds, which he would not give up, out of ten thousand pounds which his son was to have had with Bridget.

Numps, his son, is a character, take it altogether, quite out of nature and probability. 'Tis hardly possible, that a savage, brought up in a wood, who never conversed with man or woman, could be so stupid; and easily might a poet form a plot for a play, if such a character could be admitted as Numps's.

The aunt is credulous, and affected beyond probability also. Miss Bridget delicately indelicate in many places, and improbably fantastic in all.

Pounce shamelessly glorying, and succeeding in his villany, and deeming the imputation of the worst rogueries to him, as a panegyric: and such immoralities, mingled with obscenities, all through, that I was glad when the play was over.

But yet, to say truth, there are very pretty descriptions, and a great deal of wit and humour in it. The dialogue is lively; the painter's scene entertaining; and that between Sir Harry and Tipkin, diverting, though low; which, together with the fantastic airs of Mrs. Clerimont, and Miss Bridget, and the farcical humours of Numps, make it the less wonder, that such as did not attend to nature, probability, and morality, were struck with the life and spirit of the performance: and especially as Mr. Wilks, who acted Captain Clerimont, and Mrs. Oldfield, who acted Miss Bridget, so incomparably performed their parts, as must have saved a play even of a worse tendency than The Accomplished Fools.

The moral I will transcribe, although I doubt it is a very inapplicable one to the characters; and so is far from making amends for a long performance that in such a variety of characters has not one moral in it; nor indeed is there so much as one just or generous design pursued throughout the play.

You've seen th' extremes of the domestic life,
A son too much confined-too free a wife.
By gen'rous bonds you either should restrain,
And only on their inclinations gain.

This I call inapplicable, because it was needless advice to such husbands as Mr. Clerimont, for whom it seems. designed; for he was generous to excess, carrying her abroad to Italy and France, and paying all her debts of honour implicitly: whence the name of the play, The Tender Husband.

Wives, to obey, must love.

Clerimont did everything to make a grateful woman love him, before his strange plot to reclaim her.

- Children revere,

While only slaves are governed by their fear.

Mrs. Clerimont was not treated like a slave, yet is reclaimed only by fear. So that the moral seems to be calculated for the Numpses (the fools and idiots) and the Sir Harries; two characters that, as I humbly apprehend, never were in nature, any more, it is to be hoped, than are the rest.

It looks to me, in short, as if the author had forgot the moral all the way; and being put in mind of it by some kind friend (Mr. Addison, perhaps), was at a loss to draw one from such characters and plots as he had produced; and so put down what came uppermost, for the sake of custom, without much regard to propriety. And truly I should imagine likewise, that the play was begun with a design to draw more amiable characters, answerable to the

VOL. III.

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