r
exemplification than he gives, in his chose and customary achievement,
of all that is distinctive, beautiful, and beneficent in the art of the
actor.

IX.

JEFFERSON AND FLORENCE IN OLD COMEDY.

A revival of _The Heir at Law_ was accomplished in the New York season
of 1890, with Joseph Jefferson in the character of Dr. Pangloss and
William James Florence in that of Zekiel Homespun. That play dates back
to 1797, a period in which a sedulous deference to conventionality
prevailed in the British theatre, as to the treatment of domestic
subjects; and, although the younger Colman wrote in a more flexible
style than was possessed by any other dramatist of the time, excepting
Sheridan, he was influenced to this extent by contemporary usage, that
often when he became serious he also became artificial and stilted. The
sentimental part of _The Heir at Law_ is trite in plan and hard in
expression. Furthermore that portion of it which, in the character of
Dr. Pangloss, satirises the indigent, mercenary, disreputable private
tutors who constituted a distinct and pernicious class of social
humbugs in Colman's day, has lost its direct point for the present age,
through the disappearance of the peculiar type of imposture against
which its irony was directed. Dr. Pangloss, nevertheless, remains
abstractly a humorous personage; and when he is embodied by an actor
like Jefferson, who can elucidate his buoyant animal spirits, his gay
audacity, his inveterate good-nature, his nimble craft, his jocular
sportiveness, his shrewd knowledge of character and of society, and his
scholar-like quaintness, he becomes a delightful presence; for his
mendacity disappears in the sunshine of his humour; his faults seem
venial; and we entertain him much as we do the infinitely greater and
more disreputable character of Falstaff,--knowing him to be a vagabond,
but finding him a charming companion, for all that. This is one great
relief to the hollow and metallic sentimentality of the piece. Persons
like Henry Moreland, Caroline Dormer, and Mr. Steadfast would be
tiresome in actual life; they belong, with Julia and Falkland and
Peregrine and Glenroy, to the noble army of the bores, and they are
insipid on the stage; but the association of the sprightly and jocose
Pangloss with those drab-tinted and preachy people irradiates even their
constitutional platitude with a sparkle of mirth. They shine, in spite
of themselves.

Colman's humour is inf