orn;
And how the woods berries and worms provide
Without their pains, when earth has nought beside
To answer their small wants.
To view the graceful deer come tripping by,
Then stop, and gaze, then turn, they know not why,
Like bashful younkers in society.
To mark the structure of a plant or tree,
And all fair things of earth, how fair they be.
Lamb's next attempt on the theatre was the prose farce of "Mr. H----,"
in which a wholly inadequate motif was made to supply material for two
acts. The piece was played once (Drury Lane, 10th December, 1806) and
damned. The eponymous hero, who chooses to be known merely by his
initial, creates quite a sensation at Bath, as he is believed to be a
nobleman travelling incognito. Hitherto always rejected by the ladies
on account of his unfortunate patronym, he has wooed successfully
under an initial, when he nearly spoils all by betraying that his
name is--Hogsflesh! He is forthwith shunned, but his ladylove remains
faithful to him on his making the very natural change of Hogsflesh
into Bacon. In his method and atmosphere, Lamb had passed from the
seventeenth to the late eighteenth century; he got a hearing, but he
did not get--and it must be admitted that he did not deserve--success.
The farce is interesting as containing in an inquisitive landlord,
Jeremiah Pry, the original, it may be assumed, of a whole family of
Paul Prys, of which to-day John Poole's is the best remembered.
Two other dramatic pieces were written by Lamb in his later years:
"The Wife's Trial, or, The Intruding Widow" (founded upon Crabbe's
"The Confidant"), in blank verse, and a second farce, "The
Pawnbroker's Daughter," in prose. In these two pieces he had made
distinct advances, yet neither was perhaps suited for stage
representation. In "The Wife's Trial" we have a couple--Mr. and Mrs.
Selby--five years married, on whose hospitality a widow forces herself
owing to some mysterious hold which she has over the wife. Mrs. Selby
had been secretly married as a schoolgirl, though her husband left her
at the church door and had died abroad. The widow striving to use this
knowledge for purposes not far removed from blackmail, is neatly hoist
with her own petard, and the slight play ends with the cordial
reconciliation of the Selbys. In "The Pawnbroker's Daughter" once more
the story is of the slightest, though the farce seems more fitted for
the stage than "Mr. H----." Marion, the
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