nd extraordinary humour
returned to him together, and his acting suffered in no way from the
excesses which had overwhelmed him. Eccentricity was his forte, and it
was usually found necessary to have characters expressly written for
him; but there can be no doubt that he was very highly esteemed by the
playgoers of his time, who viewed his loss to the stage as quite
irreparable.

But of the comedians it may be said, that they not only "gag"
themselves, but they are the cause of "gagging" in others. Their
interpolations are regarded as heirlooms in the Thespian family. It is
the comic actor's constant plea, when charged with adding to some
famous part, that he has only been true to the traditions of previous
performers. One of the most notable instances of established gag is
the burlesque sermon introduced by Mawworm, in the last scene of "The
Hypocrite." This was originated by Mathews, who first undertook the
part at the Lyceum in 1809, and who designed a caricature of an
extravagant preacher of the Whitfield school, known as Daddy Berridge,
whose strange discourses at the Tabernacle in the Tottenham Court Road
had grievously afflicted the actor in his youth. Mawworm's sermon met
with extraordinary success; on some occasions it was even encored, and
the comedy has never since been presented without this supreme effort
of gag. Liston borrowed the address from Mathews, and gained for it so
great an amount of fame, that the real contriver of the interpolation
had reason to complain of being deprived of such credit as was due to
him in the matter. The sermon is certainly irresistibly comical, and a
fair outgrowth of the character of Mawworm; at the same time it must
be observed that Mawworm is himself an excrescence upon the comedy,
having no existence in Cibber's "Non-Juror," upon which "The
Hypocrite" is founded, or in "Tartuffe," from whence Cibber derived
the subject of his play.

In the same way the additions made by the actors to certain of
Sheridan's comedies--such as Moses's redundant iterations of "I'll
take my oath of that!" in "The School for Scandal," and Acres's
misquotation of Sir Lucius's handwriting: "To prevent the trouble that
might arise from our both undressing the same lady," in "The Rivals,"
are gags of such long standing, that they may date almost from the
first production of those works. Sheridan himself supervised the
rehearsals, and took great pains to perfect the representation; but,
with other