manners. And in the satire of contemporary manners he felt his strength lay. The success of Pasquin proved he had not miscalculated, for it ran more than forty nights, drawing, if we may believe the unknown author of the life of Theophilus Cibber, numerous and enthusiastic audiences “from Grosvenor, Cavendish, Hanover, and all the other fashionable Squares, as also from Pall Mall, and the Inns of Court.”
In regard to plot, the comedy which Pasquin contains scarcely deserves the name. It consists of a string of loosely-connected scenes, which depict the shameless political corruption of the Walpole era with a good deal of boldness and humour. The sole difference between the “Court party,” represented by two Candidates with the Bunyan-like names of Lord Place and Colonel Promise, and the “Country party,” whose nominees are Sir Harry Fox-Chace and Squire Tankard, is that the former bribe openly, the latter indirectly. The Mayor, whose sympathies are with the “Country party” is finally induced by his wife to vote for and return the other side, although they are in a minority; and the play is concluded by the precipitate marriage of his daughter with Colonel Promise. Mr. Fustian, the Tragic Author, who, with Mr. Sneerwell the Critic, is one of the spectators of the rehearsal, demurs to the abruptness with which this ingenious catastrophe is brought about, and inquires where the preliminary action, of which there is not the slightest evidence in the piece itself, has taken place. Thereupon Trapwit, the Comic Author, replies as follows, in one of those passages which show that, whatever Fielding’s dramatic limitations may have been, he was at least a keen critic of stage practice:—
“
