Kansas University Weekly.
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its picture of life and manners is as modern and vital as it is clear. On the whole it is richly colored, humorous, and brilliant. The spirit of it moreover is human, kind, and pure. There is no taint of indelicacy in the plot, no blur of licentousness such as smirches the mirror of its great companion-piece, "The School for Scandal;" and in the style there is but little of that elaborate, brittle wit which sometimes imparts to Sheridan's writings a tiresome glitter of artifice. The play is sprightly and droll; it has interest of sharp, alert movement; substantial and well contrasted characters. Its theme, incidents, and atmosphere are suited to simple, artistic methods. From reading "The Rivals" and other productions of early play writers it would seem that some of the characters were professed wits, disguised and lying in wait for a brilliant antithesis or pointed retort, rather than genuine flesh-and-blood personages moving in the station of life to which the author would have us believe they belong. Nothing can be more ludicrous and laughable than Mrs. Malaprop's misapplications of words—though the species of humor was one common to Sheridan's time, and in Della Cruscan's time was called "cross-reading." It would be an easy matter for some of our comic writers to reproduce "Mrs. Malaprop" who is based upon Fielding's "Mrs. Slipslop;"—but "what dramatist would be bold enough to bring another Falstaff upon the stage?"
In "Acres" we have the culmination of humorous effects by epigrammatic invention mingled with genuine touches of nature. His system of "referential or allegorical swearing," his real and cordial delight in caricaturing himself, his artless assumption of rakish airs, and his pitiable bombast make him a character which may seem overladen but which is yet doubly interesting and potential. In Acres comes a new idea of the Country Squire. He need not reek of the alehouse and the stables; neither the coarse and noisy Tony Lumpkin, nor the "horsey Goldfinch." Because vain and vapid, he is none the less kind. Though his head be completely
turned by contact with metropolitan fashions he retains tender ties of home and a background of innocent domestic life. A good fellow at heart, his sufferings in various predicaments are truly genuine, intense, and as doleful as comic. The wit of the play may be said to have many times a false setting. In contemplating the duel Acres says, (defending his honor)—"think what it would be to disgrace my ancestors." The reply of David, his bumpkin servant, rearful of his master's life, is;—"the surest way of not disgracing them is to keep as long as you can out of their company." A repartee worthy the bilious Falkland or the choleric Sir Anthony. Mark David's description of the consequences of his master's falling — "Phillis howling" and "his old horse cursing the hour he was born"—which Moore says is a transposition of the Shakesperian Clown's idea of the "cat's wringing her hands" with grief at the departure of the master.
Leigh Hunt considers Sir Anthony the most natural and best sustained character in the play and considers his scenes with the Captain, richly, genuinely dramatic. His surprise at the apathy with which his son receives the glowing picture of his future bride and the effect of the question, "And which is to be mine, sir—the niece or the aunt?" are in the truest humor. Hazlitt says with justice, that the whole tone of the comedy and local scenery reminds the reader of Humphrey, Clinker.
The rest of the characters are traditional, common to the stage, but are drawn with all the life and spirit of originals.
As a play it would be hard to find another comedy equally sparkling with life, delightful in color, merry and gentle in influence, in which a single, and that a comic character-one not at all in harmony with the surroundings-is elevated to shining prominence without injury to the form and symmetry of the whole. Moore said after its second presentation it "rose at once into that high region of public favor where it has continued to float so buoyantly and gracefully ever since. From the lowliness of its plot, the variety and whimsicalities and the exquisite humor of its dialogue, it is one of the most amusing plays in the whole range of the drama and alone places Sheridan in the first rank of comic writers." C.I.S.