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 daughter of a pawnbroker, is,
against her father's wishes, wooed by a gentleman, and, thanks to the
trick of a maid, goes off with her lover while carrying some valuable
jewels with which her father has entrusted her. There are two other
lovers, Pendulous--who has been unjustly hanged and only reprieved
just in time to save his life--and Marian Flyn, and out of their
by-play comes the reconciliation of all. The feelings of the
half-hanged man had earlier been dealt with by Lamb in a letter "On
the Inconveniences Resulting from being Hanged," which he contributed
(as "Pensilis") to "The Reflector" in 1811.