This, though ingenious, is far too labored--and of that false taste by
which sometimes, in his graver style, he was seduced into the display of
second-rate ornament, the following speeches of Julia afford specimens:--

"Then on the bosom of your wedded Julia, you may lull your keen regret
to slumbering; while virtuous love, with a cherub's hand, shall smooth
the brow of upbraiding thought, and pluck the thorn from compunction."

Again:--"When hearts deserving happiness would unite their fortunes,
virtue would crown them with an unfading garland of modest hurtless
flowers: but ill-judging passion will force the gaudier rose into the
wreath, whose thorn offends them when its leaves are dropt."

But, notwithstanding such blemishes,--and it is easy for the microscopic
eye of criticism to discover gaps and inequalities in the finest edge of
genius,--this play, from the liveliness of its plot, the variety and
whimsicality of its characters, and the exquisite humor of its dialogue,
is one of the most amusing in the whole range of the drama; and even
without the aid of its more splendid successor, The School for Scandal,
would have placed Sheridan in the first rank of comic writers.

A copy of The Rivals has fallen into my hands, which once belonged to
Tickell, the friend and brother-in-law of Sheridan, and on the margin of
which I find written by him in many places his opinion of particular
parts of the dialogue. [Footnote: These opinions are generally expressed
in two or three words, and are, for the most part, judicious. Upon Mrs.
Malaprop's quotation from Shakspeare, "Hesperian curls," &c. he writes,
"overdone--fitter for farce than comedy." Acres's classification of
oaths, "This we call the _oath referential,"_ &c. he pronounces to
be "very good, but above the speaker's capacity." Of Julia's speech, "Oh