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    which he commits himself beyond the chance of retreat , exp lanation , grace , or redemption , has something in it of that hopeless melancholy which nullifies the sense both of Indignation and of the ridiculous .

    In a play by Middleton and Rowley , called a A Fair Quarrel , tne character of Captain Ager ' s mother becomes stigmatised by the suspicion that she had conferred personal favours on somebody , without due observance of customary ceremonials and the lawful fees of the Established Church .

    The Colonel of the regiment—a man , no doubt , of the most rigorous chastity , and punctilious honour in all his paymentsinsinuates a corresponding reproach , by designating Captain Ager as an illegal human being . The son is of course exasperated and eager to resent the insult , but pauses froni a misgiving that his mother might really have been guilty of that social crime of the female sex , with which she was

    charged . He consequently first seeks an explanation with her . She is highly indignant at his suspicions , until she finds he is determined on a sanguinary contest with the Colonel , and in order to prevent the destruction of one or both , she Jbas the moral courage to brave the odium of all her own sex , and the

    majority of the opposite sex , by pretending that the epithet applied to her son was founded in truth . This being the case , Captain Ager manifests an equal moral courage in exposing himself to the contempt of the whole of both sexes by suffering the imputation of physical cowardice . He is dragged to the field by some very gentlemanly friends— " all honorable men , "

    —but even there he resolutely endures his antagonist ' s taunts and refuses to fight . The Colonel , however , carries these taunts to an extent sufficient to constitute just cause for a serious quarrel on fresh grounds , and Captain Ager then draws , and giving way to his long-suppressed passion , quickly strikes the sword from his antagonist ' s hand .

    ** The instpidlevelling monility" ( observes Mr . Lamb ) to which the modern stage is tied down , would not admit of&uch admirable passions a § tfoese scenes are tilled with . A puritanical obtu $ eiie * 8 of sentiment , a stupid infantile goodueee , ie creeping among ug , instead of the vigorout pat » sion » , and virtues clad in fte « h and blood , with which the old dramatist ^ present u * . Those uoble and liberal casuists could discern in

    the differences , the quarrels , the animosities of uian , a beauty and truth of moral feeling , no less than in the iterately inculcated duties of forgiveness and atonement . AVith us , all is hypocritical meekness . A reconciliation scene ( let the occasion be never so absurd Or unnatural ) is always sure of applause . Our audiences come to the theatre to be con >

    plimetited on their goodness . Th * y com pave notes with the amiable characters in the play , and riwd a wonderful similarity of disposition between them . We hate a . common stock of dramatic morality * out of which a writer may be supplied without the trouble of copying it from originals within hisown breast . To know the boundaries of honour , to

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    Tht London Review , y . Tkt British Drama . $ 4 f

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1836, page 247, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2656/page/55/