"Sim. This hint I took from Handel.—Well, how do you think we go on?
"O'Cul. With vast spirit,—the plot begins to thicken.
"Sim. Thicken! aye,—'twill be as thick as the calf of your leg presently. Well, now for the real, original, patentee Amphitryon. What, ho, Amphitryon! Amphitryon!—'tis Simile calls.—Why, where the devil is he?
"Enter SERVANT.
"Monop. Tom, where is Amphitryon?
"Sim. Zounds, he's not arrested too, is he?
"Serv. No, Sir, but there was but one black eye in the house, and he is waiting to get it from Jupiter.
"Sim. To get a black eye from Jupiter,—oh, this will never do. Why, when they meet, they ought to match like two beef-eaters."
According to their original plan for the conclusion of this farce, all things were at last to be compromised between Jupiter and Juno; Amphitryon was to be comforted in the birth of so mighty a son; Ixion, for his presumption, instead of being fixed to a torturing wheel, was to have been fixed to a vagrant monotroche, as knife-grinder, and a grand chorus of deities (intermixed with "knives, scissors, pen-knives to grind," set to music as nearly as possible to the natural cry,) would have concluded the whole.
That habit of dilatoriness, which is too often attendant upon genius, and which is for ever making it, like the pistol in the scene just quoted, "shoot a bar too late," was, through life, remarkable in the character of Mr. Sheridan,—and we have here an early instance of its influence over him. Though it was in August, 1770, that he received the sketch of this piece from his friend, and though they both looked forward most sanguinely to its success, as likely to realize many a dream of fame and profit, it was not till the month of May in the subsequent year, as appears by a letter from Mr. Ker to Sheridan, that the probability of the arrival of the manuscript was announced to Mr. Foote. "I have dispatched a card, as from H. H., at Owen's Coffee-house, to Mr. Foote, to inform him that he may expect to see your dramatic piece about the 25th instant."