Though we must not look for the usual point of Sheridan in this piece, where the hits of pleasantry are performed with the broad end or mace of his wit, there is yet a quick circulation of humor through the dialogue,—and laughter, the great end of farce, is abundantly achieved by it. The moralizing of Doctor Rosy, and the dispute between the justice's wife and her daughter, as to the respective merits of militia-men and regulars, are highly comic:—
"Psha, you know, Mamma, I hate militia officers; a set of dunghill cocks with spurs on—heroes scratched off a church door. No, give me the bold upright youth, who makes love to-day, and has his head shot off to- morrow. Dear! to think how the sweet fellows sleep on the ground, and fight in silk stockings and lace ruffles.
"Mother. Oh barbarous! to want a husband that may wed you to-day and be sent the Lord knows where before night; then in a twelve-month, perhaps, to have him come like a Colossus, with one leg at New York and the other at Chelsea Hospital."
Sometimes, too, there occurs a phrase or sentence, which might be sworn to, as from the pen of Sheridan, any where. Thus, in the very opening:—
"1st Soldier. I say you are wrong; we should all speak together, each for himself, and all at once, that we may be heard the better.
"2d Soldier. Right, Jack, we'll argue in platoons."
Notwithstanding the great success of his first attempts in the drama, we find politics this year renewing its claims upon his attention, and tempting him to enter into the lists with no less an antagonist than Dr. Johnson. That eminent man had just published his pamphlet on the American question, entitled "Taxation no Tyranny;"—a work whose pompous sarcasms on the Congress of Philadelphia, when compared with what has happened since, dwindle into puerilities, and show what straws upon the great tide of events are even the mightiest intellects of this world. Some notes and fragments, found among the papers of Mr. Sheridan, prove that he had it in contemplation to answer this pamphlet; and, however inferior he might have been in style to his practised adversary, he would at least have had the advantage of a good cause, and of those durable materials of truth and justice, which outlive the mere workmanship, however splendid, of talent. Such arguments as the following, which Johnson did not scruple to use, are, by the haughtiness of their tone and thought, only fit for the lips of autocrats:—
"When they apply to our compassion, by telling us that they are to be carried from their own country to be tried for certain offences, we are not so ready to pity them, as to advise them not to offend. While they are innocent, they are safe.
"If they are condemned unheard, it is because there is no need of a trial. The crime is manifest and notorious," &c. &c.
It appears from the fragments of the projected answer, that Johnson's pension was one of the points upon which Mr. Sheridan intended to assail him. The prospect of being able to neutralize the effects of his zeal, by exposing the nature of the chief incentive from which it sprung, was so tempting, perhaps, as to overrule any feelings of delicacy, that might otherwise have suggested the illiberality of such an attack. The following are a few of the stray hints for this part of his subject:—