At this juncture the captivating artist is herself introduced. Mr. Livingstone’s modesty strikes him into a heap of confusion. “He sighs and looks, and looks and sighs again,”—he does not know “what to say, or how to say it; so that the trembling bachelor may become a wise and good lover.” He stutters and hems in the utmost distress; to increase which, all his tormentors turn up the stage, leaving him to entertain the lady alone. The sketches naturally suggest a topic, and, plunging in medias res at once, he vehemently praises her legs! The lady is astonished, and the mamma alarmed; but having explained that the allusion was to the drawings, he is afterwards punished for the blunder by being threatened with a song. Though at a loss to find out what he has done to deserve such an infliction, he submits; for he is very sleepy, and sinks into a chair in an attitude of supposed attention, but really in a posture best adapted for a nap. When the song is ended the applause of course comes in; this awakens Livingstone in a fright; he starts, and throws down a harp in his fall.
After this contretemps, the villany of the widow and her ally takes a different turn. In a love affair there are generally two parties; and Miss Prudence has got to be persuaded that she is in love. This it is not difficult to accomplish, she being no more overburdened with penetration than the gentleman they are so kind as to say she is in love with. So far all goes on well: for she is soon convinced that she is enamoured to the last extremity.
Livingstone having a sort of glimmering that the danger so long averted at length impends over him—that he is falling into the trap of love, with every chance of the fall continuing down to the bottomless pit of matrimony, determines to avert the catastrophe by flight. The pair of villains, however, set up a cry of “Stop thief,” and he is brought back. Sir Harry appeals to his feelings. Good gracious! is he so base, so dishonourable, so heartless, to rob an innocent, unsuspecting, and accomplished girl of her heart, and then wickedly desert her! Oh, no! In short, having already persuaded the poor man that he is in love, Sir Harry convinces him that he would also be a deceiver; and Livingstone would have returned like a lamb to the slaughter but for a new incident.
He has an uncle who is engaged in a law-suit with some of Mrs. Courtnay’s family. To bring this litigation to an amicable end it has been proposed that Livingstone should marry the widow’s sister. Here is a discovery! So, the deep widow has been unwittingly plotting against her own sister! Things must be altered; and so they are, in no time, for she persuades the easy hero that Nugent is in love with Prudence himself; but, finding she adores her new lover, has magnanimously given up his claims in his favour. This has the desired effect, for Livingstone will have no such noble sacrifice made on his account. He seeks Sir Harry; who, discovering the double design of the profound widow, talks as immensely magnanimous as they do in classic dramas. In short, both play at Romans till the end of the piece; the hero and heroine being at last fully persuaded that they have each really fallen in “Love Extempore!”
This idea of persuading two persons into the bonds of love—of having all the courting done at second-hand, is admirably worked out. Livingstone is a well-drawn character; so well, so naturally painted, that he hardly deserves to be the hero of a farce. Although exceedingly soft, he is a well-bred fool—though somewhat fat (for the actor is Mr. David Rees); he is not altogether inelegant. The gentleman who does the theatrical metaphysics in the Morning Herald has described him as a capital specimen of “physical obesity and moral teunity,”33. Sic, actually, in the dramatic article of that paper, Wednesday, 24th ult. —which we quote to save ourselves trouble, for the force of description can no further go. Prudence is also inimitable—a march-of-intellect young lady without brains, who knows the names of the five large rivers in America, and how many bones there are in the gills of a turbot. In Miss P. Horton’s hands her mechanical acquirements were done ample justice to. The cold unmeaning love scene was rendered mainly by her acting
A N-ICE SITUATION.
In fine, the farce is altogether a leaven of the best material most cleverly worked up.