The sentiments which are inculcated in the scene which precedes the one just quoted, are such as have never been embodied with the prejudices of any class of men, because it must be confessed they are much more adapted to convince the reason than to flatter the passions or the imagination! Lucy Peckham is a female philosopher, and lectures the Count on his pretensions, in a manner scarcely less grating to his feelings, than the personalities of her mother. The Count says, ‘Mankind have agreed, Madam, to honour the descendants of the wise and the brave.’ To this his mistress replies, ‘They have so,—But you have, doubtless, too much native merit to arrogate to yourself the worth of others! You are no jay, decked in the peacock’s feathers! You are not idiot enough to imagine that a skin of parchment, on which are emblazoned the arms and the acts of one wise man, with a long list of succeeding fools, is any honour to you! Responsible to mankind for the use and the abuse of such talents as you feel yourself endowed with, you ought to think only how you may deserve greatly; and disdain to be that secondary thing, that insignificant cypher, which is worthless, except from situation!’
Whatever may be thought of the political tendency of this speech, the morality of it is unquestionable; and though it may not be practicable for society at large to act upon the standard here proposed, yet surely every individual would do well to apply it to his own conduct, and to the value which he sets upon himself in his own private esteem. However necessary it may be that the vulgar should respect rank for its own sake, it is desirable that the great themselves should respect virtue more, and endeavour to make the theory, on which nobility is founded, correspond with the practice—private worth with public esteem. The sentiments of this kind, which Mr Holcroft has interspersed through his different works, may therefore remain as useful moral lessons: their noxious political qualities, if ever they had such, have long since evaporated; though I shall take an opportunity to shew that Mr Holcroft’s politics were never any thing more than an enlarged system of morality, growing out of just sentiments, and general improvement.
The School for Arrogance is the first of the author’s pieces, in which there appeared a marked tendency to political or philosophical speculation. Sentiments of this kind, however, and at that time, would rather have increased than diminished the popularity of any piece. A proof of this is, that the very epilogue (which is seldom designed to give offence), glances that way.
‘Such is the modern man of high-flown fashion!
Such are the scions sprung from Runny-Mead!
The richest soil, that bears the rankest weed!
Potatoe-like, the sprouts are worthless found;
And all that’s good of them is under ground.’
The wit and point of this satire, will not be disputed.
Mr Holcroft’s next play was The Road to Ruin, which carried his fame as a dramatic writer into every corner of the kingdom, where there was a play-house. Nothing could exceed the effect produced by this play at its first appearance, nor its subsequent popularity. It not only became a universal favourite, but it deserved to be so. Mr Holcroft, in sending round one or two copies of it to his friends before it was acted, had spoken of it as his best performance. He had hitherto been generally dissatisfied with what he had written, as not answering his own wishes, or what he thought himself capable of producing: but in this instance he seems to have thought his muse had been as favourable to him as she was likely to be. Authors are perhaps seldom deceived with respect to their works, when they judge of them from their own immediate feelings, and not out of contradiction to the opinions of others, or from a desire to excel in something which the world thinks them incapable of. Mr Holcroft’s predictions were at least verified by the appearance of the Road to Ruin. It had a run greater than almost any other piece was ever known to have, and there is scarcely a theatre in the kingdom, except Drury-Lane, and the Haymarket, in which it has not been acted numberless times. The profits he received from it were nine hundred pounds from Mr Harris, and three or four hundred for the copy-right.