entertainment which Cibber regarded as an encroachment on the drama and against which he protested; but pantomime continued to hold public favor.

66. Ballad-Opera: John Gay.-To his successes Rich was destined to add yet another rival to the regular drama. At Lincoln's Inn in 1728 he produced John Gay's The Beggar's Opera and thus brought before the public a new species of entertainment with emphasis on songs, burlesque of Italian opera, and an undercurrent of political satire (in this case specially directed against Walpole). The idea of the new piece was originally suggested to Gay by Swift. Ballad-opera at once became immensely popular; but Cibber still held aloof. "If the judgment of the crowd were infallible," he said, "I am afraid we shall be reduced to allow that The Beggar's Opera was the bestwritten play that ever our English theatre had to boast of." In spite of its great success with the public, however, the production was officially regarded as an insolent performance" containing "the most venomous allegorical libel" against the Government that had appeared in years. From this point of view of political satire it is important not only on its own account but as anticipating Fielding.

67. Domestic Tragedy: George Lillo.-The democratic tendencies of the day and something of the influence of ballad-opera, find further expression in the work of George Lillo (1693-1739), who is primarily remembered, however, as a representative of sentimentalism and domestic tragedy. The son of a London jeweller, Lillo was well fitted to become the dramatist of domestic life. His first venture, Silvia, or The Country Burial (1730), was called a ballad-opera, which in this case signifies not much more than that it was interspersed with songs. The perform

ance at Drury Lane, however, of The London Merchant or The History of George Barnwell (1731), commonly known as George Barnwell, was an important event in English dramatic history. Domestic tragedy was not unknown on the English stage from the time of Thomas Heywood down to that of Rowe. With Lillo, however, it took on a new importance and came closer to the public than ever before. The story is that of a merchant's clerk who, led astray by a courtesan, Millwood, embezzles money, murders his uncle, and is at last executed for his crime. Throughout his trials he is supported and comforted by Thorowgood, his employer, Trueman, a fellowclerk, and Maria, Thorowgood's daughter. Lillo stated that his play was drawn from a "famed old song," referring to "The Ballad of George Barnwell." 3 "In the ballad, neither Maria nor Trueman is mentioned, and Thorowgood appears only as a nameless master for whom Barnwell has no affection. Lillo's Thorowgood is characterized in detail: he has a high sense of the dignity of the merchant class, a fatherly interest in young men, and a pitying and forgiving heart in the hour of Barnwell's distress.. The most important difference between the play and the ballad is that between their respective heroes. The Barnwell of the ballad is not placed in a flattering light. It is he himself who thinks of murdering his uncle; and, after enjoying the latter's hospitality, he commits the deed with deliberation, and enjoys its fruits without remorse. He brings about the capture of Millwood by his testimony, and subsequently perpetrates

* See English and Scottish Popular Ballads, edited by F. J. Child, Boston, 1859 (VIII, 213). The ballad is also easily accessible in Ward's edition of The London Merchant and Fatal Curiosity, 121-35.

another murder." In the play there is considerable change from all this. With a certain sense of chivalry Barnwell protects Millwood; after he has resolved never to see her again he is won back only through an appeal to his sympathy for her supposed troubles; and his committing of the murder is not much more than an accident. Throughout the last two acts his penitence is extreme; and his final endeavor is to save the soul of the woman who has so vilely betrayed him."

"We may safely conclude that the audiences which crowded to the early performances of The London Merchant troubled themselves little about either the artistic defects or the artistic merits of the play. What they welcomed in Lillo's tragedy was, in the first instance, the courage with which, resuming the native freedom of the English drama, he had chosen his theme from a sphere of experience immediately familiar to them; and, secondly, the plainness of the moral which he enforced, and the direct way in which he enforced it." 5

In The Christian Hero (1735) Lillo wrote tragedy of a more conventional type. He used blank verse and dealt not with a London apprentice but a "patriot king," shifting the scene from London to Albania. In Fatal Curiosity (1736), however, while still using blank verse, he reverted to domestic tragedy.

"In the history of English drama, Lillo holds a position wholly disproportionate to his actual dramatic achievement. Like D'Avenant, his importance is chiefly that of a pioneer. [He] set in motion powerful forces that pointed toward natural tragedy. He deliberately put aside the dignity of rank and title and the ceremony of Bernbaum, 153.

Ward: Introduction, xxxii.

verse. He animated domestic drama, and paved the way for prose melodrama and tragedy.. . . To [his] influence on the subjects of English tragedy must be added his no less marked influence upon its language. He deliberately adopted prose as the vehicle of expression for domestic tragedy. He accepts, indeed, the convention of rime-tags at the end of every act and at the conclusion of some scenes during the act; but his main intent is to give domestic drama the vocabulary and phrase that suit his theme." •

In connection with Lillo may be mentioned Edward Moore (1712-1757), who also knew the London trading class, having served as apprentice to a mercer. His comedy, The Foundling (1748), indebted for some suggestion to Steele's The Conscious Lovers, was fairly successful. His representative production, however, was The Gamester (1753), an attack on the evils of gambling. In this work Moore labored under some restraint, and generally he showed the career of the gambler "by effect rather than by cause;" thus he sacrificed considerable dramatic possibility when he kept any actual gaming off the stage. The play, however, in spite of all shortcomings, was a distinct success and furnished Garrick with a leading rôle. Especially effective from the sentimental standpoint was the scene in the last act between Beverley and his wife.

68. Burlesque: Henry Fielding.-Henry Fielding (1707-1754), the distinguished journalist and novelist, walks amid the sentimental comedy and the domestic tragedy of his day with a cool head, a slight smile of cynicism, and a general air of detachment. He has • Nettleton, C. H. E. L., X, 85-88.

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breadth and keenness and delicate irony. The one thing he lacks is the thing that Jonson lacked, and that any satirist is in danger of lacking-charm. He has a keen sense of the right, and a good heart, but no poetry. "The first decade of [his] literary career was given over to the production of twenty-six comic plays of various sorts and conditions-regular comedies, adaptations from Molière, farces, satirical pieces, and burlesque." In the history of the drama he is remembered primarily for his burlesques, of which the outstanding example is The Tragedy of Tragedies, or The Life and Death of Tom Thumb the Great (first form, 1730). In this production he makes ridiculous the tragedy Ghost, parodies lines from various plays, commits half a dozen murders in as many lines, and also echoes the noise of the Shakespearean wars that have already begun. Somewhat more constructively Fielding labored to give genuine comedy and farce a place on the stage.

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Historically, in legislation affecting the stage, Fielding has further importance. In 1736, as manager of the Haymarket, he produced Pasquin, "a dramatic satire on the times," in which the bribery and other political methods of Walpole were rather boldly suggested. The next year, however, he went still further with The Historical Register for 1736, referring again to Walpole, satirizing Colley and Theophilus Cibber, and indulging in much social pasquinade as well. A movement for the restriction of the license of the theatres had for some time been under way,

"Hillhouse: "The Tragedy of Tragedies," 1.

For an interesting analysis of the play and comparison with The Rehearsal and The Critic, see the introduction to it in F. Tupper and J. W. Tupper's Representative English Dramas.