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XVIII.

Murph v.

Beides, die komische und tragische Gattung des Schaus spiels, ist auch von Arthur Nurphy, einem noch lebenden Rechtsgelehrten und Sachwalter in London, nicht ohne glücks lichen Erfolg bearbeitet worden. Er ist ein geborner Jrläns der, und Corte sell seine Vaterstadt seyn. Die schriftstelles rische Laufbahn betrat er zuerst im J. 1752 mit der Herauss gabe des Gray's-Inn Journal, welches er zwei Jahre lang fortsette. Im J. 1754 versuchte er sich als Schauspieler auf der Bühne in Coventgarden, wo er zuerst im Othello erschien. Ob es ihm aber gleich an Talenten zu dieser Kunst nicht fehlte, und er bald hernach sich darin auch auf dem Theater in Drurylane zeigte, so gab er sie doch ganz wieder quf, und schrieb nun für die Schaubühne und Politik, wobei er jedoch das Studium der Rechte mit vorzüglichem Eifer trieb. Man tennt die Verdienste, welche er sich um die vollständige Ausgabe von Fielding's, Werken erwarb. Seine signe Werke sammelte er im I. 1786 in sieben Bånden, in gr. 8. Die darin enthaltenen Lustspiele sind: The Appren The Upholsterer The Old Maid The CiNo Man's Enemy but IIis Own - Three Weeks after Marriage, auch unter dem Titel: What we muft all come to The Way to keep him All in the Wrong

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The Defert Island

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Know your own
The Choice.

Mind The School for Guardians Zu dem Lustspiele, Know your own Mind nahm er die Grundlage aus dem Irrefolu des Destouches, wusste_aber die Charaktere sehr glücklich auf englischen Boden zu verpflan zen, und den Dialog durch Laune und Originalzüge zu beles ben. In dem am meisten auffallenden Charakter des Dashwould soll er, vornehmlich in folgender Scene, den berühmten Schauspieler Soote zu schildern gesucht haben:

Enter

Enter Lady BELL, DASHWOULD,

and MALVIL.

Lady Bell. Mr. Dashwould, do you think, I'll bear this? What liberty will you take next? You think, because I laugh, that I am not offended. .— Aunt, I received a letter, and he has attempted to fnatch it from me.

Dafhwould. Why, it brings a little cargo of ridicule from the country, and my friend Malvil fees no joke in it.

When my friend's name is brought in

Malvil. queftion, SirLady Bell.

It is diverting notwithstanding Aunt, what do you think? My cousin Cynthia, you know, was to be married to Sir George Squanderftock; her mother opposed it, and broke off the match, and now it's come out, that she was all the time the clandeftine rival of her own daughter.

A
Millamour. (afide) Not inapplicable to the present

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Mrs. Brom. Go, you giddy girl, no fuch things. Mil. (afide) She charms by her very faults." Sir Har. (goes up to Bygrove) And Dashwould has been saying

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Bygr. Po! repeat none of his fayings to me. Lady Bell. Did you fay any thing, Mr. Dafhwould? what was it?

Dafhw. Oh! nothing. Sir John Squanderstock is my very good friend.

Mal. And for that reason you might spare him. No man is without his faults.

Dafhi. Ay, allow him faults, out of tenderness. Bygr. Sir John is a valuable man, Sir, and reprefents his country to great advantage,

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Dafhu. He does fo; takes a world of pains; nothing can escape him; Manilla ransom not paid; there inust be a motion about that matter: he knots his handkerchief to remember it. Scarcity of corn; another knot! - triennial parliaments (knots) Juries, judges of law as well as fact (knots) national debt (knots) bail in criminal causes, (knots) and fo on he goes, till his handkerchief is twifted into questions of state; the liberties and fortunes of all posterity dangling like a bede roll; he puts it in his pocket, drives to the gaming table, and the next morning his handkerchief goes to the wash, and his country and the minority are both left in the fuds.

Lady Bell. What a description! |
Sir Har. Hey! lively Lady Bell!

Both laugh.

Mil. Ho, ho! I thank you, Dafhwould.

Mrs. Brom. Cafide to Millamour) How can you encourage him? Let us leave'em to themselves.

Mal. You fee, Mr. Bygrove

Bygr. Ay, thus he gets a story to graft his malice upon, and then he sets the table in a roar at the next tavern.

Sir Har. Never be out of humour with Dashwould, Mr. Bygrove; he keeps me alive; he has been exhibiting pictures of this fort all the morning, as we rambled about the town.

Dafh. Oh! no; no pictures; I have fhewn him real life,

Sir Har. Very true, Dafhwould; and now mind him; he will touch them off to the life for you.

Mrs. Brom. (afide) Millamour fo close with Lady Bell! The forward importunity of that girl! (She goes to Millamour.)

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Dofhw.

Dafhw. There is pofitively no fuch thing as going about this town, without seeing enough to split your fides with laughing. We called upon my friend, Sir Volatile Vainlove: he, you know, fhines in all polite affemblies, and is, if you believe himself, of the first character for intrigue. We found him drinking Valerian tea for his breakfast, and putting on false calves.

Sir Har. And the confufion he was in, when we entered the room!

Dafhw. In the next street we found Jack Spinbrain, a celebrated Poet, with a kept mistress at the elbow, writing lampoons for the news-paper; one moment murdering the reputation of his neighbours, and the next á suicide of his own. We saw a young heir, not yet of age, granting annuity bonds, and five Jews and three Chriftians, duped by their avarice, to lend money upon them. A Lawyer

Sir Har. with him.

Hear, hear; it is all true.

I was

Dafhw, A Lawyer taking notes upon Shak fpeare: a deaf Nabob ravished with mufic; and a blind one buying pictures. Men without talents, rifing to preferment, and real genius going to jail. An officer in a marching regiment with a black eye, and a French hair-dreffer wounded in the fword arm.

Sir Har. Oh! ho! ho! by this light, I can vouch for every word.

Bygr. Go on, Sir Harry, ape your friend in all his follies; be the nimble marmozet; grin at his tricks, and try to play them over again yourself.

Sir Har. Well now, that is too fevere. Dafhwould, defend ine from his wit. You know I hoard up all your good things.

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Dafhy. You never pay me in my own coin, Sir Harry; try now; who knows but you will fay fomething?

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Mal. Friend or foe is all alike.

Lady Bell. (coming forward) And where is the mighty harm? I like pulling to pieces of all things.

Mil. (following Lady Bell.) To be fure it is the life of conversation. Does your Ladyship know Sir George Squanderftocks fifter?

Lady Bell. I have seen her.

Mil. She is a politician in petticoats; a fierce republican; fhe talks of the dagger of Brutus, while The settles a pin in her tucker; and says more about fhip money than pin- money.

Bygr. And now you must turn buffoon?

Dafhw. I know the lady; The fcold at the loya lifts, goffips against the act of fettlement, and has the fidgets for Magna Charta.

Mil. She encourages a wrinkle against bribery; flirts her fan at the ministry; and bites her lips at taxes and a standing army.

Mal. Mr. Bygrove, will you bear all this?

Bygr. Let me tell you, once for all, Sir, with all your flashes of wit, you will find that you havę been playing with an edge-tool at laft. And what does this mighty wit amount to? The wit in vogue, expose one man; makes another expose himself; gets into the fecrets of an intimate acquaintance, and publiflies a ftory to the world; belies a friend; puts an anecdote, a letter, an epigram, into the news-paper; and that is the whole amount of modern wit.

Dafhw. A ftrain of morofe invective is more diverting, to be fure!

Bygr.

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