od-Natured Man_, and his delightfully brisk
and fresh _She Stoops to Conquer_, which, after startling critical
propriety from its self-conceit, taught comedy no longer to fear being
true to herself. The most successful efforts of the elder G. Colman[254]
had in them something of the spirit of genuine comedy, besides a finish
which, however playwrights may shut their eyes to the fact, is one of
the qualities which ensure a long life to a play. And in the
masterpieces of R. B. Sheridan some of the happiest features of the
comedy of Congreve were revived, together with its too uniform
brilliancy of dialogue, but without its indecency of tone. The varnish
of the age is indeed upon the style, and the hollowness of its morality
in much of the sentiment (even where that sentiment is meant for the
audience) of _The Rivals_ and _The School for Scandal_; but in tact of
construction, in distinctness of characters, and in pungency of social
satire, they are to be ranked among the glories of English comedy.
Something in Sheridan's style, but quite without his brilliancy, is the
most successful play[255] of the unfortunate General Burgoyne. R.
Cumberland, who too consciously endeavoured to excel both in sentimental
morality and in comic characterization, in which he was devoid of depth,
closes the list of authors of higher pretensions who wrote for the
theatre.[256] Like him, Mrs Cowley[257] ("Anna Matilda"), T.
Holcroft,[258] and G. Colman the younger,[259] all writers of popular
comedies, as well as the prolific J. O'Keefe (1746-1833), who
contributed to nearly every species of the comic drama, survived into
the 19th century. To an earlier date belong the favourite burlesques of
O'Keefe's countryman K. O'Hara[260] (d. 1782), good examples of a
species the further history of which may be left aside. In the hands of
at least one later writer, J. R. Planche, it proved capable of
satisfying a more refined taste than his successors have habitually
consulted.

The English drama of the 19th century.

The decline of dramatic composition of the higher class, perceptible in
the history of the English theatre about the beginning of the 19th
century, was justly attributed by Sir Walter Scott to the wearing out of
the French model that had been so long wrought upon; but when he
asserted that the new impulse which was sought in the dramatic
literature of Germany was derived from some of its worst, instead of
from its noblest, productions--