Scarborough and the Critic

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Sheridan
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Title: Scarborough and the Critic
Author: Sheridan
Release Date: December, 2004 [EBook #7108]
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0. START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK
SCARBOROUGH AND THE CRITIC ***
Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading
Team
A TRIP TO SCARBOROUGH
A COMEDY
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ
AS ORIGINALLY ACTED AT DRURY LANE THEATRE IN
1777
LORD FOPPINGTON Mr. Dodd.
SIR TUNBELLY CLUMSY Mr.
Moody.
COLONEL TOWNLY Mr. Brereton.
LOVELESS Mr.
Smith.
TOM FASHION Mr. J. Palmer.
LA VAROLE Mr. Burton.
LORY Mr. Baddeley.
PROBE Mr. Parsons.
MENDLEGS Mr. Norris.
JEWELLER Mr. Lamash
SHOEMAKER Mr. Carpenter.
TAILOR Mr. Parker.
AMANDA Mrs. Robinson.
BERINTHIA Miss Farren.
MISS HOYDEN Mrs. Abington.
MRS.
COUPLER Mrs. Booth.
NURSE Mrs. Bradshaw.
Sempstress, Postilion, Maid, and Servants.
SCENE--SCARBOROUGH AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD.
PROLOGUE
SPOKEN BY MR. KING
What various transformations we remark,
From east Whitechapel to
the west Hyde Park!
Men, women, children, houses, signs, and
fashions,
State, stage, trade, taste, the humours and the passions; The

Exchange, 'Change Alley, wheresoe'er you're ranging,
Court, city,
country, all are changed or changing
The streets, some time ago, were
paved with stones,
Which, aided by a hackney-coach, half broke your
bones.
The purest lovers then indulged in bliss;
They ran great
hazard if they stole a kiss.
One chaste salute!--the damsel cried--Oh,
fie!
As they approach'd--slap went the coach awry--
Poor Sylvia got
a bump, and Damon a black eye.
But now weak nerves in hackney-coaches roam,
And the cramm'd
glutton snores, unjolted, home;
Of former times, that polish'd thing a
beau,
Is metamorphosed now from top to toe;
Then the full flaxen
wig, spread o'er the shoulders,
Conceal'd the shallow head from the
beholders.
But now the whole's reversed--each fop appears,
Cropp'd
and trimm'd up, exposing head and ears:
The buckle then its modest
limits knew,
Now, like the ocean, dreadful to the view,
Hath broke
its bounds, and swallowed up the shoe:
The wearer's foot like his
once fine estate,
Is almost lost, the encumbrance is so great.
Ladies
may smile--are they not in the plot?
The bounds of nature have not
they forgot?
Were they design'd to be, when put together,
Made up,
like shuttlecocks, of cork and feather?
Their pale-faced
grandmammas appeared with grace
When dawning blushes rose upon
the face;
No blushes now their once-loved station seek;
The foe is
in possession of the cheek!
No heads of old, too high in feather'd state,

Hinder'd the fair to pass the lowest gate;
A church to enter now,
they must be bent,
If ever they should try the experiment.
As
change thus circulates throughout the nation,
Some plays may justly
call for alteration;
At least to draw some slender covering o'er,
That
graceless wit

[Footnote: "And Van wants grace, who never wanted
wit." --POPE.]
which was too bare before:
Those writers well and
wisely use their pens,
Who turn our wantons into Magdalens;
And
howsoever wicked wits revile 'em,
We hope to find in you their stage
asylum.

ACT I.
SCENE I.--The Hall of an Inn.
_Enter TOM FASHION and LORY,
POSTILION following with a
portmanteau_.
Fash. Lory, pay the
postboy, and take the portmanteau.
_Lory. [Aside to TOM
FASHION_.] Faith, sir, we had better
let the postboy take the
portmanteau and pay himself.
_Fash. [Aside to LORY_.] Why, sure,
there's something left
in it!
Lory. Not a rag, upon my honour, sir!
We eat the last of
your wardrobe at New Malton--and, if we had had
twenty miles further to go, our next meal must have been of the
cloak-bag. Fash. Why, 'sdeath, it