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THE MOCK-DOCTOR; OR, THE DUMB LADY CURED :

A FARCE, BY HENRY FIELDING.

THOUGH Mrs. Centlivre boasted that her Bold Stroke for a Wife was entirely English humour, and was not in any part taken from the French, the acknowledged contrary seems to have been no objection to the present piece; since it was originally announced as "done from the French of Moliere." It was first represented by the Summer actors at Drury-Lane, June 23rd, 1732; and, as the Theatre had been closed from the 13th, the bills stated that "the company being employed in rehearsing several new pieces, &c. could not perform till this day; but will positively continue to act twice a week as usual." From the limited nature of the season, therefore, this entertainment could not be at first very frequently performed; though it was perfectly successful, and it's repetition, even to the present time, is a proof of it's intrinsic merit and humour.

Theophilus Cibber, Jun. was the original Gregory, or Mock-Doctor, as the bills styled him, Stoppelaer was Leander, and Miss Raftor, afterwards Mrs. Clive, played Dorcas, whose rising talent is referred to by the author in his preface in modern times the former part has been excellently sustained by Mr. Mathews. The scene is laid in a village in France, near a wood; and the time of action is from the morning to the evening of one day.

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The well-known original of The Mock Doctor, is Moliere's lively Médecin malgré lui; of which Fielding, with a congenial humour, has given a sprightly and happy translation, differing from the plot and action of the French piece only where the genius of his own nation required him to vary. Gregory's deception is, perhaps, after all, entirely foreign to English habits, though similar characters are to be found in Le Sage and other novelists, who most probably delineated them from the life. Fielding added to his Mock-Doctor nine airs adapted to popular tunes, and entitled it a ballad-farce, but these are now commonly reduced to one. In his preface, Fielding observes that Moliere produced his piece in a very few days, to be acted with The Misanthrope, an excellent play, but too grave for the French stage; though together they proved extremely successful. In like manner The Mock-Doctor originated in the author's Comedy of The Old Debauchees not being of itself long enough for a night's entertainment; and, as it had met with great applause from the town, he was unwilling, says an advertisement anterior to the performance of the Farce, that it should Isuffer by the addition of old and worn-out entertainments, and has therefore permitted the production of the present at a more disadvantageous season than he at first intended."

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Gregory. May I be hanged, if I am. [They beat him.] Oh!-Oh!Dear gentlemen! Oh! for heaven's sake; I am a physician, and an apothecary too, if you'll have me: I had rather be any thing, than be knocked o'the head.

Act 1. Sc. 2.

CURE O
TUMENE
RECIPE

Sir Jasper. Why, this is punch, Doctor.

Gregory. Punch, sir! Aye, sir ;--and what's better than punch, to make people talk?-Never tell me of your juleps, your gruels, youryour-this, and that, and t'other, which are only arts to keep a patient in hand a long time. I love to do a business all at once.

Act 2. Sc. 1.

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Most of the dramas of this author are derived from certain of those popular and domestic legends, which seldom fail of creating a more general and powerful interest, than the loftiest heroical tragedies. He had, however, to contend with the pompous taste of his time; and, on the production of his George Barnwell, many of the theatrical critics formed a contemptuous notion of it because it was founded upon an old ballad: some thousands of which are said to have been used in one day, for making a degrading comparison between the popular tale and the Tragedy. The story of the present drama was originally related in a pamphlet entitled News from Penryn, in Cornwall, of a most bloody and unexampled Murther, very lately committed by a Father on his owne Sonne, (who was lately returned from the Indyes) at the instigation of a merciless Stepmother. Together with their several most wretched endes: being all performed in the month of September last. Anno 1618. 4to. black-letter. The events here related are also said to have really occurred at Bohellan, a small manor, in the parish of Gluvias in Cornwall. Harris, in his Philological Inquiries, Lond. 1781, gives an analysis of the story, and observes that it contains the model of a perfect tragic fable.

Lillo derived his narrative from Dr. Thomas Frankland's Annals of the Reigns of James I. and Charles I., Lond. 1681, folio, in which it follows an account of the unhappy fate of Sir Walter Raleigh; whence the author was probably led to fix the date of this piece soon after the accomplished navigator's return from Guiana and committal to the Tower, August 10th, 1617. The scene is Penryn, and the time of action a part of two days.

This Tragedy was originally produced at the Haymarket, May 27th, 1736, under the title of Guilt it's own Punishment, or Fatal Curiosity: being a true story in common life, and the incidents extremely affecting. Written by the Author of George Barnwell. It ran for six nights the first season, the performers being, Roberts Old Wilmot, Davies Young Wilmot, and Agnes Mrs. Charke; but Bensley and Palmer, senior, were perhaps the best representatives of the unfortunate father and son. After this piece had lain unacted for fifty years, George Colman, senior, revived it, with several careful revisions and improvements, at the Haymarket, June 29th, 1782, when it was acted eleven times. The late Henry Mackenzie produced an unsuccessful alteration of it at Covent-Garden, February 10th, 1784, called The Shipwreck, or Fatal Curiosity, in 5 acts, and containing some new characters, and especially one of a grandson of Old Wilmot.

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IN September 1737, the hostility between George II. and the Prince of Wales, produced a command from the King that the latter should leave St. James's; and the Prince subsequently formed a separate Court at LeicesterHouse, to which the Whig interest and it's followers resorted, and from which issued a continual opposition against the administration of Sir Robert Walpole. The party availed itself of all the powers of elegant literature, as well as of the ordinary political weapons of periodical journals, pamphlets, and coarse satires; for, though the prose writers in it's employ were the most numerous, it was from the poets that the greatest effects were expected. Thus Paul Whitehead had aided it's designs by his poem of Manners; Fielding by various touches in his comedies and farces; Glover by his Leonidas, which was supposed to allegorise a popular stand against tyranny; and on Brooke's arrival in London in search of literary employment, he was encouraged to strike another patriotic blow in the present most enthusiastic Tragedy: in which Trollio, the Swedish minister, was certainly intended for Walpole, however unjustly. The piece was accepted at DruryLane, but after it had been five weeks in rehearsal, when the performers were perfect in their parts, the day of representation was fixed for Monday, March 19th, 1739, and the author had disposed of many hundred tickets,—on the preceding Friday, the 16th, an Order was sent him from the Lord-Chamberlain to prohibit the performance. The piece was published, however, April 25th, 1739, at 5s. each copy, and on May 12th an inferior edition at 1s. 6d.,-both of which sold so extensively, that Victor declares that Brooke cleared more than £1000 by it's sale. It may be curious to state that it was intended for Quin to have performed Gustavus, Cibber Trollio, Mills Anderson, Milward Arvida, Mrs. Giffard Christina, and Mrs. Butler Gustava. After some alterations this Tragedy was performed in Ireland, under the title of The Patriot; and on December 28th, 1805, it was produced at Covent-Garden under it's own title, by license of the LordChamberlain, to exhibit Master Betty, the Young Roscius, in the principal character when neither the piece nor the actor were very successful.

The historical materials of Gustavus Vasa were probably taken from the Abbé Vertot's Histoire des Revolutions de Suede. Hague: 1729, 4to. The scene is Dalecarlia, a Northern province of Sweden; and the time extends from six months after the escape of Gustavus from the fortress of Calo in Jutland to the mines, about 1520, to his election as King of Sweden in 1521.

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