A Little Case of Borrowing

— It always seems a very shabby thing to show, or try to show, where a famous author obtained some of his most brilliant ideas ; but the hunting instinct which is in every man will not let him rest until he has brought down some tangible result as his prey. Though it is but seldom that such a hunter finds every one agreeing that his game is worth the chase, even a few followers will keep up his spirits. For example, there is hardly a better known character in English literature than Mrs. Malaprop, and it seems a little cruel for any one to say that her delightful errors of speech were copied from another character of fiction, but this I think I can show.

Frances Chamberlaine Sheridan was the talented mother of a still more talented son, Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Among other things she wrote a comedy called A Journey to Bath, which has never been acted or published. It is now reposing, in an incomplete state, among the Sheridan papers in the British Museum. Whether or not it was ever finished is not known with certainty, but Mr. Edward Scott, the Keeper of the Manuscripts, thinks Sheridan destroyed the Interacts after making use of them for The Rivals, and holds that he was justified in doing this because the play was his by inheritance at his mother’s death, which occurred in 1766. On the other hand, Mrs. Alicia Lefanu, a granddaughter of Mrs. Sheridan, in her life of that most interesting lady, thinks the play was left unfinished. Thus we have two opinions. It was Mr. Scott who, years ago, when young in the service of the department of which he is now head, discovered that “ Sheridan had undoubtedly taken his character of Mrs. Malaprop from his mother’s character of Mrs. Tryfort.”

Of course, the most striking thing about Mrs. Malaprop is her misuse of words, and we find this characteristic in Mrs. Tryfort, but not so strongly accentuated, for she can say some things correctly. This is very strong evidence, and is of much greater importance than the resemblances of action, which might be accidental. In one place ¹ Mrs. Malaprop says that she would not have a daughter of hers “ to be a progeny of learning.” Mrs. Tryfort declares² that Lord Stewkly, who is after her daughter’s fortune, “is a perfect progeny.” A little further on in the same speecli³ Mrs. Malaprop, in describing her supposititious daughter’s curriculum of study, says she would have her instructed in geometry, “ that she might know something of the contagious countries.” Mrs. Tryfort, again ⁴ eulogizing Lord Stewkly, says, “ Oh, if you were to hear him describe contagious countries as I have done.” In another place ⁵ Mrs. Malaprop orders Lydia Languish “ to illiterate him [Ensign Beverly], I say, quite from your memory.” Mrs. Tryfort misuses the same word, though in a different sense, when she describes ⁶ Lord Stewkly as taking “ as much pains to teach my Lucy and make her illiterate as if he were actually her master.” In Mrs. Malapropos note to Sir Lucius O’Trigger⁷ she says, “Female punctuation forbids me to say more.” We do not find Mrs. Tryfort getting quite so far astray as this, for she says punctuality, which is a little bit nearer punctiliousness. “I know nothing of him, Sir Jonathan. Do you think Miss Tryfort does not understand punctuality better than to go into corners with young fellows ? ” ⁸

These are all the verbal similarities between the two characters, and they seem to show that, if Sheridan did not have the play before him when he wrote The Rivals, he at least remembered something about it. Mrs. Tryfort and Mrs. Malaprop are also alike in becoming fascinated by the men who are after their wards’ fortunes, namely, Lord Stewkly and Sir Lucius O’Trigger.

But a piece of indirect evidence shows that Sheridan must have modeled Mrs. Malaprop from Mrs. Tryfort, and this is a speech of Sir Lucius O’Trigger’s which is taken almost directly from A Journey to Bath. In the challenge scene of The Rivals Sir Lucius says to Bob Acres, “Ah, my little friend, if I bad Blunderbuss Hall here, I could show you a range of ancestry, in the old O’Trigger line, that would furnish the new room; every one of whom had killed his man ! . . . For though the mansion-house and dirty acres have slipped through my fingers, I thank Heaven our honour and the family-pictures are as fresh as ever.”⁹ In A Journey to Bath Sir Jeremy Bull is talking to his nephew, Edward, and Lady Filmot, who is an adventuress trying to trap Edward into marriage. He says, “If I had your ladyship at Bullhall, I coud shew you a line of ancestry that woud convince you we: are not a people of yesterday. Ed. Pray Uncle how came it you never shewd them to me ? Sir Jer. Why the land and the mansionhouse has slipped thro’ our fingers boy; but thank heaven the family pictures are still extant.”8 All these resemblances seem to give ground for a belief that Sheridan made use of his mother’s play, not necessarily directly, but that he had read it, and thought some of its portions worth repeating.

We must not blame Richard too severely for borrowing ideas from his mother, for she set him the example when she took the idea of Mrs. Tryfort from Lady Wishfort, a character in Congreve’s Way of the World. Mark the similarity of their names, Wish fort and Tryfort. We wishfor-it, and then try-for-it. There is nothing in the dialogue which is directly borrowed, but the same pompous style and misuse of words are to be seen in both characters. Here are some of Lady Wishfort’s speeches: “ Nothing is more alluring than a levee from a couch in some confusion.” “ Dear Cousin Witwould, get him away, and yon will bind me to you inviolably.” “ I have an affair of moment that invades me with some precipitation: you will oblige me to all futurity.” “ I fear I shall turn to stone and petrify incessantly.” “ Unbend the severity of decorum.” “ Prone to any iteration of nuptials.” So says Mrs. Mala prop’s grandmother, and we see that, the inheritance, instead of becoming weaker, has been growing stronger and more marked in the successive generations. The lack of verbal repetitions renders it improbable that Mrs. Sheridan actually copied from the Way of the World, but the resemblance of the characters and their manner of speech seem to show that Mrs. Sheridan was indebted to Mr. Congreve for her idea of Mrs. Tryfort. So we see that lovely old Mrs. Malaprop, who has been dear to us from childhood, and who always will find a place in the hearts of English people, has to share some of the honors of her position with her predecessors, since they have rightly established their claims to relationship.