a Tittlebat—­Titmouse.  It is he who has so disinterestedly made that gentleman’s fortune.—­“Only just merely for the sake of the costs?” one naturally asks.  Oh no; there is a stronger reason (with which, however, reason has nothing to do)—­love! Mr. Gammon became desperately enamoured of Miss Aubrey; but she was silly enough to prefer the heir to a peerage, Mr. Delamere.  Mr. Gammon never forgave her, and so ruins her brother.

Having brought the whole family to a state in which he supposes they will refuse nothing, Gammon visits Miss Aubrey, and, in the most handsome manner, offers her—­notwithstanding the disparity in their circumstances—­his hand, heart, and fortune.  More than that, he promises to restore the estate of Yatton to its late possessor.  To his astonishment the lady rejects him; and, he showing what the bills call the “cloven foot,” Miss Aubrey orders him to be shown out.  Meantime, Mr. Tittlebat Titmouse, having been returned M.P. for Yatton, has made a great noise in house, not by his oratorical powers, but by his proficient imitations of cock-crowing and donkey-braying.

This being Act IV., it is quite clear that Gammon’s villany and Tittlebat’s prosperity cannot last much longer.  Both are ended in an original manner.  True to the principle with which the Adelphi commenced its season—­that of putting stage villany into comedy—­Mr. Gammon concludes the facetiae with which his part abounds by a comic suicide!  All the details of this revolting operation are gone through amidst the most ponderous levity; insomuch, that the audience had virtue enough to hiss most lustily[3].

    [3] While this page was passing through the press, we witnessed a
        representation of “Ten Thousand a-Year” a second time, and
        observed that the offensiveness of this scene was considerably
        abated.  Mr. Lyon deserves a word of praise for his acting in
        that passage of the piece as it now stands.

Thus the string of rascality by which the piece is held together being cut, it naturally finishes by the reinstatement of Aubrey—­together with a view of Yatton in sunshine, a procession of charity children, mutual embraces by all the characters, and a song by Mrs. Grattan.  What becomes of Titmouse is not known, and did not seem to be much cared about.

This piece is interesting, not because it is cleverly constructed (for it is not), nor because Mr. Titmouse dyes his hair green with a barber’s nostrum, nor on account of the cupboard court of Nisi Prius, nor of the charity children, nor because Mr. Wieland, instead of playing the devil himself, played Mr. Snap, one of his limbs—­but because many of the scenes are well-drawn pictures of life.  The children’s ball in the first “epoch,” for instance, was altogether excellently managed and true; and though many of the characters are overcharged, yet we have seen people like them in Chancery-lane, at Messrs. Swan and Edgar’s, in country houses, and elsewhere.  The suicide incident is, however, a disgusting drawback.