Hoping to be forgiven for this, perhaps misplaced, levity, we proceed to Act III., in which we find that, fortune having shuffled the cards, and the judge and jury cut them, Mr. Titmouse turns up possessor of Yatton and ten thousand a-year; while Aubrey, quite at the bottom of the pack, is in a state of destitution.  To show the depth of distress into which he has fallen, a happy expedient is hit upon:  he is described as turning his attention and attainments to literature; and that the unfathomable straits he is put to may be fully understood, he is made a reviewer!  Thus the highest degree of sympathy is excited towards him; for everybody knows that no person would willingly resort to criticism (literary or dramatic) as a means of livelihood, if he could command a broom and a crossing to earn a penny by, or while there exists a Mendicity Society to get soup from.

We have yet to mention one character; and considering that he is the main-spring of the whole matter, we cannot put it off any longer. Mr. Gammon is a lawyer—­that is quite enough; we need not say more.  You all know that stage solicitors are more outrageous villains than even their originals. Mr. Gammon is, of course, a “fine speciment of the specious,” as Mr. Hood’s Mr. Higgings says.  It is he who, finding out a flaw in Aubrey’s title, angled per advertisement for the heir, and caught 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].