Note C — CRITICAL STRICTURES, &c.

(P. 20) "... her Punishment was reserved for the Farce, which for that Purpose was, contrary to Custom, added to the Play." Stock plays were always followed by an afterpiece, but the afterpiece was in most cases omitted during the first run of a new play. For example, Mrs. Sheridan's Discovery opened 3 February 1763 and ran for ten nights before an afterpiece was added. The afterpieces presented with Elvira up to 27 January were as follows: 19 January, The Male Coquette (Garrick); 20 January, High Life Below Stairs (Townley); 21 January, Old Maid (Murphy); 22 January, Catharine and Petruchio (Garrick's adaptation of Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew; 24 January, High Life Below Stairs; 26 January, Catharine and Petruchio; 27 January, Edgar and Emmeline (Hawkesworth). But Mrs. Pritchard, who played the Queen in Elvira, seems not to have appeared in any of these afterpieces, and no one of them contains a queen (Dougald MacMillan, Drury Lane Calendar, 1747-1776, Clarendon Press, 1938, pp. 94, 217, 239, 260, 282, 297). Furthermore, if the jest could be understood only with reference to a particular farce, that farce would surely have been named. This is no doubt a case where less is meant than meets the ear. The authors are merely saying that Mallet's play is badly constructed, and is so ridiculous generally that no one will know when the tragedy ends and the farce begins.