The situation of a gentleman who having married a widow
has reason to believe that the first husband is still in existence, would naturally be ex- pressed in a serious if not a tragic form. Southernee Isabella is something like a case in point. Nevertheless, everything has two handles, and in a farce produced at the Lyceum under the title of Poor Pillicaddy, we find this disagreeable social position regarded on the ludicrous side. The un- happy husband is placed in immediate collision with a person who appears to be the prior claimant of his wife; and the effect of their meeting is heightened by making one a sort-of Cockney and the other a rude Irish sailor. Buckstone and Hall placed in this position form a fine antithesis to each other, and roars of laughter are the result. The piece is from a French original, but is very humorously Englished by Mr: Morton.
Previous page
