Page:Life of Edmond Malone.djvu/99

Rh House of Commons his humour shone so often to the general amusement as to procure him the name of the “Mortal Momus.” In the press he was equally diligent with Courtenay and others, in a series of satirical papers directed against the writers of “Baratariana” the opponents of Lord Townshend’s government.

But he aimed at fame through a more general audience. In 1775 he brought out the tragedy of Braganza; in 1779, The Law of Lombardy; but, not content with writing tragedy, displayed also his powers in acting it in the private theatre of the Phænix Park. Lord Charlemont thus writes to Malone, in January, 1779:—“The nineteenth of this instant is to be presented, at the new theatre in the Park, the tragedy of Macbeth. The part of Macbeth by Jephson; Lady, by Mrs. Gardiner; Macduff, by Mr. Gardiner, &c. &c. With the Citizen for a farce; Maria, by Miss Flora Gardiner. Here your assistance will be much wanting.”

He had now ready for the stage The Count of Narbonne, taken from Horace Walpole’s Castle of Otranto. The diplomacy then necessary to introduce a new play to the theatre was not small. Every species of friends were pressed into the service—statesmen and stateswomen, poets and players, peers and commoners; so that the unhappy author, after spending two or three years in the composition of a piece, passed perhaps as many more in procuring its representation. On this occasion Malone was solicited to render his obstetric aid. Theatrical studies and acquirements