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A DRAMATIC CRITIC
^'^^ Cox, and Poor Pillicoddy, are good
' v^^^ .: examples in this kind.
, • I
^' r.. ,
find it hard to account for the ahnost
complete extinction of this sort of play ;
..,;.. or rather, for its relegation to the " amateur
stage." The faults of the farces are and
were obvious. They treated life with a cer-
tain bluntness and abruptness, and some-
times were coarse in a frank, quasi-Eliza-
bethan fashion. But the best of them
not only effervesced, overflowed, crackled,
and scintillated with humor and wit, but
also displayed common human faults and
failings, sometimes the usual contrete7n-ps
of existence, with delightful vividness and
shrewdness. In some the fun began with
the first word, and did not fail till the
curtain fell. They were invariably good-
natured. The most striking of them pro-
ceeded upon a perfectly formulated theory
of presenting familiar weaknesses in the
mode of true caricature ; that is to say, by
comical exaggeration, always on the lines
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