Elizabeth InchbaldREMARKS [on The Suspicious Husband].¹
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Whoever reads this play, and more especially, whoever sees it, will be astonished, that it was the only drama the author ever wrote.² It was too good a beginning to give an omen, that it would be also the end of his theatrical career. But the author had other employment; and though his taste allured him to write for the stage, his prudence and wisdom directed him, not to omit more serious, and, perhaps, more essential, occupation.

The learned prelate, Hoadly, Bishop of Winchester, had two sons, Benjamin and John. The eldest was a Doctor of Physic, and physician to the king; the youngest, a Doctor of Divinity, and chaplain to Frederick, Prince of Wales. They both became eminent in their professions; yet, though they each pursued with vigour their graver studies, they were both devoted to the fascinating charms of the drama.³

Benjamin, the eldest, is the author of "The Suspicious Husband;" though it has been always supposed that he had the assistance of his brother, in its composition.⁴

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The divine, even more than the physician, seems to have been enamoured of theatrical amusements; for he wrote many sacred and other plays, which were found in manuscript, on his decease; he had, besides, an intimate acquaintance with Garrick, and took delight in having interludes and other stage productions acted at his country house, whenever he invited company.⁵

It is said, that the great Hogarth, on a visit to Dr. John Hoadly, having undertaken to perform a part in one of those exhibitions, showed such deficiency in a retentive memory, that, with all his applications, he could never learn one single speech by heart, so as to speak it perfectly. To atone for this dulness, he ornamented the playbills of the evening with characteristic figures, so excellent, they are still preserved, though not engraved, amongst other of the works of this celebrated artist.

The present comedy appeared in 1747, when Benjamin was forty-two, John, thirty-eight years of age, and the bishop, their father, still living.⁶ That venerable prelate appears to have laid no restriction upon his two sons' dramatic fervour: probably he had a conception, that theatric zeal might be less dangerous, both to themselves and the world, than polemical ardour. He found his own good books as liable to condemnation from the clergy, as the dramas of his children from the audience of a theatre; and whilst he was souring his temper, and the minds of those [Page 5]churchmen, whom, by his controversial sermons and pamphlets he attacked, his two sons were employed in disposing half the town to brotherly love, by chasing away spleen, in the jocund attractions of this production.⁷

This comedy was, from its very first performance, received with testimonies of high favour; nor has time reduced its credit with the public. Ranger is the pleasantest man of frolicsome propensity, that was ever introduced upon the stage; because, though he has numerous faults, he has not one flagrant vice; and the rest of the characters are perfectly natural, though somewhat insipid: but their want of spirit is fully recompensed by the abundance which is bestowed upon Ranger; for in the glow of his fire, every character which surrounds him receives an animating warmth.⁸

Strictland is supposed to have a superiority to most of the other parts, by being placed all through the piece, under the influence of a tormenting passion—but of all the jealous husbands on the stage, from the ancient Kitely and Ford, down to the modern Sir John Restless, Strictland is the most tame and unimportant: nor has he, or his wife, any other claims upon the interest of their auditors, than what arise from their connexion with that support of the play—the volatile Ranger.⁹

Next to Ranger himself, his hat is the most important individual of the comedy. Here, incident b 3[Page 6]makes characters, or at least makes the audience feel no want of them.

Those who doubt the justice of certain eulogiums passed on Garrick, in many parts he acted, still suppose he was very excellent in the part of Ranger; yet the comedy lives, though Garrick is no more.