But his best play, which is a
popular burlesque on parliamentary elections, is _The Mayor of Garrat_. He
died in 1777, at Dover, while on his way to France for the benefit of his
health. His plays present the comic phase of English history in his day.
RICHARD CUMBERLAND.--This accomplished man, who, in the words of Walter
Scott, has given us "many powerful sketches of the age which has passed
away," was born in 1732, and lived to the ripe age of seventy-nine, dying
in 1811. After receiving his education at Cambridge, he became secretary
to Lord Halifax. His versatile pen produced, besides dramatic pieces,
novels and theological treatises, illustrating the principal topics of the
time. In his plays there is less of immorality than in those of his
contemporaries. _The West Indian_, which was first put upon the stage in
1771, and which is still occasionally presented, is chiefly noticeable in
that an Irishman and a West Indian are the principal characters, and that
he has not brought them into ridicule, as was common at the time, but has
exalted them by their merits.
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