THE NEW SCIENCE AND COMEDY 



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Ages, or the deeds and manners of the Ancients, I say, is there 

 anything more pleasant?". 19 "Rust adds to Antiquity; 'tis our 

 Friend". 20 Nothing that is new can please him, because it is 

 new; all that is old delights him, because it is old. 



Years afterward, in the eighteenth century, this character came 

 again on the comic stage. The antiquarian interest was still 

 alive, so that the "humor" could be appreciated by the audience. 

 In 1773, Foote wrote a comedy entitled The Nabob. There is 

 presented, in Act III, a meeting of the Society of Antiquaries at 

 which Sir Matthew Mite, the Nabob, is elected president because 

 he has discovered the secret meaning of "Worthington's cat". 21 

 Sir Matthew is merely the resurrected Sir Arthur Oldlove in a 

 new comic situation. Once more, just at the close of the century, 

 1798, John O'Keefe presented this old-time antiquarian "humour" 

 in his Modern Antiques. But this has already extended far beyond 

 the limits of our period. 



Certain common characteristics of these comic representations 

 are to be noted. In the first place, all the antiquaries are men 

 of wealth; Yeterano has a fortune which his nephew wants; Old- 

 love has thousands of pounds to spend for rarities; Sir Matthew 

 Mite is exceedingly rich ; the purchaser of ' ' modern antiques ' ' has 

 only a fortune to recommend him. They are all persons of noble 

 rank, or pretend to be so; Veterano is a noble, Oldlove likewise; 

 Sir Matthew Mite shams nobility. And, in point of fact, the anti 

 quarian interest belonged to the English gentlemen, for they alone 

 had time to pursue it. The Society of Antiquaries was a Gentle 

 men's club. Furthermore, there is constant complaint in the 

 comedies that much money is wasted in these investments in an 

 tiques, too often "modern antique", which might have been put 

 to better use. There is no benefit to be derived from such pur 

 suits, those unbitten by the humor declare, either to the collector 

 himself or to mankind. They could not be expected to see that 

 this spirit of inquiry, carried to a foolish extent in many cases 

 certainly, this desire to collect relics of a by-gone age and to find 

 a means of classifying them so as to interpret that former life, 



19 Madam Fickle, Act III, sc. 1. 



20 Ibid. 



31 It means a cat-boat. 



