As this character has now appeared I thought I ought to let you know a little more about the trouble caused by the first and how the second resolved it.

You are well aware that the first night of "The Rivals" was a complete disaster.

The actor who played Sir Lucius was a large part of the problem.

The actor was John Lee.

He did not know the part very well. He fluffed his lines and his accent was, to quote The Morning Chronicle of 20th January, 1775:

an uncouth dialect, neither Welch(sic) English or Irish.

Apparently the only time he mastered the Irish Accent was when an apple was thrown at him:

and with a genuine Irish brogue he angrily cried out “by the powers, is it personal- is it me or the matter?”

(The Morning Chronicle, 18th January 1775).

It doe have to be admitted that some of the lines Sir Lucius had to utter in he first draft of the play were unfortunate.

He had to say that “Lady Dorothy Wiggle” was stolen from him by

a little whore son of a Major

Sheriden wisely and cleverly amended this to “Lady Dorothy Carmine “was taken by a :

little rouge of a Major

Sheriden also decided to recast the part.

He chose Lawrence Clinch, an old friend of the Sheriden family, to play the part in the revamped production.

He was able to depend on the actor speaking with a genuine Irish brogue because the actor as actually a born Irishman!

Sheridan also made Sir Lucius O’Trigger into a different character altogether: in the re-vamped play Sir Lucius (tiny spoiler here) proposes to fight a duel specifically to defend his nation against insult.

As we know, the new version with the significant re-cast was a hit.

Sheriden ,I am glad, to say showed a proper appreciation of Mr Clinch’s talents and wrote a special play for him .

According to Fintan o’Toole in his interesting book A Traitor’s Kiss Mr Clinch was in financial difficulties and Sheriden offered to write a small farce for a benefit performance for his old friend.

I ought to explain that the term “benefit performance” meant that the actor who was to benefit from the performance kept the profit of that night’s takings.

…the piece was a slight but very effective exercise in traditional comedia dell ’arte knockabout, featuring the usual elements: a handsome and intrepid young man, a winsome young woman all too willing to fall into his arms, her sour old father who tries to stop them and a good natured apothecary who assists in the inevitable triumph of youth over age.

The plot is that Lieutenant O'Connor (played by Clinch) is determined to marry Lauretta, the daughter of the obstinate Justice Credulous. With the aid of Doctor Rosy he masquerades first as Humphrey Hum, the man Credulous hires to protect his daughter from O'Connor, and then as a German quack who convinces Credulous that he is poisoned and successfully sets the Lauretta's hand in marriage as a price for the cure.

This was first performed as a benefit performance on Mr Clinch’s behalf at Covent Garden in May 1775.

It was claimed that Sheridan wrote this short farce in just forty-eight hours.

A rather fitting way to reward the actor who had helped rescue Sheriden’s fortunes and image as an author.