3-028-206 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Scene from "Uncle Dick's Darling," at the Gaiety Theatre, 1870. London stage production. '... the principal characters of Mr. Byron's last play...are grouped in the concluding scene...the monitory dream by which Dick's mind during sleep was enlightened has passed with the shades of night; and Dick has determined to sanction Mary Belton's marriage with Joe Lennard, the blacksmith. Mr. Chevenix, who had proposed in the first act for Mary's hand, has reflected upon it, and wakes up a wiser man. He now sees that an unequal match must be an unhappy one, and comes to tell her uncle that he has altered his mind. Dick is amused at the hon. gentleman's assumption that he is rejecting the lady, when her rejection of him is already "a foregone conclusion." The matter is thus amicably settled, just as the schoolmistress, Mrs. Torrington, is arriving on the scene to protest against Mary's marriage with Joe. Happily, she is too late to interfere with the lovers, or their honest attachment to each other...The drama...will be highly profitable in the provinces to Mr. Toole, who, as Dick Dolland, puts forth some of his best acting, and has besides a genuine bit of character to deal with. There is nothing that is stagey in it, yet much that is very effective'. From "Illustrated London News", 1870.