As we have no manuscript of the first draft of “The Rivals,” it is impossible to say exactly what changes the author made in it. But as the text now stands it is hard to understand why Sir Lucius O’Trigger was regarded as an insult to the Irish nation. Sheridan was an Irishman and he protested that he would have been the last man to lampoon his compatriots. Sir Lucius is a fortune hunter, indeed, and he is always spoiling for a fight; but he is a gentleman and a man of courage; and even in his fortune hunting he is sensitive upon the point of honor: he will get Mrs. Malaprop’s consent to his addresses to her niece, and “do everything fairly,” for, as he says very finely, “I am so poor that I can’t afford to do a dirty action.” The comedy Irishman was nothing new in Sheridan’s time. He goes back to Jonson and Shakespeare. In the eighteenth century his name was Teague; in the nineteenth, Pat or Mike. We are familiar with this stock figure of the modern stage, his brogue, his long-skirted coat and knee breeches, the blackthorn shillalah in his fist and the dudeen stuck into his hatband. The Irish naturally resent this grotesque: their history has been tragical and they wish to be taken seriously. We have witnessed of late their protest against one of their own comedies, “The Playboy of the Western World.” But perhaps they have become over touchy. There is not any too much fun in the world, and if we are to lose all the funny national peculiarities from caricature and farce and dialect story, if the stage Irishman has got to go, and also the stage Yankee, Dutchman, Jew, Ole Olsen, John Bull, and the burnt cork artist of the negro minstrel show, this world will be a gloomier place. Be that as it may, Sir Lucius O’Trigger is no caricature: he doesn’t even speak in brogue, and perhaps the nicest stroke in his portrait is that innocent inconsequence which is the essence of an Irish bull. “Hah, my little ambassadress,” he says to Lucy, with whom he has an appointment, “I have been looking for you; I have been on the South Parade this half hour.” “O gemini!” cries Lucy, “and I have been waiting for your worship on the North.” “Faith,” answers Sir Lucius, “maybe that was the reason we did not meet.”