ABSTRACT
Satire and sentiment are only superficially antithetical. Tobias Smollett and Henry Mackenzie might seem to represent two contrasting faces of eighteenth-century sensibility but their writings are complementary and motivated by similar convictions about society. The works of both men employ satire and sentiment, though in different proportions. The dramatic action is slight and the piece is often criticized for its uneasy mixture of Scots and English — as felicity approaches the Scots recedes — but a twentieth-century audience could enjoy this as part of the play's genial satire. In 1707 the Act of Union installed English as the official language of Scotland, part of the United Kingdom, and standard southern English became the language written by Scots people who wished to appear cultivated even if they still spoke their native Scots in informal situations. By the 1930s the use of Scots was a political affirmation of un-Englishness.
