ABSTRACT
George Colman the Younger (1762–1836) was mainly known in his day as a prolific dramatist (over-prolific to some critical eyes), who penned over thirty plays, both melodramatic and comic. Colman is most notable for the comedies Inkle and Yarico (1787), The Heir at Law (1797), the enticingly titled Blue Beard; or, Female Curiosity! A Dramatic Romance (1797) and John Bull; or, An Englishman’s Fireside (1803), though his The Iron Chest (1796), an adaptation of Caleb Williams, has received some attention due to its Godwinian connection. 1 However, Colman also produced comic verse, most notably in his collection of Poetical Vagaries (1812). The longest of the vagaries, The Lady of the Wreck; or, Castle Blarneygig: A Poem’, is a loose parody of Scott’s enormously successful verse romance The Lady of the Lake (1810). Colman transfers the scene from Scotland to Ireland and transforms Scott’s historical romance into a Gothic tragedy. 2 Colman finds Celtic nomenclature innately hilarious and his fun is generally coarse, as his version of ‘Hail to the Chief who in triumph advances’ (with its refrain of ‘Roderigh Vich Alpine dhu, ho! ieroe!’) demonstrates: Hail to our Chief! now he’s wet through with Whiskey; Long Life to the Lady come from the salt seas! Strike up, blind Harpers! Skip high to be frisky! For what is so gay as a bag-full of fleas Crest of O’Shaughnashane! – That’s a Potato, plain, – Long may your root every Irishman know! Pats long have stuck to it, Long bid good luck to it; Whack for O’Shaughnashane! Tooleywhagg, ho!
