The characters are strongly marked, the wit genial, and not indecent.

Steele was among the first who set about reforming the licentiousness of the old comedy.

His satire in the "Funeral" is not against virtue, but vice and silliness .-- DR.

DORAN.] What of this remarkable comedy?
Its story turned upon the marriage of the elderly Lord Brumpton to a designing young minx who estranges the nobleman from his son, Lord Hardy, the gentlemanly, poverty-stricken leading man of the piece.

When Brumpton has a cataleptic fit, and is apparently dead as a doornail, the spouse confides his body to the undertaker with feelings of serene pleasure.