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Article: 'The London Merchant' and eighteenth-century British law.(George Lillo's play)
- Article from:
- Philological Quarterly
- Article date:
- June 22, 1994
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1994 University of Iowa. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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There is nothing which so generally strikes the imagination, and engages the affections of mankind, as the right of property; or that sole and despotic dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in total exclusion of the right of any other individual in the universe.
As we know from George Lillo's own remarks, his play The London Merchant (1731) originally ended in a gallows scene. The directions for his initial scene 11 read:
The Place of Execution. The Gallows and Ladders at the farther End of the Stage.
A Crowd of Spectators. Blunt and Lucy.
However, "by the Advice of some friends," Lillo writes, this ...