The Contrast

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Contrast, The, social comedy by Royall Tyler, produced in 1787 and published in 1790.

Maria is affianced by her American father, Van Rough, to wealthy Billy Dimple, Anglomaniac disciple of Chesterfield. Dimple meanwhile flirts with the coquettes Letitia and Charlotte. The latter's brother, Colonel Manly, a serious‐minded Revolutionary officer, loves Maria but honorably forswears her. Losing his fortune by gambling, Dimple decides to break with Maria and marry the wealthy Letitia. When Van Rough discovers Dimple's duplicity and the noble filial sentiment of his daughter, who really loves Manly, he favors the officer's suit. Finally Dimple is foiled by the disclosure that he is simultaneously courting both Letitia and Charlotte, and Manly and Maria are united. The subplot is concerned with Jonathan, Manly's servant, whose homespun shrewdness is contrasted with the wiliness of the popinjay Jessamy, servant of Dimple. Jessamy educates Jonathan in the ways of the world and teaches him to court the maid Jenny, hoping to turn her affections toward himself by the Yankee's annoying blunders. Jenny, learning of the scheme, rejects both of them.