The Zoo
Encyclopedia
- This article is about the comic opera by Arthur Sullivan. For other uses, see The Zoo (disambiguation)The Zoo (disambiguation)The Zoo may mean any of the following:* The Zoo, a comic opera by Arthur Sullivan* "The Zoo" , a song by R. Kelly* "The Zoo" , a song by the hard rock band Scorpions...
.
The Zoo is a one-act comic opera
Comic opera
Comic opera denotes a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending.Forms of comic opera first developed in late 17th-century Italy. By the 1730s, a new operatic genre, opera buffa, emerged as an alternative to opera seria...
, with music by Arthur Sullivan
Arthur Sullivan
Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan MVO was an English composer of Irish and Italian ancestry. He is best known for his series of 14 operatic collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including such enduring works as H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado...
and a libretto by B. C. Stephenson
B. C. Stephenson
Benjamin Charles Stephenson or B. C. Stephenson was an English dramatist, lyricist and librettist. After beginning a career in the civil service, he started to write for the theatre, using the pen name "Bolton Rowe". He was author or co-author of several long-running shows of the Victorian theatre...
, writing under the pen name of Bolton Rowe. It premiered on 5 June 1875 at the St. James's Theatre in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
(as an afterpiece to W. S. Gilbert
W. S. Gilbert
Sir William Schwenck Gilbert was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for his fourteen comic operas produced in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan, of which the most famous include H.M.S...
's Tom Cobb
Tom Cobb
Tom Cobb or, Fortune's Toy is a farce in three-acts by W. S. Gilbert. It opened at the St. James's Theatre on 24 April 1875...
), concluding its run five weeks later, on 9 July 1875, at the Haymarket Theatre
Haymarket Theatre
The Theatre Royal Haymarket is a West End theatre in the Haymarket in the City of Westminster which dates back to 1720, making it the third-oldest London playhouse still in use...
. There were brief revivals in late 1875, and again in 1879, before the opera was shelved.
The farcical story concerns two pairs of lovers. First, a nobleman, who goes to the zoo to woo the girl who sells snacks there. He tries to impress her by buying and eating all of the food. The other couple is a young chemist who believes that he has poisoned his beloved by mixing up her father's prescription with peppermint that he had meant for her.
The score was not published in Sullivan's lifetime, and it lay dormant until Terence Rees
Terence Rees
Terence Albert Ladd Rees is a retired microbiologist but is best known as a collector of material relating to the theatre and music in Wales and Britain. He is also a published theatre historian and researcher, and, in particular, is an authority on the works of W. S...
purchased the composer's autograph at auction in 1966 and arranged for publication. The opera is in one act without spoken dialogue, running about 40 minutes. Like Trial by Jury
Trial by Jury
Trial by Jury is a comic opera in one act, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It was first produced on 25 March 1875, at London's Royalty Theatre, where it initially ran for 131 performances and was considered a hit, receiving critical praise and outrunning its...
and Cox and Box
Cox and Box
Cox and Box; or, The Long-Lost Brothers, is a one-act comic opera with a libretto by F. C. Burnand and music by Arthur Sullivan, based on the 1847 farce Box and Cox by John Maddison Morton. It was Sullivan's first successful comic opera. The story concerns a landlord who lets a room to two...
, it has been staged as a curtain-raiser to the shorter Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan . The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S...
operas. Triple-bills of Sullivan's three one-act operas have also proved successful.
Genesis of the work
How Sullivan came to collaborate with Stephenson is uncertain. Just ten weeks before The Zoo opened, Trial by JuryTrial by Jury
Trial by Jury is a comic opera in one act, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It was first produced on 25 March 1875, at London's Royalty Theatre, where it initially ran for 131 performances and was considered a hit, receiving critical praise and outrunning its...
premiered at the Royalty Theatre
Royalty Theatre
The Royalty Theatre was a small London theatre situated at 73 Dean Street, Soho and opened on 25 May 1840 as Miss Kelly's Theatre and Dramatic School and finally closed to the public in 1938. The architect was Samuel Beazley, a resident in Soho Square, who also designed St James's Theatre, among...
, with a libretto by Sullivan's more famous collaborator, W. S. Gilbert
W. S. Gilbert
Sir William Schwenck Gilbert was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for his fourteen comic operas produced in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan, of which the most famous include H.M.S...
. But in 1875, Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan . The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S...
were not yet a permanent team. Sullivan had already written two operas with F. C. Burnand
Francis Burnand
Sir Francis Cowley Burnand , often credited as F. C. Burnand, was an English comic writer and dramatist....
, and in late 1874 he had travelled to Paris to see one of Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach was a Prussian-born French composer, cellist and impresario. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s–1870s and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss, Jr....
's librettists, Albert Millaud, although it is not known if anything came of that meeting.
In late January 1875, The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
ran advertisements for the Royalty Theatre: "In preparation, a new comic opera composed expressly for this theatre by Mr. Arthur Sullivan, in which Madame Dolaro and Nelly Bromley
Nelly Bromley
Nelly Bromley was an English actor and singer who performed in operettas and musical burlesques...
will appear." Reginald Allen and other writers took this as an advertisement for Trial by Jury. However, as George McElroy noted, the advertisement does not mention a librettist, a peculiar omission if it was to have been W. S. Gilbert, since Gilbert was, at that point, better known to London theatregoers than Sullivan. Moreover, Trial has no place for two principal ladies, but The Zoo does. McElroy demonstrated that the January advertisement definitely was not for Trial, when he discovered a further advertisement in The Era of 14 March 1875, which noted that "In consequence of the continued success of La Périchole
La Périchole
La Périchole is an opéra bouffe in three acts by Jacques Offenbach. Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy wrote the French-language libretto based on the 1829 one act play Le carrosse du Saint-Sacrement by Prosper Mérimée, which was revived on 13 March 1850 at the Théâtre-Français...
, the production of Mr. Sullivan's two-act opera is postponed." That two-act work must have been something entirely different from Trial by Jury, which is in one act, and which opened just eleven days later.
Commentators have suggested that The Zoo was mounted hastily to capitalize on the success of Trial. For instance, Hughes writes, "Sullivan was so bitten by the stage bug that at the request of another manager he dashed off The Zoo, with a librettist whose identity it would be kinder not to reveal since he afterwards did good work under a nom-de-plume." But McElroy wonders "how Sullivan came to discover and set this libretto, by a relative beginner, so quickly?" He notes that a 13 March 1875 gossip column in the Athenæum said that Sullivan was working on new music for a piece at the St. James's, although for a different opera. From this, McElroy speculates that Stephenson was already working on the libretto of The Zoo for the St. James, while Sullivan was still busy preparing for the opening of Trial:
- It would seem strange (though, indeed, possible) for Sullivan to have undertaken a completely new opera while rushing to get Trial by Jury on stage. But if it had been finally decided that The Zoo would never make a two-act opera, while Sullivan had, perhaps, already composed numbers for it, this would have been a logical time to salvage them by telling Stephenson to boil the libretto down to one act and transferring the project to another theatre.
David Russell Hulme
David Russell Hulme
David Russell Hulme is a Welsh conductor and musicologist known for his research and publications on the music of Sir Arthur Sullivan, the Victorian era composer who, with Sir W. S...
provides further evidence that the music of The Zoo, or at least part of it, was already in existence before Trial by Jury opened. He notes that Sullivan's sketch manuscript for Trial contains the first sixteen bars of a solo for the Usher that was deleted before the opera's premiere, called "His Lordship's always quits". Aside from a key change, it is the same tune that Sullivan would use for Carboy's aria in The Zoo, "I loved her fondly." But because Sullivan entered only a bit of the tune in his sketch, Hulme concluded that the composer "needed only a few notes to remind him of his intentions. (Nowhere else in the sketches do we find similar curtailment.) It is reasonable to suggest that he was able to do this because he intended drawing on ready-made material."
Early productions
The opera opened on 5 June 1875 at the St. James's Theatre in LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
under the management of Marie Litton, sharing the bill with a W. S. Gilbert comic play, Tom Cobb
Tom Cobb
Tom Cobb or, Fortune's Toy is a farce in three-acts by W. S. Gilbert. It opened at the St. James's Theatre on 24 April 1875...
. Henrietta Hodson
Henrietta Hodson
Henrietta Hodson was an English actress and theatre manager best known for her portrayal of comedy roles in the Victorian era. She had a long affair with the journalist-turned-politician Henry Labouchère, later marrying him....
starred as Eliza Smith. Trial by Jury was still running at the Royalty Theatre
Royalty Theatre
The Royalty Theatre was a small London theatre situated at 73 Dean Street, Soho and opened on 25 May 1840 as Miss Kelly's Theatre and Dramatic School and finally closed to the public in 1938. The architect was Samuel Beazley, a resident in Soho Square, who also designed St James's Theatre, among...
with La Périchole. Terrence Rees observed:
- [T]here are two seemingly explicit references to Offenbach's La Périchole, for both Carboy's comic attempt at suicide and the efforts of the chorus to revive the swooning nobleman have their parallels in the Offenbach work. The particular point of this imitation seems to lie in the fact that La Périchole was at that time sharing the bill with Sullivan's own Trial by Jury at a theatre not too distant from the St James', and the audience at The Zoo might reasonably be expected to know this."
The Zoo ran for three weeks until the end of Litton's season, then transferred to the Haymarket Theatre on 28 June 1875, and closed on 10 July 1875. Its five-week run, between the two theatres, was not the hit that Trial by Jury had been, although Gänzl suggests that it "achieved a certain degree of success." There was a second production of The Zoo at the Philharmonic Theatre, Islington
Islington
Islington is a neighbourhood in Greater London, England and forms the central district of the London Borough of Islington. It is a district of Inner London, spanning from Islington High Street to Highbury Fields, encompassing the area around the busy Upper Street...
, from 2–30 October 1875, with Richard Temple (the future principal bass-baritone in the Savoy Operas) starring as the nobleman-in-disguise at the zoo, Thomas Brown. There it ran together with Offenbach's Les géorgiennes.
The opera then went on the shelf, although other producers were interested in reviving it. Allen quotes a letter of 22 June 1877, in which the composer wrote in the third person, "Mr. Sullivan begs to inform Mr. Cowper that the 'Zoo' has not yet been published, nor will it until considerable alterations have been made." In a letter to his friend Alan Cole on 22 November 1877, he wrote, "They want to revive the 'Zoo' at the Strand
Royal Strand Theatre
The Royal Strand Theatre was located in Strand in the City of Westminster. The theatre was built on the site of a panorama in 1832, and in 1882 was rebuilt by the prolific theatre architect Charles J. Phipps...
. Will you rewrite it with me?" Both letters suggest that the composer was less than satisfied with what he had done in 1875. The final production of the piece during Sullivan's lifetime was at the Royalty Theatre from 14 April 1879 to 3 May 1879, with Lottie Venne
Lottie Venne
Lottie Venne was a British comedienne, actress and singer of the Victorian and Edwardian eras, who enjoyed a theatre career spanning five decades. Venne began her stage career in musical burlesque before moving into farce and comedy. She appeared in several works by each of F. C. Burnand and W. S...
as Eliza and W. S. Penley
W. S. Penley
William Sydney Penley was an English actor, singer and comedian best remembered as producer and star of the phenomenally successful 1892 Brandon Thomas farce, Charley's Aunt and as the Reverend Robert Spalding in many productions of The Private Secretary.-Life and career:Penley was born at...
as Mr. Grinder. Sullivan is not known to have made any of the revisions he had contemplated in 1877.
It was once believed that Sullivan had re-used the music of The Zoo in his later compositions. In 1927, Herbert Sullivan
Herbert Sullivan
Herbert Thomas Sullivan was the nephew, heir and biographer of the British composer Arthur Sullivan. After his uncle's death, Sullivan became active in charitable work...
and Newman Flower wrote, "The Zoo was a trifle composed by Sullivan in 1875. ... It was never printed, and much of the music was used up again by the composer in his later Savoy opera
Savoy opera
The Savoy Operas denote a style of comic opera that developed in Victorian England in the late 19th century, with W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan as the original and most successful practitioners. The name is derived from the Savoy Theatre, which impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte built to house...
s." This statement turned out to be one of many misleading statements in Newman and Flower's book when the score of The Zoo was rediscovered. No re-use of music from The Zoo has been identified.
Modern productions
Herbert Sullivan inherited the manuscript of The Zoo, and with the death of his widow, Elena, in 1957, the score became available. In 1966, Dr. Terence ReesTerence Rees
Terence Albert Ladd Rees is a retired microbiologist but is best known as a collector of material relating to the theatre and music in Wales and Britain. He is also a published theatre historian and researcher, and, in particular, is an authority on the works of W. S...
bought the score of The Zoo at auction and commissioned the creation of orchestra parts and a vocal score. The modern premiere was given by the Fulham
Fulham
Fulham is an area of southwest London in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, SW6 located south west of Charing Cross. It lies on the left bank of the Thames, between Putney and Chelsea. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London...
Light Opera in 1971, and the opera was recorded professionally by the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company was a professional light opera company that staged Gilbert and Sullivan's Savoy operas. The company performed nearly year-round in the UK and sometimes toured in Europe, North America and elsewhere, from the 1870s until it closed in 1982. It was revived in 1988 and...
in 1978. The recording utilised the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and was conducted by Royston Nash
Royston Nash
Royston Hulbert Nash is an English-born conductor, best known as a music director of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, who is now living in the U.S.-Life and career:...
. Geoffrey Shovelton
Geoffrey Shovelton
Geoffrey Shovelton is an English singer and illustrator best known for his performances with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in the 1970s.After a brief teaching career, Shovelton began to perform professionally in oratorio and opera...
voiced a narration.
Although many amateur productions of the show have been given since then, the first professional production since 1879 was the Light Opera of Manhattan
Light Opera of Manhattan
Light Opera of Manhattan, known as LOOM, was an Off-Broadway repertory theatre company that produced light operas, including the works of Gilbert and Sullivan and European and American operettas, 52 weeks per year, in New York City between 1968 and 1989....
's staging Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...
in New York City in 1980 (together with Trial and Cox and Box
Cox and Box
Cox and Box; or, The Long-Lost Brothers, is a one-act comic opera with a libretto by F. C. Burnand and music by Arthur Sullivan, based on the 1847 farce Box and Cox by John Maddison Morton. It was Sullivan's first successful comic opera. The story concerns a landlord who lets a room to two...
). Other professional productions have been given in North America, most notably by the 1995 Shaw Festival
Shaw Festival
The Shaw Festival is a major Canadian theatre festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, the second largest repertory theatre company in North America...
in Canada, when it was given 92 performances over a period of five months. Ohio Light Opera
Ohio Light Opera
The Ohio Light Opera is a professional opera company based in Wooster, Ohio that performs the light opera repertory, including Gilbert and Sullivan, American, British and continental operettas, and other musical theatre works, especially of the late 19th and early 20th centuries...
performed the piece in 1999. There was a single modern-dress performance of the work by Scottish Opera about 1982 at the Theatre Royal in Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
, Scotland. The first modern professional full production in Britain was given in the spring of 2007 at the Finborough Theatre in London. In 2007, Charles Court Opera performed The Zoo at Cirencester
Cirencester
Cirencester is a market town in east Gloucestershire, England, 93 miles west northwest of London. Cirencester lies on the River Churn, a tributary of the River Thames, and is the largest town in the Cotswold District. It is the home of the Royal Agricultural College, the oldest agricultural...
. In 2009, the same company performed the opera at the Riverhouse Barn in London on 13 and 14 February 2009 and at the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival
International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival
The International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival is held every summer at the Opera House in Buxton, Derbyshire, England. The three-week Festival of Gilbert and Sullivan performances and fringe events attracts thousands of visitors, including performers, supporters, and G&S enthusiasts from all...
s in Buxton
Buxton
Buxton is a spa town in Derbyshire, England. It has the highest elevation of any market town in England. Located close to the county boundary with Cheshire to the west and Staffordshire to the south, Buxton is described as "the gateway to the Peak District National Park"...
, England in 2009 and 2010. They are scheduled perform it again at the same Festival both in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
Gettysburg is a borough that is the county seat, part of the Gettysburg Battlefield, and the eponym for the 1863 Battle of Gettysburg. The town hosts visitors to the Gettysburg National Military Park and has 3 institutions of higher learning: Lutheran Theological Seminary, Gettysburg College, and...
and Buxton in 2011.
Roles and casts
The following list shows the names of the original cast members followed by those of the singers on the 1978 D'Oyly Carte recording.- ÆsculapiusAsclepiusAsclepius is the God of Medicine and Healing in ancient Greek religion. Asclepius represents the healing aspect of the medical arts; his daughters are Hygieia , Iaso , Aceso , Aglæa/Ægle , and Panacea...
Carboy (tenorTenorThe tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
) – Carlos Florentine; Meston ReidMeston ReidAlexander Meston Reid , better known as Meston Reid, was a Scottish opera singer, best known for his performances in tenor roles of the Savoy Operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company.-Life and career:... - Thomas Brown (baritoneBaritoneBaritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...
) – Edgar Bruce; Kenneth SandfordKenneth SandfordKenneth Sandford was an English singer and actor, best known for his performances in baritone roles of the Savoy Operas of Gilbert and Sullivan.... - Mr. Grinder (baritoneBaritoneBaritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...
) – Charles Styne; John AyldonJohn AyldonJohn Ayldon is an English opera singer, best known for his performances in bass-baritone roles of the Savoy Operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company.-Life and career:... - LætitiaSaint LeticiaSaint Leticia , whose feast day is October 21, is venerated as a virgin martyr. A saint with the same name had a feast day occurring on March 13. Her cult was diffused in Corsica and can be found in medieval England...
Grinder (sopranoSopranoA soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
) – Gertrude Ashton; Julia GossJulia GossJulia Goss , is an English singer and actress best known for her performances in the principal soprano roles of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company... - Eliza Smith (mezzo-sopranoMezzo-sopranoA mezzo-soprano is a type of classical female singing voice whose range lies between the soprano and the contralto singing voices, usually extending from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above...
) – Henrietta HodsonHenrietta HodsonHenrietta Hodson was an English actress and theatre manager best known for her portrayal of comedy roles in the Victorian era. She had a long affair with the journalist-turned-politician Henry Labouchère, later marrying him....
; Jane Metcalfe
Synopsis
At a zoological gardens, the proud and opinionated British Public gather to look at the animals. Æsculapius Carboy is discovered standing on a chair with a rope around his neck. The chorus insist that if he is going to commit suicide, he must first tell them the reason why. Carboy happily obliges. He had wooed Lætitia Grinder, the daughter of a prosperous grocer. Her father, Mr. Grinder, disapproved of their relationship, but Carboy, an apothecaryApothecary
Apothecary is a historical name for a medical professional who formulates and dispenses materia medica to physicians, surgeons and patients — a role now served by a pharmacist and some caregivers....
(pharmacist), was able to communicate with her "in prescriptions." But one day, the labels for a dose of peppermint for Lætitia and a lotion for her father's back were mixed up. Carboy, believing that he has killed his love, has despaired of all hope. He intends to kill himself, but Eliza Smith, the no-nonsense keeper of the refreshment stall at the zoo, forbids it.
Eliza's beau, Thomas Brown, appears, and they spend a romantic moment. Thomas begins to purchase and rapidly eat an astonishing amount of Eliza's refreshments. Lætitia enters, looking for Carboy. He is surprised to find her alive, but she explains that she did not drink the lotion as he had feared. They too describe their everlasting love and then combine with Thomas and Eliza as Eliza lists the remarkable catalogue of the food that Thomas has just eaten. Thomas explains that he has eaten all of her wares to prove his affection for her.
Thomas then faints, and the male zoogoers argue with their wives about how to revive him. Carboy, explaining that he is a physician, asks the crowd to stand back and steps in to help. After making a quick examination, he writes a prescription, which Eliza takes to be filled. Thomas now revives briefly, and before passing out again, makes a delirious comment that implies tha he is of noble birth. Carboy unfastens his patient's jacket, and the crowd are shocked to find that Thomas is a Knight of the Garter
Order of the Garter
The Most Noble Order of the Garter, founded in 1348, is the highest order of chivalry, or knighthood, existing in England. The order is dedicated to the image and arms of St...
. Thomas revives, and it turns out that he is the Duke of Islington
Islington
Islington is a neighbourhood in Greater London, England and forms the central district of the London Borough of Islington. It is a district of Inner London, spanning from Islington High Street to Highbury Fields, encompassing the area around the busy Upper Street...
(a joke reference, since Islington was then a working-class Cockney
Cockney
The term Cockney has both geographical and linguistic associations. Geographically and culturally, it often refers to working class Londoners, particularly those in the East End...
neighbourhood). He had disguised himself as a commoner so that he could search for a humble, virtuous wife without revealing his true rank. Now that his secret is discovered, Thomas makes a garbled but well-received speech and, taking the perceptive crowd's advice, resolves to propose marriage to Eliza as soon as he can change into his "native guise." He exits.
Mr. Grinder arrives looking for Carboy and Lætitia, but the no one will help him. Eliza returns and is upset to find that Thomas has disappeared. The amused crowd tell her, mysteriously, that he will return soon. Still upset, Eliza laments that she is a simple little child who cannot understand why wealthy men have always showered her with gifts and invitations. Grinder returns, confronting his disobedient daughter and her beloved apothecary. Lætitia begs her father to let her marry Carboy, but Grinder once again refuses. Hearing this, Carboy asks the crowd for a rope with which to hang himself. Failing at that, and after bidding Lætitia a lengthy farewell, he heads for the bear pit in the hopes of being killed by the fearsome creatures.
Thomas Brown re-enters, now dressed as befits the Duke of Islington, and he grandly proposes to make Eliza his Duchess. She bursts into tears, reluctant to leave her beloved animals behind, but Lord Thomas tells her not to worry: he has bought them all! Carboy now returns. His suicide attempt has failed, this time because the bear pit is being renovated, and the bears have been moved. He vows to head for the lion's den, but the Duke stops him. Thomas has reached a financial settlement with Mr. Grinder, who is now willing to accept Carboy as his son-in-law. The two pairs of lovers are united, and all ends happily, with the public proudly declaring that "Britons never, never will be slaves!"