Lion of the West, the

Lion of the West, the; or, a Trip to Washington (1831), a play by James Kirke Paulding. [ Park Theatre, in repertory.] The giddy young Cecilia Bramble (Mrs. Sharpe), the daughter of testy old Governor Bramble (Mr. Blakely) and the cousin of the unlettered but sage new Kentucky Congressman, Col. Nimrod Wildfire (J. H. Hackett), dreams of marrying a titled Frenchman and living in Paris. Her wishes seem to come true when she is courted by the Count de Grillon (Peter Richings) who persuades her to elope. But the elopement is thwarted by another suitor, the upright American Mr. Roebuck (Mr. Woodhull), and a third suitor, Mr. Higgins (Mr. Collett), appears on the scene to complicate matters. After some mistaken identities and a noisy but harmless series of gunshots, Wildfire exposes the Count as a swindler and Higgins as a coward. Cecilia refuses to marry Roebuck until she can prove she deserves him. Hackett presented the play after it won a prize of $300, which he had offered for “an original comedy whereof an American should be the leading character.” Many contemporaries saw in Wildfire a good‐natured spoofing of Davy Crockett, but Paulding and Hackett strenuously denied this. However, the play was not totally successful, so it was immediately withdrawn for revisions, which Paulding allowed John Augustus Stone to write. Stone retained only the basic plot and the character of the Congressman. During his 1833 trip to London, Hackett had William Bayle Bernard provide him with yet a third similar vehicle about Wildfire, which was in two acts and was called The Kentuckian; or, A Trip to New York, although it was sometimes offered as A Kentuckian's Trip to New York in 1815. In later years, until his retirement, Hackett used this play and, apparently on some occasions, Stone's, to keep Wildfire before an adoring public. Typical of Wildfire's Americanisms was his calling lawyers catfish, “'cause you see they're all head, and they're head all mouth.” Hackett played the part in “buckskin clothes, deerskin shoes, and a coonskin hat.” Laurence Hutton noted, “He had many contemporary imitators, who copied his dress, his speech and his gait.” The writer James Kirke PAULDING (1778–1860) was a friend of Washington Irving whose diverse works cover a range of subject matter and genres. In addition to The Lion of the West, he wrote the comedy The Bucktails; or, Americans in England and published American Comedies, which contained plays by himself and his son, William Irving Paulding.