Playwright, Lyricist and Legal Author
McNally was a successful dramatist and wrote a number of well-constructed but derivative comedies, as well as comic operas. His first dramatic work was The Ruling Passion, a comic opera written in 1771, and he is known to have authored at least twelve plays between 1779 and 1796 as well as other comic operas. His works include The Apotheosis of Punch (1779) a satire on the Irish playwright Sheridan, Tristram Shandy (1783), which was an adaptation of Lawrence Sterne's novel, Robin Hood (1784), Fashionable Levities (1785), Richard Cœur de Lion (1786), and Critic Upon Critic (1788).
He also wrote a number of songs and operettas for Covent Garden. One of his songs, Sweet Lass of Richmond Hill, became very well-known and popular following its first public performance at Vauxhall Gardens in London in 1789. It was said to be a favourite of George III and popularized the romantic metaphor "a rose without a thorn", a phrase which McNally had used in the song.
In 1802, McNally published what became a much-used book on the law of evidence, The Rules of Evidence on Pleas of the Crown. The text played a crucial role in defining and publicizing the beyond reasonable doubt standard for criminal trials.
Read more about this topic: Leonard Mac Nally
Famous quotes containing the words legal author, legal and/or author:
“... whilst you are proclaiming peace and good will to men, Emancipating all Nations, you insist upon retaining absolute power over wives. But you must remember that Arbitrary power is like most other things which are very hard, very liable to be broken—and notwithstanding all your wise Laws and Maxims we have it in our power not only to free ourselves but to subdue our Masters, and without violence throw both your natural and legal authority at our feet ...”
—Abigail Adams (1744–1818)
“Narrative prose is a legal wife, while drama is a posturing, boisterous, cheeky and wearisome mistress.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“Most bad books get that way because their authors are engaged in trying to justify themselves. If a vain author is an alcoholic, then the most sympathetically portrayed character in his book will be an alcoholic. This sort of thing is very boring for outsiders.”
—Stephen Vizinczey (b. 1933)