
Note 1: (Lovers' Vows) The entire text of Lovers' Vows, as well as a synopsis, and an explanation of the objections to the play within Mansfield Park can be found here at Austen.com. Click here for Lovers' Vows.
Note 2: (my name was Norval) According to Chapman's notes on Mansfield Park, this reference is to John Home's (1722-1808) Douglas, a Tragedy.
Here is the quote from the play (from Bartlett's Quotations):
My name is Norval; on the Grampian hills
My father feeds his flocks; a frugal swain,
Whose constant cares were to increase his store,
And keep his only son, myself, at home.
Act ii. Sc. 1.
And another quote from the play:
I 'll woo her as the lion wooes his brides.
Act i. Sc. 1.
From The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes:
In contrast to many conventional dramas of the period, Home's Douglas (first acted at Edinburgh in 1756, and in London in 1757) strikes a distinct romantic note. In the desert of Scottish drama, Douglas was an oasis, and, to some patriotic enthusiasts, its author seemed a Scottish Shakespeare. The philosopher Hume ascribed to his friend Home "the true theatric genius of Shakespeare and Otway, refined from the unhappy barbarism of the one and licentiousness of the other." Even Gray, in August, 1757, wrote to Walpole: "The author seems to me to have retrieved the true language of the stage, which has been lost for these 100 years." Age has withered Douglas, and custom staled the declamation of Young Norval. Yet the plot of Home's drama, based on an old Scots ballad, its native background, and its atmosphere of brooding melancholy, invest it with something of the romantic atmosphere of his friend Collins. A succession of later tragedies showed that Home was unable to repeat his first theatrical success; but Sheridan's palpable hits in The Critic are incidental proof of the continued stage popularity of Douglas.
The play is based on the Scottish ballad of Gill Morrice. Apparently, this play also met with some controversy:
"When Garrick [a famed actor and theater manager] refused to put on this play in London, Home's friends persuaded him to have it performed in Edinburgh in December 1756, where it was a great success, but aroused the anger of the Scottish Church, who were opposed to the theatre on principle, and were outraged that the author of the piece was a minister."Also:
"A play that became a cause célèbre in Edinburgh and London, provoking a storm of pamphlets between the Presbyterians and the supporters of the stage. Lowe, Arnott, and Robinson list nearly fifty titles in the controversy, and their listing is not complete. One admirer was David Hume, who read and helped to revise it in manuscript. An Edinburgh edition followed ten days later, with a somewhat different text."
And:
An enormously popular play, whose staging in Scotland aroused great controversy, largely because members of the kirk objected to a minister having anything to do with the theater.
The three references given above were gleaned from a search at www.abebooks.com for the author and the title of this play. The quotes probably come from the books themselves.