calamities; but the trampling of an intelligent or of an ignorant audience on a production which, be it good or bad, has been a mental labour to the writer, is a palpable and immediate grievance, heightened by man's doubt of their competency to judge, and his certainty of his own imprudence in electing them his judges. Were I capable of writing a play which could be deemed stage-worthy, success would give me no pleasure, and failure great pain. It is for this reason that even during the time of being one of the committee of one of the theatres, I never made the attempt, and never will. ' " ' While I was in the sub-committee of Drury Lane Theatre, I can vouch for my colleagues, and I hope for myself, that we did our best to bring back the legitimate drama. I tried what I could to get « De Montfort» revived, but in vain, and equally in vain in favour of Sotheby's «Ivan," which was thought an acting play; and I endeavoured also to wake Mr Coleridge to write a tragedy. Those who are not in the secret will hardly believe that the « School for Scandal» is the play which has brought least money, averaging the number of times it has been acted since its production; so Manager Dibdin assured me. Of what has occurred since Maturin's « Bertram,» I am not aware; so that I may be traducing, through ignorance, some excellent new writers; if so, I beg their pardon. I have been absent from England nearly five years, and, till last year, I never read an English newspaper since my departure, and am now only aware of theatrical matters through the medium of the Parisian Gazette of Galignani, and only for the last twelve months. Let me then deprecate all offence to tragic or comic writers, to whom I wish well, and of whom I know nothing. The long complaints of the actual state of the drama arise, however, from no fault of the performers. I can conceive nothing better than Kemble, Cooke, and Kean, in their very different manners, or than Elliston in gentleman's comedy, and in some parts of tragedy. Miss O'Neill I never saw, having made and But surely there is dramatic power somewhere, where Joanna Baillie, and Milman, and John Wilson exist. The «City of the Plague» and the « Fall of Jerusalem are full of the best materiel for tragedy that has been seen since Horace Walpole, except passages of Ethwald and De Montfort. It is the fashion to under-rate Horace Walpole; firstly, because he was a nobleman, and secondly, because he was a gentleman; but, to say nothing of the composition of his incomparable letters, and of the Castle of Otranto, he is the « Ultimus Romanorum,» the author of the Mysterious Mother, a tragedy of the highest order, and not a puling love-play. He is the father of the first romance, and of the last tragedy in our language, and surely worthy of a higher place than any living writer, be he who he may. In speaking of the drama of Marino Faliero, I forgot to mention that the desire of preserving, though still too kept a determination to see nothing which should divide or disturb my recollection of Siddons. Siddons and Kemble were the ideal of tragic action; I never saw any thing at all resembling them even in person for this reason, we shall never see again Coriolanus or Macbeth. When Kean is blamed for want of dignity, we should remember that it is a grace and not an art, and not to be attained by study. In all, not SUPERnatural parts, he is perfect; even his very defects belong, or seem to belong, to the parts themselves, and appear truer to nature. But of Kemble we may say, with reference to his acting, what the Cardinal de Retz said of the Marquis of Montrose, << that he was the only man he ever saw who reminded him of the heroes of Plutarch." remote, a nearer approach to unity than the irregularity, which is the reproach of the English theatrical compositions, permits, has induced me to represent the conspiracy as already formed, and the doge acceding to it, whereas in fact it was of his own preparation and that of Israel Bertuccio. The other characters (except that of the duchess), incidents, and almost the time, which was wonderfully short for such a design in real life, are strictly historical, except that all the consultations took place in the palace. Had I followed this, the unity would have been better preserved; but I wished to produce the doge in the full assembly of the conspirators, instead of monotonously placing him always in dialogue with the same individuals. For the real facts, I refer to the extracts given in the appendix in Italian, with a translation. DRAMATIS PERSONE. MEN. MARINO FALIERO, Doge of Venice. LIONI, a Patrician and Senator. BENINTENDE, Chief of the Council of Ten. MICHEL STENO, one of the three Capi of the Forty. ISRAEL BERTUCCIO, Chief of the SECRETARY OF THE COUNCIL OF TEN. GUARDS, CONSPIRATORS, CITIZENS, THE COUNCIL OF TEN, |