University of Virginia Library

PREFACE.

As all readers most unreasonably expect from all writers the reasons why anything is written, the Author of the following drama considers himself bound to explain, that the work was composed during an autumnal residence here, to beguile the tedium of convalescence; and that a few copies of it are now printed and circulated among his friends, to gratify his pleasure— which he is heterodox enough to believe, every man has a right, in a lawful extent, to do.

As, therefore, he confesses the book to be a creation of his own humour, and in his own “vein;” as it violates the acknowledged proprieties of the drama, in not always displaying virtue rewarded, and iniquity hanged; as, scorning to pamper to the delicate sensibilities of hypocrites and slaves—it ventures to expose the truth, and develope such scenes as are but too faithful to the highly civilized and, consequently, highly vitiated conditions of the human race; and, as its

Author holds in perfect contempt and absolute ridicule, all critical axioms and regulations for the drama, which was designed to pourtray the most irregular, and not the most ordinary passions and actions of men—of course, he neither anticipates the support of the periodical literature of England nor fears its abuse. However, in saying this, he begs not to be mistaken, for

“Some fellow,
Who, having been praised for bluntness, doth affect
A saucy roughness; and constrains the garb,
Quite from his nature; he cannot flatter, he!
An honest mind and plain, he must speak truth,
An' they will take it, so; if not he's plain.”

To be plain, he professes to be neither more honest nor straight-forward than his neighbours, neither less of an egotist nor more of a fool; neither less desirous of the admiration of the good, nor more covetous of the adulation of the bad, than are all the rest of his race. He is neither so young as to be deceived by the chimeras of a heated and sufficiently luxurient imagination, into fancying his pen the open sesame to the gates of immortality; nor so old as to despair of being rewarded according to his deserts. He is neither so wise as to underrate the preciousness of worldly honor, nor so insane as to build the castle of his happiness on the “baseless fabric” of such a dream. He is neither so rich as to wish to print

his own effusions for the sake of seeing them adorn his library shelves in the dignity of morocco and gold; nor so poor as to be unable to defray the expense of publishing what a bookseller would, very probably, indignantly shelve. He is neither anxious for the romantic notoriety of a “great unknown;” nor desirous to remain in anonymous obscurity. He is neither greatly given to hunger after fame; nor is he wholly divested of an honorable appetite for such a bon bouche.

He is neither so coxcombical as to believe that his few readers will be very inquisitive after his identity; nor so infra. dig. as not to assure himself that some would like to know his “local habitation and his name.” He is neither so bilious and melancholy as to be entirely adapted to the inditing of sonnets “to his mistress' eyebrow;” nor so light-haired and sanguine, as to love beef-steaks and port wine before all things on earth. He is neither so much on the west of the Alps, as to bother himself vastly about the fussy observations of the press; nor so located among savages as not to feast his gratified senses on the many valuable papers that exalt the journals of Great Britain above all others in the world. He does not wish to be regarded as a foreigner; and yet cares little if not called English. In fact, he is just a proper man of the world with, perhaps,

more of the insolence of the Britain than the politeness of the Gaul. He is femininely capricious—inasmuch as he is not resolved whether this work shall end his Apollonic aspirations, or herald in a series of consecutive dramas! And he is masculinely animal, inasmuch as he may feel himself so self-satisfied and comfortable on the ottoman of the East, as altogether to neglect the nobler energies becoming a native of the “Isles of the West.”

That he will have his share of praise, and his modicum of detraction, whether merited or not, he is as perfectly assured as he is that there are Whig and Tory newspapers, clever and silly gentlemen, good natured patrons, and yellow visaged critics—and that, according to the kneading of the gold, silver, brass, and clay, in the Baal-god of English adoration—the Press—so will be the proportions of excellent material, or horrible trash, dragged out from the obscurity of this Drama, and held forth for the gape of admiration or the finger of scorn. Being no cynic, the Author would like to please all; but being no idiot, he knows he cannot do it. Being a lover of the drama, and an admirer of its moral excellence, he naturally endeavours to induce the world to worship at his shrine! but knowing the world to consist of antagonist elements

curiously admixed, he is perfectly aware that he can never achieve his end. He, himself, pretending to be a poet, advances poetry to the very summit of the intellectual pyramid reared up through many ages by the mind of man; but being persuaded that the comprehension and judgment of mankind differ as materially as their physical senses of sight, smell, and taste vary in remote portions of the globe—he is not surprised to perceive that a multitude of revilers will consider him madly worshipping an insignificant devil, instead of a mighty god. The Magnus Apollo of one person's veneration being the golden beetle of another's praise, he does not “fool himself to the bent” of presuming that the reader will fall down at the Author's shrine; whilst at the same time, he consoles himself with the reflection, that, as every faith has its followers, so converts may be made, even to his creed. He does not flatter himself that this play will ever be performed; yet he cannot deny that he considers it worthy of a trial. He conscientiously believes that the present managerial system is very bad, yet he honestly confesses that he does not know a better. He had no actors in view when he drew his characters from nature, yet he is mightily mistaken if Mr. Macready could not impersonate the impassioned hero, and much deceived if many of our performers could not nobly support the play. He does not say this out of flattery to any person, yet he does not withhold that many deserve the compliment.

Thus then, Gentle Reader, being, like yourself, an anomily of contradictions, and having made as honest, if not as polite an obeisance, as other Authors, he begs to present the following pages to your admiration, or abjuration—not questioning your judgment any more than he does your right to judge.