The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 72, October, 1863 / A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by TICKNOR AND FIELDS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.
Readers of Lamb's Life and Letters remember that before Mr. H. was written, before Kemble had rejected John Woodvil, Godwin's tragedy of Antonio had been produced at Drury-Lane Theatre, and that Elia was present at the performance thereof. But perhaps they do not know (at least, not many of them) that Elia's essay on The Artificial Comedy of the Last Century, as originally published in the London Magazine, contained a full and circumstantial account of the cold and stately manner in which John Kemble performed the part of Antonio in Godwin's unfortunate play. For some reason or other, Lamb did not reprint this part of the article. Admirers of Charles Lamb and admirers of the drama will be pleased—for 'tis a very characteristic bit of writing—with what Elia says of
JOHN KEMBLE AND GODWIN'S TRAGEDY OF ANTONIO.
The story of his swallowing opium-pills to keep him lively upon the first night of a certain tragedy we may presume to be a piece of retaliatory pleasantry on the part of the suffering author. But, indeed, John had the art of diffusing a complacent equable dulness (which you knew not where to quarrel with) over a piece which he did not like, beyond any of his contemporaries. John Kemble had made up his mind early that all the good tragedies which could be written had been written, and he resented any new attempt. His shelves were full. The old standards were scope enough for his ambition. He ranged in them absolute, and 'fair in Otway, full in Shakspeare shone.' He succeeded to the old lawful thrones, and did not care to adventure bottomry with a Sir Edward Mortimer, or any casual speculator that offered.
I remember, too acutely for my peace, the deadly extinguisher which he put upon my friend G.'s 'Antonio' G., satiate with visions of political justice, (possibly not to be realized in our time,) or willing to let the skeptical worldlings see that his anticipations of the future did not preclude a warm sympathy for men as they are and have been, wrote a tragedy. He chose a story, affecting, romantic, Spanish,—the plot simple, without being naked,—the incidents uncommon, without being overstrained. Antonio, who gives the name to the piece, is a sensitive young Castilian, who, in a fit of his country honor, immolates his sister—