ONE TRAGEDY FINISHED AND ANOTHER COMMENCED.
August.-As I have only my almanac memorandums for this month, I shall hasten immediately to what I think my dear partial lecturers will find most to their taste in the course of it. Know then, fair ladies, about the middle of this August, 17 90, the author finished the rough first draft and copy of her first tragedy. What species of a composition it may prove she is very unable to tell; she only knows it was an almost spontaneous work, and soothed the melancholy of imagination for a while, though afterwards it impressed it with a secret sensation of horror, so like real woe, that she believes it contributed to the injury her sleep received about this period.
Nevertheless, whether well or ill, she is pleased to have done something at last, she had so long lived in all ways as nothing.
You will smile, however, at my next trust; but scarce was this completed,-as to design and scenery I mean, for the whole is in its first rough state, and legible only to herself, scarce, however, had this done with imagination, to be consigned over to correction, when imagination seized upon another subject for another tragedy.
The first therefore I have deposited in my strong-box, in all its imperfections, to attend to the other; I well know correction may always be summoned, Imagination never will come but by choice. I received her, therefore, a welcome guest,—the best adapted for softening weary solitude, where only coveted to avoid irksome exertion.