Man’s mercies from God’s hand proceed,
His miseries from his own.
But as the hero never once in the course of the poem acted like a human being, the force of the moral is somewhat impaired.
In 1777 Miss More essayed a higher flight. She had written dramas in her school-teaching days,[350] and now, with the assistance of Garrick, produced a romantic tragedy, entitled Percy. Its title, if not its contents, indicates the influence of Home’s Douglas. The situation in this play, venerable in romance, deals with two rival houses, those of Percy and Douglas, a heroine forced into an unwilling marriage with the rival of her lover, who has been killed in the Crusades. The distressed heroine and the returned lover (who had not really been killed) meet in a garden-bower:[351]
Percy. Am I awake? Is that Elwina’s voice?
Elwina. Percy, thou most adored—and most deceived!
If ever fortitude sustained thy soul,
When vulgar minds have sunk beneath the stroke,
Let thy imperial spirit now support thee.—
If thou canst be so wondrous merciful,
Do not, O do not curse me!—but thou wilt,
Thou must—for I have done a dreadful deed,
A deed of wild despair, a deed of horror.
I am, I am—
Percy. Speak, say, what art thou?
Elwina. Married.
Percy. Oh!
It is unnecessary to follow the course of the tragedy; for the reader’s own imagination will suggest it.
The play was a success in every way. It ran for twenty-one nights. No tragedy for years had been so successful. Mrs. Barry was at her finest in the mad-scene at the end. The author made nearly six hundred pounds.[352] The play was translated into German, and acted with success in Vienna. The bluestockings were triumphant. Mrs. Montagu appeared repeatedly in her box at Covent Garden. Mrs. Boscawen, who could carry Duchesses to the theatre with her, sent the author a wreath of bay.[353] Mrs. Delany invited her to dinner. Garrick, who had written the prologue, introduced her to Home, thus presenting ‘Percy to the Douglas.’[354]
In Percy Miss More reached the summit of her early achievement, and the book is still sought by collectors. Readers, if in an indulgent mood, will perhaps agree with Walpole, who found the play better than he expected, and, though devoid of nature, not lacking in good situations.[355] Severer folk will side with Mrs. Thrale, who considered it foolish, and thought Fanny Burney ought to be whipped if she did not write a better.[356] The truth probably lies between the two opinions. To the eighteenth century the piece certainly seemed to have merit. At any rate, it was popular enough to be revived in order that Mrs. Siddons might appear as Elwina. Had it survived to the mid-nineteenth century it might have proved useful as a libretto for Bellini or Donizetti. In the coloratura woes of the modern diva, the distressed Elwina would have found her perfect interpretation.
Garrick was so pleased with the success of Percy that he urged Miss More to write another tragedy. The result was The Fatal Falsehood, a romantic tragedy of the same sort. It was acted late in the spring of 1779, some months after the death of Garrick, and, though it did not duplicate the success of the earlier play, was enthusiastically received. With its production Miss More’s connection with the London stage came to an end.[357]
The Fatal Falsehood sinks far below the level of Percy. It probably suffered from the lack of Garrick’s revising hand; though it is doubtful if even his genius could have introduced any semblance of reality into a series of situations so preposterous. Miss More is usually content to depend upon accident as the source of her dramatic effects; but in The Fatal Falsehood she attempted to depict in Bertrand a villain as subtle as Iago. Although he analyzes himself and his motives in a series of soliloquies, he remains a tangle of absurdities, and all the action of the piece, which flows from him, must be similarly described.