Joshua Reynolds.
On reading this, Morrison may well have thought that his tragedy was almost certain of acceptance; a few months later, however, he heard from George Colman, who had succeeded Beard as manager of Covent Garden Theatre in 1767. The letter is dated July 23, 1771, and its opening sentence is explained by the death of Colman’s wife earlier in the year.
Sir,
My last Letter would very soon have been succeeded by another if a very unexpected & most shocking domestick calamity had not rendered me wholly incapable of attending to every kind of business. I have however lately read your Tragedy over & over with the strictest attention, and after considering it again & again, not without a real partiality to the Author, & the strongest desire of encouraging the most favourable idea of it, I am with much concern obliged to declare it unfit for representation.
The first act is very excellent, & with a few slight alterations, would be a most affecting opening of a Tragedy. In the second act the scene of Iphigenia is also extremely beautiful and interesting; but the other parts of the act have no dramatick merit. The circumstance so much insisted on of Clytemnestra’s dressing (tho’ I believe in Euripides) wd. appear ridiculous on our stage: and the scenes of Memnon and Achilles are weak & illwritten, tho’ the entrance of Achilles at that juncture might afford a spirited & interesting scene.
In these acts, as well as the two following, the conduct of the fable is in general just: at least it is most wonderfully improved since your first draught of the Tragedy: and yet the characters & dialogue are so managed as to render the whole cold, uninteresting, & totally destitute of that spirit essential to the success of the Drama. The personages are all suffered to languish, tho’ in situations which require the utmost animation & force. Clytemnestra & Iphigenia, though defective, are indeed better sustained than the rest, but the consequence of the Atridae hardly survives the first act, and Achilles never maintains any consequence at all.
The same remark may in general be applied to the fifth act as to the foregoing. The management of the catastrophe might perhaps admit of alteration. The nature of the subject indeed renders it a very nice point: tho’ I think it would be very possible to give it due warmth & interest, were the more arduous task accomplished of perfecting the preceding parts of the Drama.
Believe me, Sir, that in this as well as in all my other Letters to you, I have delivered my real sentiments, tho’ it is not without reluctance & regret on the present occasion. I had at first some objections to the subject. These vanished; & in the first draught there were here & there some touches which inclined me to hope that the whole piece might be worked up by the same hand. I am sorry to pronounce it has failed: but Ponere Totum is the great secret; and in our exhibitions a common Dauber, possest of that happy knack, will often be attended with tolerable success, and exult at the failure of a superior artist who has only laboured particular parts.
I am, Sir, your most obedient humble servant,
G. Colman.