King’s Mead Square, Bath.
My dear Father, I take great pleasure in hearing of your welfare, and that you are not likely to become unsettled again, which, if I had not a house to invite you to, would give me great pain to reflect on, more especially at your time of life. I cannot tell you how much I respect Mr Freeman, he certainly must be a very benevolent, worthy man, and I beg you will assure him from me that he shall be certain not to lose the least part of the sum he has lent you: and that I am ready to give him my notes, if he pleases to accept of them, for the payment at such stated periods, as I find myself able to pay them at. Your property in your garden, and your own integrity, dear Sir, are sufficient security; but I would willingly remove every burthen from your shoulders, as well as give Mr Freeman every certainty in my power. I am every day more esteemed, and I believe, if I have life and health, there is little doubt of my success. I hope, Sir, you will not think me rude in cautioning you not to be too eager in increasing your stock; as by having more affairs on your hands than your small capital can supply, you may easily lose the whole; besides that you bring a degree of trouble and anxiety on your mind that your health cannot now support perhaps. I am exceedingly glad to hear that my mother is better. We are all in good health, our relations dine with us on Sunday, and we always speak of you. Mr Marsac is not arrived. My comedy is to be played next season. God bless you both, and make you happy. I am, dear father, etc.
March 31st.
To Fulke Greville, Esq.
Sir, Before I proceed to any other subject, permit me to assure you that I not only think myself greatly honoured by your correspondence, but greatly obliged by your remarks, and more especially by the candour and liberality with which they are made. Indeed, Sir, these sensations have made too powerful an impression to be soon, or easily forgotten. Your ideas of consistency, however I may have failed, agree entirely with mine; for which reason, whenever you find absurdities or inconsistencies, I shall be glad if you will freely point them out. Your objection to the Two Knights is well founded. I will make Sir Harry, a Lord, or Sir Hornet, a Mr ——. Vandervelt is in the same predicament. A large fortune, and the illiterate manners of Turnbull, are sufficiently improbable, unless what Osborne says, when he draws his character in the first act, reconciles it to truth. I think your hint, however, a good one, and worth attending to. If any phrases, words, or other alterations of that nature, occur to you in reading, I beg you will not scruple to write them on the blank leaf, being convinced that you have too much candour to take offence if I should happen to differ with you occasionally. If you understand that Sir Hornet sends the Turnbulls to his nephew’s house as a residence, I have erred in expressing myself, and must correct. The last thing you have noticed I confess affects me a good deal. I thought I had contrived the plot so as to keep the audience in suspense relative to the real character of Osborne; if I have failed in this the error is a capital one indeed. It is true I could not make Osborne a rascal so palpably as to take away all probability of the contrary, because the mind would have been too much shocked at the want of poetical justice in the denouement; the point to be hit was that perplexity which must arise in the mind on seeing a worthy person likely to be betrayed by an unworthy one; but yet to preserve a possibility of his salvation by having a possibility of your suspicions of the supposed unworthy one ill founded. Now to certain minds who are intimately in the mechanical secret of plot and catastrophe, &c. I hardly know how this is to be effected. You, Sir, know that a comedy must end happily, because critics have made it an inevitable rule. You see as you proceed there is no way of doing this, but by making a certain character (Osborne for instance,) not what he appears to be: you foresee, therefore, this will happen, and your concern for the distress of another vanishes. But in what labyrinth shall the poet bewilder you, Sir, who are possessed of this clue. If the whole audience see as far as you, Sir, my play loses half its merit. The work in question was to be a comedy, the auditors were to laugh; wit, humour, variety of character, of manners, of incident, were absolute requisites for a good comedy, and as entirely so as instruction and reformation from the fable and moral. The poet’s attention must, therefore, inevitably be divided; he must bestow a part on each. If the catastrophe of my play is not more moral, more forcible, and more affecting, than that of any late production, it is worse than any of them, because the plot has greater capabilities, but the nature of the work would not permit it to be as much so as if it had had but one whole and undivided intention, that is, as if it had been a Tragedy. Do not imagine, Sir, that I am seized with the irritability of authorship; whenever I am chagrined it will be at myself for committing errors, not at others for telling me of them. I am afraid there is truth in your objection, though I confess I have been told by some readers they were entirely at a loss concerning the catastrophe till it happened: but it is evident they either said false, or were less discerning than you. Continue, Sir, to tell me truth. They will not flatter me at the Theatre. I will retrieve my errors where I can. I am concerned, however, Sir, at giving you the labour of writing, you will be in town soon; or at Petersham, I shall be proud to wait on you; you will give me your opinion with greater ease: I find already it will be of much service to me, and I repeat, I think myself greatly honoured, and indebted to that philanthropy which could prompt you so cheerfully to the present undertaking.
I am, Sir, &c.
September 4th.
To Fulke Greville, Esq.
Sir, I have this moment received and read your last letter: your attention to me is not only an honour to me, but to yourself, Sir; it expresses the anxiety of a generous mind. I continue to think that your suggestion of Osborne’s gratitude is a very happy improvement, and as such have endeavoured to give it all the expression and force I could from the mouth of Osborne. As to Sir Harry, he appears to me to be so overflowing with passion, that is, the turn is so sudden and unexpected, and he is so affected with Osborne’s friendship and virtue in disguise, and at the hideous danger he had just escaped, that, if I feel right, he cannot speak, except in exclamation. The difficulty of making impassioned characters say neither too little nor too much is, as you observe, exceedingly great: and the plot frequently obliges the author to say too much; but it never fails in some degree to offend. I confess, Sir, you almost terrify me about the loss of Melissa’s fortune, but I have no remedy; the reason is what I gave you in our last conversation. Mr Nicholson says, were it not done, he confesses he would not do it; and yet, as it is at present managed, the effect is such that he can scarcely wish it undone; nor does he seem to think there is much risk in it. He approved your before-mentioned hint concerning Osborne’s gratitude, exceedingly, and thought it very happy. I don’t know how enough to thank you for your kind offers concerning the prologue; but Mr Nicholson is at present about one, and had begun it before I received your letter; how far it may succeed in mine or Mr Harris’s opinion, I cannot yet predict; but I am under no disagreeable concern on that subject, because I know Mr Nicholson’s candour and good sense so well as to be certain, should it not chance to be happy, he will not suffer the least chagrin; not to mention, Sir, that I should be exceedingly sorry again to subject your performance to the caprice, or ill taste, of others, to which I myself, in this business, am entirely subjected. I have not yet seen Mr Henderson: he was out of town.
I am, &c.