With June's soft breath around them;
And sweet the cost when hearts are lost,
If those we love have found them;"
and it was in 1837, on one of the fairest days of an English June,—a day which, no doubt, they fondly supposed would stand thenceforth as the most golden in all the calendar of their lives,—that the happy pair were married, in the grand old cathedral of Saint Paul, in London. The officiating clergyman was the Rev. Henry Hart Milman, a man equally renowned as preacher, scholar, historian, and poet. The service was performed in an imposing manner, before a brilliant assemblage, with every propitious omen and the loving wishes of the multitude of friends whose sympathies were there from both sides of the sea. Then followed the long, delicious honeymoon, in which newly-wed lovers withdraw from the world to be all the world to each other. Every benediction hovered over them,—love, youth, health, beauty, fortune, the blessing of parents, the pride of friends, the gilded vision of popularity. Nor was the entrancement of their dream broken when they found themselves, in the autumn, at home in the Republic of the West, welcomed with outstretched hands by the friendly throng, who, as they came in sight, stood shouting on the shore.
CHAPTER XII.
MERIDIAN OF SUCCESS AND REPUTATION.—NEW RÔLES OF FEBRO,
MELNOTTE, AND JACK CADE.
The interest of his friends and of the public at large in the returning actor was increased by the laurels he had won in the mother-country, and the prize hanging on his arm, whose beauty lent a choicer domestic lustre to his professional glory. Wherever he played, the theatre was crowded to overflowing, and the receipts and the applause were unprecedented. The only alloy in his cup—and this was not then so copious or so bitter as it afterwards became—was the acrimonious and envenomed criticism springing alike from the envious and malignant, who cannot see any one successful without assailing him, and from those whose tastes were displeased or whose prejudices were offended by his peculiarities.
While fulfilling an engagement in Boston, he received a very characteristic letter from Leggett, which may serve as a specimen of their correspondence. It will be seen that the tragedian had urged on the editor the writing of a play for him on the theme of Jack Cade and his rebellion. He afterwards induced Conrad to reconstruct his play of Aylmere, which in its original form was not suited to his ideas.