Miscellaneous Plays/To the Reader
TO THE READER.
Though I have already met with so much indulgence from the public for a work obscured with many faults, and might venture, without great mistrust, to bring before it the Plays which I now offer, unaccompanied by any previous demand upon the attention of my reader, which is generally an unwelcome thing, I must nevertheless beg for a few minutes to trespass upon his patience.—It has been and still is, my strongest desire to add a few pieces to the stock of what may be called our national or permanently acting plays, how unequal forever my abilities may be to the object of my ambition[1]. I have, therefore, in the "Series of Plays," though pursuing a particular plan, endeavoured fully to delineate the character of the chief person of each drama, independently of his being the subject of a particular passion; so that we might have an idea of what kind of a man he would have been had no circumstances ever arisen to bring that passion violently into action. I have endeavoured also distinctly to discriminate the inferior characters, because they, not being allowed to exhibit violent passion, lest they mould too much interfere with the principal object, had more need of such distinct discrimination to prevent them from being altogether insignificant, and to prevent each play from becoming a mere picture of passion which might be tedious and heavy to an audience accustomed to variety of character and incident. This I have done, how unskilfully soever I may have done it, with a hope, which I will not yet abandon, that some of the dramas belonging to that work may hereafter be thought worthy of being admitted into that class of plays to which I am so desirous of adding something. However, I am sensible that, were those plays more successful than I dare flatter myself to expect, they all require too much power of expression and delicacy of discrimination in the actor who represents the principal character—the whole depends too much on the exertion of one individual, and such a one too as can very rarely be found, ever to become plays that will commonly be brought upon the stage[2]. Convinced of this, as well as wishing sometimes to vary my employment, I have long since proposed to myself not to confine my pen entirely to one task, but to write from time to time, as inclination might lead me or circumstances suggest, an unconnected or (may I so call it?) a free, independent play, that might have a chance of pleasing upon a stage, circumstanced as stages generally are, with no particular advantages. I have wished to leave behind me in the world a few plays, some of which might have a chance of continuing to be acted even in our canvass theatres and barns; and of preserving to my name some remembrance with those who are lovers of that species of amusement which I have above every other enjoyed.
I am well aware, however, that having succeeded in one species of writing gives us no sure grounds to presume that we shall be equally fortunate in any other; no, not even in that which most nearly approaches to it. Not only the epic poet may write a bad tragedy, but the sonnet writer may find himself greatly at a loss in composing a few tender couplets for music. I have seldom seen any piece, not appearing to me to possess great merit (for such things I have seen), succeed upon the stage, without feeling inclined to say to myself, "don't despise this: very probably in attempting, even upon no higher grounds, such success as the present, and giving to it also the whole bent of your thoughts, you would find yourself miserably disappointed." I offer to the public, therefore, a work of a kind so nearly related to that in which I have already had some degree of success and encouragement, with almost the diffidence of an entirely inexperienced writer.
To publish a volume of miscellaneous plays, I am very sensible, is making a large demand upon the attention of my readers, and exposing the plays themselves likewise to the danger of being read in a way that will diminish their effect, and in every way prove a great disadvantage to them. People are in the habit of reading but one new play at a time, which by this means makes a full undivided impression upon the mind; and though we are not obliged to read all the plays of a volume, one following another, so that they must crowd, and jostle, and tread upon one another's heels; yet who, with a new work in his hands, if he be at all pleased with it, will shut up the book after the first portion of it is over, and wait till he has properly digested what he has got before he proceed with the remainder? I am inclined to believe that each of the plays in the series has at first suffered considerably from being read in this manner; but in pieces connected with one another this mode of publication is in some degree necessary, at least: there is in it more propriety. So much am I convinced of this, that it was at one time my intention to publish these plays only one at a time, and it is with some difficulty that I have been prevailed upon to give up this intention. May I then beg of my reader to pardon, in the first place, so great a demand upon his attention by offering at once a volume of plays to his perusal; in the next place, to have the goodness not to read it hastily, but to pause, some days at least, between each play, that they may have in this respect the same advantages which new plays generally have. Let him not smile: this last is a request which I earnestly make, and if it is not complied with, I shall almost be tempted to think myself hardly treated[3].
I must also mention, that each of the plays contained in this volume has been, at one time or other, offered for representation to one or other of our winter theatres, and been rejected. This my reader will readily believe is not done in the spirit of vanity; and I beg of him also to believe, that neither is it at all done in that of complaint. I merely mention it, because otherwise it must have appeared absurd to introduce from the press what has been expressly written to come before the public in a different manner, without making any attempt to present it in its own peculiar mode. I must, in this case, have either appeared pusillanimously timid in shrinking from that open trial to which my contemporaries submit, or sullenly and ungraciously fastidious.
The chief thing to be regretted in this failure of my attempts is, that having no opportunity of seeing any of my pieces exhibited, many faults respecting stage effect and general impression will to me remain undiscovered, and those I may hereafter write be of course unimproved. Another disadvantage, perhaps, may present itself to the mind of my reader; viz. that not having the trial of their merits immediately in prospect, I may become careless or forgetful of those requisites in the drama that peculiarly refer to the stage. But if I know any thing at all of my own character, this will not be the case. I shall persevere in my task, circumstanced as I am, with as anxious unremitting an attention to every thing that regards the theatre as if I were there forthwith to receive the full reward of all my labours, or complete and irretrievable condemnation. So strong is my attachment to the drama of my native country, at the head of which stands one whom every British heart thinks of with pride, that a distant and uncertain hope of having even but a very few of the pieces I offer to the public represented to it with approbation, when some partiality for them as plays that have been frequently read shall have put into the power of future managers to bring them upon the stage with less risk of loss than would be at present incurred, is sufficient to animate me to every exertion that I am capable of making.
But I perceive a smile rising upon the cheek of my reader at the sanguine calculations of human vanity, and in his place I should most probably smile too. Let that smile, however, be tempered with respect, when it is considered how much mankind is indebted to this pleasing but deceitful principle in our nature. It is necessary that we mould have some flattery to carry us on with what is arduous and uncertain, and who will give it to us in a manner so kindly and applicable to our necessities as even we our own selves? How poor and stationary must the affairs of men have remained, had every one, at the beginning of a new undertaking, considered the probability of its success with the cool, temperate mind of his reasonable, unconcerned neighbour?
It is now time to say something of the particular plays here offered to the public.
In the first I have attempted, in the character of Rayner, to exhibit a young man of an easy, amiable temper, with delicacy of sentiment and a well principled mind, tempted, in the extremity of distress, to join with unworthy men in the proposed commission of a detestable deed; and afterwards, under one of the severest trials that human fortitude can be called upon to endure, bearing himself up, not with the proud and lofty firmness of a hero, but with the struggles of a man, who, conscious of the weakness of nature within him, feels diffident of himself to the last, and modestly aims at no more than what, being a soldier and the son of a brave father, he considers as respectable and becoming. One who aspires not to admiration but shrinks from contempt; and who being naturally brave in the field, and of a light buoyant disposition, bears up throughout with an animation and cheerfulness by no means inconsistent with a considerable degree of the dread of death, when called upon to encounter it with deliberation and certainty. To him I have opposed the character of a young man, in whom, though with some good affections, there is a foundation of natural depravity, greatly strengthened by the bad education he has received from an absurdly indulgent mother, brought by his crimes to an untimely end, and meeting it with a very different spirit.
Of the characters of the two principal women in this piece, opposed to two women of a very different description I shall say nothing. The second and inferior persons of the drama I have endeavoured to delineate with sufficient discrimination to make us feel acquainted with them, though much force or originality is a praise which I readily grant they are not entitled to.
I am afraid the varied conduct of the whole, sometimes gay and even ludicrous, sometimes tender or distressing, but scarcely at any time solemn or dignified, will be displeasing to those who are accustomed to admire tragedy in its more exalted form. I flatter myself, however, that as I have not, for the sake of variety, introduced any under-plot for patched scenes unconnected with the main business, but have endeavoured to make every thing arise naturally from the circumstances of the story, I shall not on this score be very much censured[4].
This play was written many years ago, when I was not very old, and still younger from my ignorance of every thing regarding literature than from my years. This, however, I do not mention as any apology for its defects. A work that cannot be read with approbation unless the mind is continually referring to the particular circumstances under which it was written, ought not to be brought before the public, but (when those circumstances are very extraordinary) as a literary curiosity. Reading over this work, after it had been laid by for such a length of time that it was to me almost like the work of a stranger, I thought there was sufficient matter in it, with some alterations, to make an interesting play, not unsuited to the common circumstances of even our country theatres; and indeed I have altered it so considerably that full one half of it may be said to be newly written. In the original it was uniformly written in blank verse, and in many of the scenes, particularly those approaching to comic, my reader will readily believe it was sufficiently rugged and hobbling; I have, therefore, taken the liberty of writing in plain prose all those parts where I thought blank verse would be cumbersome and stilted. The only scenes in the play that remain exactly or nearly as they stood in the original are, that between Rayner and the Old Man of the wood, in which I have scarcely altered a single word, and that, Act IV. Scene III. between Zaterloo and his mother.
A play, with the scene laid in Germany, and opening with a noisy meeting of midnight robbers over their wine, will, I believe, suggest to my readers certain sources from which he will suppose my ideas must certainly have been taken. Will he give me perfect credit when I assure him, at the time this play was written, I had not only never read any German plays, but was even ignorant that such things as German plays of any reputation existed? I hope—I am almost bold enough to say, I know that he will. And that I may not abuse his faith by smuggling any thing under its protection not strictly entitled to it, I must inform him that the short scene between Rayner and his servant Herman, which I thought in some degree necessary to shew the character and temper of the master, and to interest us in his favour before the great action of the piece begins, was entirely introduced in my later alterations, and is therefore liable to whatever charge of imitation it may seem to deserve, though I have not been sensible, in writing it, of having any particular class of authors in my mind.
Of the comedy that follows it I shall say but little. To those who are chiefly accustomed, in works of this kind, to admire quick turns of thought, pointed expression, witty repartee, and the ludicrous display of the transient passing follies and fashions of the world, this play will have but few attractions. The representation of a few characters, not, I believe, "over-stepping the modesty of nature," who are connected together in a very simple plot, carried on throughout with cheerfulness, unmixed with any pretensions to great refinement of sentiment, or delicate strokes of tenderness, is all this piece has to boast of: and with no higher pretensions, the greater proportion of my readers will not, I flatter myself, find fault with me for having made it a kind of division or stepping-stone between the two tragedies; where, if they do not enjoy a brilliant sunshine, they may at least have a little flickering of the sunbeams to play upon them as they pass from one sombre gloom to another. It has lain by me for many years, and has received a very few inconsiderable alterations.
The last play of this volume was written in the hope of being brought out upon our largest theatre, enriched as it then was by two actors whose noble appearance and strong powers of expression seemed to me peculiarly suited to its two principal characters. The subject of it is taken from Gibbon's account of the siege of Constantinople by the Turks. It was a subject that pressed itself upon me, at a time when I had no thoughts of writing at all, and (if I may use the expression) would be written upon. The character there displayed of Constantine Paleologus, the last of the Cæsars, a modest, affectionate, domestic man; nursed in a luxurious court in habits of indulgence and indolence; without ambition, even without hope, rousing himself up on the approach of unavoidable ruin; and deserted by every christian prince in Europe, deserted by his own worthless and enervated subjects, supported alone by a generous band, chiefly of strangers, devoting themselves to him from generous attachment;—to see him thus circumstanced, nobly fronting the storm, and perishing as became the last of a long line of kings, the last of the Romans;—this was a view of man—of noble and dignified exertion which it was impossible for me to resist, though well aware that no play I am capable of writing can ever be equal to what such a subject deserves. So much was I pleased with those generous ties—may I be permitted to make use of a scripture phrase, and say, those "cords of a man?" binding together the noble Paleologus and his brave imperial band, that, had I followed my own inclination, delineating those would have been the principal object of the piece. But convinced that something more was requisite to interest a common audience, and give sufficient variety to the scenes, I introduced the character of Valeria, and brought forward the domestic qualities of Constantine as well as those of the unfortunate prince and beloved leader.
Mahomet and Justiniani are the only characters in the piece, Constantine excepted, that are not imaginary. The first will be found, I hope, to correspond with the character given of him by the historian. To alter, for the idle convenience of poetry, conspicuous, or indeed any characters that have been known in the world, appears to me highly blameable, though in filling up an outline given us by history we cannot well avoid heightening or diminishing the general effect. Justiniani, if I well remember (for I have not the history by me at present to refer to), was a noble Genoese, who, after a life distinguished for military honour, disgraced himself by being the first to turn his back when the Turks attacked the breach on the day of the last general assault, and was the immediate cause of the city being taken. He is said afterwards on this account to have died of a broken heart. I have endeavoured to represent him as a proud man with a high sense of honour, rather than natively brave, and therefore particularly punctilious in every thing that concerns the reputation of a soldier. To him I have ventured to oppose a military character of a very different description, in the commander of the Genoese vessels which so gallantly forced their way into the port of Constantinople during the siege; and if I have dwelt too much on the rough generous gallantry of a brave seaman, and given too many allusions throughout the whole to the dangers and vicissitudes of a seafaring life, my country, which has owed so much to brave men of this class, will stand forth in my defence, and say, that a Briton upon this subject writes proudly, and therefore is tempted to write profusely. In the other imaginary characters, particularly that of Othus, I have endeavoured to accord with the circumstances of the times; for it is to be remembered, that slothful and corrupted as the inhabitants of Constantinople then were, amongst them were still to be found the chief remains of ancient literature and refinement[5].
Perhaps in the conduct of this tragedy I have sometimes weakened the interest of it by attending too much to magnificence and show. But it was intended for a large theatre, where a play is rather looked at than listened to, and where, indeed, by a great proportion of the audience, it cannot be heard; and though I might now very easily remove that show, yet to place in its stead what it has most probably kept back, would be almost impossible. For that which has probably been prevented by it, should have been woven and incorporated into the original texture of the piece, and cannot afterwards be inferred here and there in streaks and patches. It has also, I am inclined to believe, received some injury from my having had, when I sketched my two chief characters, the actors who I intended should represent them, too much in my thoughts. This is a fault, and I am sensible it is so: but those who have seen and admired the great powers of those actors in the highest line of tragedy, will easily admit that I have not sinned, without a strong temptation. I hope also that this, standing alone, as a single offence of the kind, amongst a considerable number of plays which, if I live long enough, my present task will probably increase to, may be forgiven.
I am sensible there is not that strength and compactness of plot; that close connection of events producing one another in this play, which is a great perfection in every dramatic work, and which I am sorry to say is a perfection that is not to be found in any work of mine that I have hitherto published. However, I flatter myself I have in this instance a good excuse to make. It appears to me that, in taking the subject of a poem or play from real story, we are not warranted, even by the prerogatives of bardship, to assign imaginary causes to great public events. We may accompany those events with imaginary characters and circumstances of no great importance, that alter them no more in the mind of the reader than the garniture with which a painter decorates the barrenness of some well known rock or mountain that serves for a landmark to the inhabitants of the surrounding country. He may clothe its rugged sides with brushwood, and hang a few storm-stunted oaks on its bare peaks; he may throw a thin covering of mist on some untoward line of its acclivity, and bring into stronger light the bold storied towerings of its pillared cliffs; he may even stretch the rainbow of heaven over its gigantic head, but its large and general form will remain unaltered. To have made a romantic passion for Valeria the cause of Mahomet's besieging the city, would, I believe, have pleased the generality of readers, and have made this play appear to them more like what a play ought to be; but I must then have done what I consider as wrong.
It would be impertinent to proceed farther in pointing out the merit, if it has any, or demerit of this tragedy, of which I cannot pretend to be a very clear-sighted or impartial judge. I leave it, with its companions, to my reader, who will, I doubt not, peruse them all with reasonable indulgence, and more than this it would be foolish even to desire. If I find that, upon the whole, these plays have given more pleasure to the public than the reverse, I shall not the less cheerfully bring forward, at some future time, those which remain behind, because their faults shall have been fully exposed to the censure they deserve.
- ↑ See page 58. of the introduction to the "Series of Plays."
- ↑ Let it not be supposed from the above that I have the slightest intention of discontinuing the "Series of Plays." So far from it, I hope that work will go on the better for being occasionally broke in upon by pieces of a different kind; and though I admit they are not altogether well fitted for the stage, as it is commonly circumstanced, I still think plays upon that plan are capable of being made upon the stage more interesting than any other species of drama.
- ↑ It may be urged, indeed, that unconnected poems bound up together, and almost every other species of composition must suffer for being read in hasty succession in the same way. And so in some degree they do. But in reading descriptions of nature, successions of thoughts, and narratives of every kind, the ideas they represent to the mind are as troops drawn out before it in loose marshalled array, whose most animated movements it surveys still as a spectator; whilst in reading a drama, where every character speaks immediately in his own person, we by sympathy rush, as it were, ourselves into the battle, and fight under every man's coat of mail by turns. This is an exercise of the mind so close and vigorous, that we retire from it exhausted; and if curiosity should urge us on without sufficient rest to the next engagement that calls for us, we enter the field bewildered, and spiritless, and weak.
- ↑ That part of the scene, Act III. in the court of the prison, where the songs of the confined chief of banditti and a slight sketch of his character are introduced, though very appropriate to the place, stands loose from the business of the play, and may therefore be considered as superfluous and contradicting what I have said above. But as it is short, and is a fancy come into my head from hearing stories in my childhood of Rob Roy, our Robin Hood of Scotland, I cannot find in my heart to blot it out, though, either on the stage or in the closet, I make any body welcome to do it for me by passing it over.
- ↑ The character of Othoric, or rather the circumstance of his death, I have taken from an account I have read somewhere, I believe in one of Dr. Moore's Novels, of a Highland sergeant, who saved himself by a similar stratagem from the torments prepared for him by the American Indians.