CHAPTER V.
1781–1783.
Plays, however, even when successful, seldom run altogether smoothly. There are too many tastes to to consult—and opinions in which to agree. Happy the man never condemned to pass through such an ordeal of patience and temper as the theatre! To write up to the ideas of one man and down to those of another; to find a manager of one opinion, and the performers directly opposed to it; to be denied credit on points to which he himself has given much consideration, and they who differ from him, probably little or none; to omit this and alter that—is the every-day fate of a dramatist by a decree as irreversible as a law of nature. Some alarm of this description influenced the author, at which Walpole hints in the following letter to Malone, written a few days after the representation:—
Strawberry Hill, Nov. 23rd, 1781.
Sir,—I have just received the honour of your letter, and do not lose a minute to answer it, though my hand is so nervous and shaking so much, that I have difficulty to write.
If you remember, sir, Mr. Harris sent for me out of the box on the first night. I found Dr. Francklin in the green room, and some of the players. The former was just come out of the pit, and said the audience there disliked the death of Hortensia, and thought it most unnatural that she should die so suddenly of grief. The actors, too, agreed