This letter is numbered "19" in the top right of the first leaf.
Three Mile Cross
June 29th 1825..
I know not, my dear friend, how to thank you sufficiently for your last & kindest
letter--which yet gave us great pain in the indifferent account which it
contained of your health--I trust that the Circuit will set you quite up again--It always
does--Do you come by Reading?
And if you do can you give us a day? I want you to see my garden in its flush of
roses & lilies--& I hope we need not say that we always want to see you. Just
give me one line to say yes or no--& to tell me that you are
better--it will not be welcome without that--only one line
mind--I will not have a long letter till you are at leisure, although
what can have put it into your head that you are a bad letter writer I cannot
imagine--the only possible fault of your letters would be their being too
well written--& really that is so rare a fault that one puts up with it.
But you have the habit of making mistakes about yourself & being astonished when
people find them out, which being a still rarer fault one puts up with
that also.--I rejoice at Mr.
Macready's "wise
determination"
—although
there is something almost touching in the conscious infirmity of temper from whence
it proceeds. I remember that Mr. Cobbett once
made a similar resolution & from the same cause--but he could not hold his resolve--he had too much curiosity.
By the way there are many points of resemblance between those two Worthies--both men of great power in their several ways (Mr. Cobbett much the
greater of course)--both men of headstrong passion--zealous partizans,
vindictive enemies, fascinating companions--both great
bullies--& as I suspect both great cowards. What do you think of this
parallel in the manner of Plutarch? It certainly
is true.--
I send you some more scraps of
"Charles". You
are to know that there
will be an entirely new
first act (one scene of which
you saw when last at
Reading ) but that
the rest of the piece will be merely a rifacimento of my old play, entirely altering
the
tone of
Cromwell & leaving out
Alice altogether.
The only parts quite finished are the Third & Fifth
acts--most of the new bits of which I send you--The
last scene might perhaps be rendered more vivid, by giving
even at that moment a hope for
Charles--bringing in
Fairfax sooner, & sending a
messenger to save him--but whether after the scene of the scaffold, &
with the known fate of the man before one's eyes, & no
great Actor to bear one out it might not pass for a mere trick, or what
would be worse an imitation of
Mr.
Knowles, I do not know. You will see I hope a sustaining of
Cromwell, &
a little improvement in
Charles.--But it wants story
terribly--If I could introduce a plot to save him--but then I
am afraid of a number more of people & bad actors--& I could not bring
it to any very great head, because there is no historical ground for the
thing,--& having in the
old three acts plenty of materials
for the two news ones--(always altering
Cromwell
as well as I can & writing up
Charles) why I hardly think the
thingintroduction
of a plot worth the trial. Do you? My firm belief is that the play
written as it will be, would succeed if acted, but
that it will not be acted--Either
Charles Kemble's own cowardice, or
the licenser's qualms, will prevent the representation. I mean on account of the cant of course for as to
politics, it will be a high
Tory play. Is
my
Cromwell worse than
Dr. Cantwell in
The
Hypocrite? It will be singularly unlucky, if with three plays either of which would succeed if fairly acted, neither
should come out--& yet such I fully expect to be the case.--Perhaps
Foscari stands the best chance.
The letter on the Stage has been copied from
Blackwood into the
Observer, probably sent thither officially from
C.G.T.
An abbreviation for Covent Garden
Theater & is followed by an historical extract
The extract, titled Venice in the Middle Ages,
describes the trials and exile of Jacopo Foscari, son of Francesco Foscari, the Doge of Venice.
containing the story of the
Two
Foscari--with no reference to
my
play--& perhaps accidental, but still the coincidence struck me,
& I should not wonder if
C. Kemble reckoned
on
Mr. Fitzharris for
Cosmo, which indeed he would both look & play very beautifully--I know that
Mr. Kemble
has in no way lost his fancy for that piece, & if
Mr. Young would play the
Doge I think it would do very well.
Manuscript at the Rylands Library is missing a closer. Ends at the bottom of the sheet.