--For I have sinn'd; oh! grievously and often;
Exaggerated ill, and good denied;
Blacken'd the shadows only born to soften;
And Truth's own light unkindly misapplied:
Alas! for charities unloved, uncherish'd,
When some stern judgment, haply erring wide,
Hath sent my fancy forth, to dream and tell
Other men's deeds all evil! Oh, my heart!
Renew once more thy generous youth, half perish'd;
Be wiser, kindlier, better than thou art!
And first, in fitting meekness, offer well
All earnest, candid prayers, to be forgiven
For worldly, harsh, unjust, unlovable
Thoughts and suspicions against man and Heaven!
Friends all, let this be my best amendment: bear with the candour,
homely though it may be, of your author's mind; and suffer its further
revelations of unborn manuscript with charitable listening; for they
would come forth in real order of time, the first having priority, and
not the best, ungarnished, unweeded, uncared-for, humbly, and without
any further flourish of trumpets.
* * * * *
Serjeant Ion--I beg his pardon, Talfourd--somewhere gives it as his
opinion, that most people, in any way troubled with a mind, have at some
time or other meditated a tragedy. Truly, too, it _is_ a fine vehicle
for poetical solemnities, a stout-built vessel for an author's graver
thoughts; and the bare possibility of seeing one's own heart-stirring
creation visually set before a crowded theatre, the preclusive echoes
of anticipated thundering applause, the expected grilling silence
attendant on a pet scene or sentiment, all the tangible, accessories of
painting and music, clever acting and effective situation, and beyond
and beside these the certain glories of the property-wardrobe, make most
young minds press forward to the little-likely prize of successful
tragedy. That at one weak period I was bitten, my honesty would scorn to
deny; but fortunately for my peace of mind, "Melpomene looked upon me
with an aspect of little favour," and sturdy truth-telling Tacitus made
me at last but lightly regardful of my subject. Moreover, my Pegasus was
visited with a very abrupt pull-up from other causes; it has been my
fatality more than once or twice, as you will ere long see, to drop upon
other people's topics--for who can find any thing new under the
sun?--and I had already been mentally delivered of divers fag-ends of
speeches, stinging dialogues, and choice tit-bits of scenes, (all of
which I will mercifully spare you,) when a chance peep into Johnson's
'_Lives of the Poets_' showed me mine own fine subject as the work of
some long-forgotten bard! This moral earthquake demolished in a moment
my goodly aerial fabric; the fair plot burst like a meteor; and an
after-recollection of a certain French tragedy-queen, Agrippina, showed
me that the ground was still further preoccupied. But it is high time to
tell the destined name of my abortive play; in four letters, then,