You also neglected to mention, as _per contra_, that they had during the
same time accepted and triumphantly published Brown's _Handbook to
Cricket_, _Jones's First French Reader_, and Robinson's _Picturesque
Cheshire_, uniform with the same author's _Stately Homes of Salop_.
O if that list could come true! How we would tear at _Solomon Crabb_! O
what a bully, bully, bully business. Which would you read
first--Shakespeare's autobiography, or his journals? What sport the
monody on Napoleon would be--what wooden verse, what stucco ornament! I
should read both the autobiography and the journals before I looked at
one of the plays, beyond the names of them, which shows that Saintsbury
was right, and I do care more for life than for poetry. No--I take it
back. Do you know one of the tragedies--a Bible tragedy
too--_David_--was written in his third period--much about the same time
as Lear? The comedy, _April Rain_, is also a late work. _Beckett_ is a
fine ranting piece, like _Richard II._, but very fine for the stage.
Irving is to play it this autumn when I'm in town; the part rather suits
him--but who is to play Henry--a tremendous creation, sir. Betterton in
his private journal seems to have seen this piece; and he says
distinctly that Henry is the best part in any play. "Though," he adds,
"how it be with the ancient plays I know not. But in this I have ever
feared to do ill, and indeed will not be persuaded to that undertaking."
So says Betterton. _Rufus_ is not so good; I am not pleased with
_Rufus_; plainly a _rifaccimento_ of some inferior work; but there are
some damned fine lines. As for the purely satiric ill-minded _Abelard
and Heloise_, another _Troilus, quoi!_ it is not pleasant, truly, but
what strength, what verve, what knowledge of life, and the Canon! What a
finished, humorous, rich picture is the Canon! Ah, there was nobody like
Shakespeare. But what I like is the David and Absalom business: Absalom
is so well felt--you love him as David did; David's speech is one roll
of royal music from the first act to the fifth.
I am enjoying _Solomon Crabb_ extremely; Solomon's capital adventure
with the two highwaymen and Squire Trecothick and Parson Vance; it is as
good, I think, as anything in Joseph Andrews. I have just come to the
part where the highwayman with the black patch over his eye has tricked
poor Solomon into his place, and the squire and the parson are hearing
the evidence. Parson Vance is splendid. How good, too, is old Mrs. Crabb
and the coastguardsman in the third chapter, or her delightful quarrel
with the sexton of Seaham; Lord Conybeare is surely a little overdone;
but I don't know either; he's such damned fine sport. Do you like Sally
Barnes? I'm in love with her. Constable Muddon is as good as Dogberry
and Verges put together; when he takes Solomon to the cage, and the
highwayman gives him Solomon's own guinea for his pains, and kisses Mrs.
Muddon, and just then up drives Lord Conybeare, and instead of helping
Solomon, calls him all the rascals in Christendom--O Henry Fielding,
Henry Fielding! Yet perhaps the scenes at Seaham are the best. But I'm
bewildered among all these excellences.
Stay, cried a voice that made the welkin crack--This
here's a dream, return and study BLACK!
--Ever yours,