e they expected he would soon emerge well practised in stage
business, and fully qualified to give out the whole force of his natural
powers on some of the stages of the metropolis.

The country managers, however, seemed to think very differently from
Messrs. Godwin and Holcroft of Mr. Cooper's capabilities. If they had
not the genius, the discernment, or the "spirits learned in human
dealings" of our hero's patrons, they had self-sufficiency and obstinacy
in abundance, and what was more unfortunate, they had the power in their
hands; a power which in such persons is rarely softened in its exercise
by liberality or candor. These, notwithstanding the authority of Godwin
and Holcroft's opinion, considered or affected to consider Mr. Cooper as
a poor juvenile adventurer, who had no one requisite for the profession.
"Their hands, they said, were already full--(of trash no doubt they
were) every character even the lowest was engaged. To show their
deference, however, to the high opinion of the young man's friends, they
would endeavour to think of something for him to perform." In conformity
to the dictates of this _generous_ spirit, they vouchsafed him some
inferior parts: but every one knows, who knows any thing at all of
theatrical affairs, that the coldness of a manager to a young performer,
creates at least, distrust in the audience--that the young candidate who
is set forward in humiliation, is forbidden to rise; as he who is thrust
into characters far beyond the reach of his powers will, for a time, get
credit for talents which he does not possess: for discerning and
despotic as the multitude think themselves, they are still the dupes or
the submissive slaves of dexterous leaders in every department of life.
By the error, the ignorance, or the churlishness of the country
managers, Mr. Cooper was excluded from any fair opportunity to redeem
the credit he had lost in Edinburgh--they considered, or affected to
consider him as wholly incompetent to any character of consequence:
those which were vouchsafed him were of so inferior a rank that they
denied scope to the exercise of his yet latent powers; for such a genius
as that of Cooper could no more dilate in a meagre character, than
Eclipse or Flying Childers could lay themselves out at full speed in a
city building lot; and it is reasonable to suppose that, notwithstanding
all his fortitude, the spirits of the youth were depressed, and his
faculties chilled by such humilia