5, 1850, and opened
in New York, on November 18 of the same year. Taylor wrote to its
author, on December 4: "I saw the last night.... It is even better as
an acting play than I had anticipated, but it was very badly acted.
I have heard nothing but good of it, from all quarters." It was
Elizabethan in tone, quite in the spirit of that romantic drama
practised by such American authors as Willis, Sargent and others. How
it was received when presented in London, during 1853, is reflected in
Boker's letter to Stoddard, dated October 9, 1853:

I have read the _Times_ notice of the "Betrothal." It is honey
to most of the other newspaper criticisms.... Notwithstanding,
and taking the accounts of my enemies for authority, the play
was unusually successful with the audience on that most trying
occasion, the first night.... The play stands a monument of
English injustice. Mark you, it was not prejudice that caused
the catastrophe; it was fear lest I should get a footing
on their stage, of which "Calaynos" had given them timely
warning.

"The Widow's Marriage," in manuscript, and never published, was
accepted by Marshall, manager of the Walnut, and is noted by Boker, in
a letter to Stoddard, October 12, 1852, the chief handicap confronting
him being the inability to find someone suited to take the leading
role. Stoddard's own comment was:

Whether [it] was ever produced I know not, but I should
say not, for the part of the principal character, _Lady
Goldstraw_, is one which no actress whom I remember could have
filled to the satisfaction of her creator. The fault of this
character (me judice) is that it is too good to be played on a
modern stage. It ought to have been written for antiquity two
hundred years ago.

Boker was right when he referred to himself as "prolific" at this
time. He already had produced, in 1851, according to markings on the
manuscript, a piece called "All the World a Mask," and he had
written "The Podesta's Daughter," a dramatic sketch, issued, with
"Miscellaneous Poems," in 1852. Toward the end of this year, he
completed "Leonor de Guzman."

"Her history," he writes to Stoddard, on November 14, "you
will find in Spanish Chronicles relating to the reigns of
Alfonso XII of Castile and his son, Peter the Cruel. There are
no such subjects for historical tragedy on earth as are to be
found in the Spanish history of that pe