e up his mind early
that all the good tragedies which could be written had been written, and
he resented any new attempt. His shelves were full. The old standards
were scope enough for his ambition. He ranged in them absolute, and
'fair in Otway, full in Shakspeare shone.' He succeeded to the old
lawful thrones, and did not care to adventure bottomry with a Sir Edward
Mortimer, or any casual speculator that offered.

"I remember, too acutely for my peace, the deadly extinguisher which he
put upon my friend G.'s 'Antonio' G., satiate with visions of political
justice, (possibly not to be realized in our time,) or willing to let
the skeptical worldlings see that his anticipations of the future did
not preclude a warm sympathy for men as they are and have been, wrote a
tragedy. He chose a story, affecting, romantic, Spanish,--the plot
simple, without being naked,--the incidents uncommon, without being
overstrained. Antonio, who gives the name to the piece, is a sensitive
young Castilian, who, in a fit of his country honor, immolates his
sister--

"But I must not anticipate the catastrophe. The play, reader, is extant
in choice English, and you will employ a spare half-crown not
injudiciously in the quest of it.

"The conception was bold, and the _denouement_--the time and place in
which the hero of it existed considered--not much out of keeping; yet it
must be confessed that it required a delicacy of handling, both from the
author and the performer, so as not much to shock the prejudices of a
modern English audience. G., in my opinion, had done his part. John, who
was in familiar habits with the philosopher, had undertaken to play
Antonio. Great expectations were formed. A philosopher's first play was
a new era. The night arrived. I was favored with a seat in an
advantageous box, between the author and his friend M.G. sat cheerful
and confident. In his friend M.'s looks, who had perused the manuscript,
I read some terror. Antonio, in the person of John Philip Kemble, at
length appeared, starched out in a ruff which no one could dispute, and
in most irreproachable mustachios. John always dressed most provokingly
correct on these occasions. The first act swept by, solemn and silent.
It went off, as G. assured M., exactly as the opening act of a
piece--the _protasis_--should do. The cue of the spectators was to be
mute. The characters were but in their introduction. The passions and
the incidents would be developed hereaft