oissart. At the British Museum I have seen her
conning over the magnificent and voluminous MS. of the old chronicler,
and by its side Lord Berners' version, printed in the reign of Henry
VIII. It was evident that his lordship was employed as a spy on
Froissart, to inform her of what was going forward in the French camp;
and she soon perceived, for her taste was delicate, that it required
an ancient lord and knight, with all his antiquity of phrase, to break
a lance with the still more ancient chivalric Frenchman. The familiar
elegance of modern style failed to preserve the picturesque touches
and the _naive_ graces of the chronicler, who wrote as the mailed
knight combated--roughly or gracefully, as suited the tilt or the
field. She vailed to Lord Berners; while she felt it was here
necessary to understand old French, and then to write it in old
English.[76] During these profitless labours hope seemed to be
whispering in her lonely study. Her comedies had been in possession of
the managers of the theatres during several years. They had too much
merit to be rejected, perhaps too little to be acted. Year passed over
year, and the last still repeated the treacherous promise of its
brother. The mysterious arts of procrastination are by no one so well
systematised as by the theatrical manager, nor its secret sorrows so
deeply felt as by the dramatist. One of her comedies, _The Debt of
Honour_, had been warmly approved at both theatres--where probably a
copy of it may still be found. To the honour of one of the managers,
he presented her with a hundred pounds on his acceptance of it. Could
she avoid then flattering herself with an annual harvest?

But even this generous gift, which involved in it such golden
promises, could not for ten years preserve its delusion. "I feel,"
said Eliza Ryves, "the necessity of some powerful patronage, to bring
my comedies forward to the world with _eclat_, and secure them an
admiration which, should it even be deserved, is seldom bestowed,
unless some leading judge of literary merit gives the sanction of his
applause; and then the world will chime in with his opinion, without
taking the trouble to inform themselves whether it be founded in
justice or partiality." She never suspected that her comedies were not
comic!--but who dare hold an argument with an ingenious mind, when it
reasons from a right principle, with a wrong application to itself? It
is true that a writer's connexions have often