anner. De Camp was hooted, more than hissed,--hooted
and bellowed off the stage before the second act was finished; so that
the remainder of his part was forced to be, with some violence to the
play, omitted. In addition to this, a strumpet was another principal
character,--a most unfortunate choice in this moral day. The audience
were as scandalized as if you were to introduce such a personage to
their private tea-tables. Besides, her action in the play was
gross,--wheedling an old man into marriage. But the mortal blunder of
the play was that which, oddly enough, H. took pride in, and exultingly
told me of the night before it came out, that there were no less than
eleven principal characters in it, and I believe he meant of the men
only, for the play-bill expressed as much, not reckoning one woman and
one--; and true it was, for Mr. Powell, Mr. Raymond, Mr. Bartlett, Mr.
H. Siddons, Mr. Barrymore, etc., to the number of eleven, had all parts
equally prominent, and there was as much of them in quantity and rank as
of the hero and heroine, and most of them gentlemen who seldom appear
but as the hero's friend in a farce,--for a minute or two,--and here
they all had their ten-minute speeches, and one of them gave the
audience a serious account how he was now a lawyer, but had been a poet;
and then a long enumeration of the inconveniences of authorship,
rascally booksellers, reviewers, etc.; which first set the audience
a-gaping. But I have said enough; you will be so sorry that you will not
think the best of me for my detail: but news is news at Canton. Poor H.
I fear will feel the disappointment very seriously in a pecuniary light.
From what I can learn, he has saved nothing. You and I were hoping one
day that he had; but I fear he has nothing but his pictures and books,
and a no very flourishing business, and to be obliged to part with his
long-necked Guido that hangs opposite as you enter, and the game-piece
that hangs in the back drawing-room, and all those Vandykes, etc.! God
should temper the wind to the shorn connoisseur. I hope I need not say
to you that I feel for the weather-beaten author and for all his
household. I assure you his fate has soured a good deal the pleasure I
should have otherwise taken in my own little farce being accepted, and I
hope about to be acted,--it is in rehearsal actually, and I expect it to
come out next week. It is kept a sort of secret, and the rehearsals have
gone on privately, lest b