hurin sent his Bertram and a letter
_without_ his address, so that at first I could give him no answer. When
I at last hit upon his residence, I sent him a favourable answer and
something more substantial. His play succeeded; but I was at that time
absent from England.

"I tried Coleridge too; but he had nothing feasible in hand at the time.
Mr. Sotheby obligingly offered _all_ his tragedies, and I pledged
myself, and notwithstanding many squabbles with my Committed Brethren,
did get 'Ivan' accepted, read, and the parts distributed. But, lo! in
the very heart of the matter, upon some _tepid_ness on the part of Kean,
or warmth on that of the author, Sotheby withdrew his play. Sir J.B.
Burgess did also present four tragedies and a farce, and I moved
green-room and Sub-Committee, but they would not.

"Then the scenes I had to go through!--the authors, and the authoresses,
and the milliners, and the wild Irishmen,--the people from Brighton,
from Blackwall; from Chatham, from Cheltenham, from Dublin, from
Dundee,--who came in upon me! to all of whom it was proper to give a
civil answer, and a hearing, and a reading. Mrs. * * * *'s father, an
Irish dancing-master of sixty years, calling upon me to request to play
Archer, dressed in silk stockings on a frosty morning to show his legs
(which were certainly good and Irish for his age, and had been still
better,)--Miss Emma Somebody, with a play entitled 'The Bandit of
Bohemia,' or some such title or production,--Mr. O'Higgins, then
resident at Richmond, with an Irish tragedy, in which the unities could
not fail to be observed, for the protagonist was chained by the leg to a
pillar during the chief part of the performance. He was a wild man, of a
salvage appearance, and the difficulty of _not_ laughing at him was only
to be got over by reflecting upon the probable consequences of such
cachinnation.

"As I am really a civil and polite person, and _do_ hate giving pain
when it can be avoided, I sent them up to Douglas Kinnaird,--who is a
man of business, and sufficiently ready with a negative,--and left them
to settle with him; and as the beginning of next year I went abroad, I
have since been little aware of the progress of the theatres.

"Players are said to be an impracticable people. They are so; but I
managed to steer clear of any disputes with them, and excepting one
debate[87] with the elder Byrne about Miss Smith's _pas
de_--(something--I forget the technicals,)--I do n