uld be glad to know what compensation Mr. Elliston would
make me, not only for dragging my writings on the stage in _five_
days, but for being the cause that I was kept for _four_ days (from
Sunday to Thursday morning, the only post-days) in the _belief_
that the _tragedy_ had been acted and 'unanimously hissed;' and
this with the addition that _I_ 'had brought it upon the stage,'
and consequently that none of my friends had attended to my request
to the contrary. Suppose that I had burst a blood-vessel, like John
Keats, or blown my brains out in a fit of rage,--neither of which
would have been unlikely a few years ago. At present I am, luckily,
calmer than I used to be, and yet I would not pass those four days
over again for--I know not what[38].

"I wrote to you to keep up your spirits, for reproach is useless
always, and irritating--but my feelings were very much hurt, to be
dragged like a gladiator to the fate of a gladiator by that
'_retiarius_,' Mr. Elliston. As to his defence and offers of
compensation, what is all this to the purpose? It is like Louis the
Fourteenth, who insisted upon buying at any price Algernon Sydney's
horse, and, on his refusal, on taking it by force, Sydney shot his
horse. I could not shoot my tragedy, but I would have flung it into
the fire rather than have had it represented.

"I have now written nearly three _acts_ of another (intending to
complete it in five), and am more anxious than ever to be preserved
from such a breach of all literary courtesy and gentlemanly
consideration.

"If we succeed, well: if not, previous to any future publication,
we will request a _promise_ not to be acted, which I would even pay
for (as money is their object), or I will not publish--which,
however, you will probably not much regret.

"The Chancellor has behaved nobly. You have also conducted yourself
in the most satisfactory manner; and I have no fault to find with
any body but the stage-players and their proprietor. I was always
so civil to Elliston personally, that he ought to have been the
last to attempt to injure me.

"There is a most rattling thunder-storm pelting away at this
present writing; so that I write neither by day, nor by candle, nor
torchlight, but by _lightning_ light: the flashes are as brilliant
as