er the discovery of the obliterated deed, goes stark
staring mad. I should have wished to see him assume Edmund Kean's own
character in the real play itself; but Robson was nervous of venturing
on a purely "legitimate" _role_. I was half persuaded to write a
burlesque on "A New Way to pay Old Debts," and Robson had promised to do
his very best with _Sir Giles_; but a feeling, half of laziness, and
half of reverence for the fine old drama, came over me, and I never got
farther than the first scene.

By this time some of the foremost dramatists in London thought they
could discern in Robson latent characteristics of a nature far more
elevated than those which his previous performances had brought into
play. It was decided by those who had a right to render an authoritative
verdict, that he would shine best in that which we call the "domestic
drama." Here it was thought his broad fun, rustic waggery, and curious
mastery of provincial dialect might admirably contrast with the
melodramatic intensity, and the homely, but touching pathos of which in
so eminent a degree he was the master. Hence the dramas, written
expressly and deliberately to his measure and capacity, of "Daddy
Hardacre," "The Porter's Knot," and "The Chimney-Corner." When I say
written, I mean, of course, translated. Our foremost dramatists have not
yet ceased to borrow from the French; but, like the gypsies, they so
skilfully mutilate the children they have stolen, that the theft becomes
almost impossible to detect. Not one person in five hundred, for
instance, would discover at first sight that a play so apparently
English in conception and structure as the "Ticket-of-Leave Man" is, in
reality, a translation from the French.

The success achieved by Robson in the dramas I have named was extended,
and was genuine. In _Daddy Hardacre_, a skilful adaptation of the usurer
in Balzac's "Eugenie Grandet," he was tremendous. It made me more than
ever wishful to see him in the griping, ruthless _Overreach_, foiled at
last in his wicked ambition and driven to frenzy by the destruction of
the document by which he thought to satisfy his lust of gain. Moliere's
_Avare_ I thought he would have acted wonderfully; Ben Jonson's
_Volpone_, in "The Fox," he would surely have understood, and powerfully
rendered. In the devoted father of "The Porter's Knot" he was likewise
most excellent: quiet, unaffected, unobtrusive, never forcing sentiment
upon you, never obtaining tears b