Chapter 183

Berkeley Square, Jan. 27, 1780. (page 240)

I have returned Your tragedy, Sir, to Mr. Sheridan, after having read it again, and without wishing any more alterations than the few I hinted before. There may be some few incorrectnesses, but none of much consequence. I must -again applaud your art and judgment, Sir, in having made so rational a play out of my wild tale - and where you have changed the arrangement of the incidents, you have applied them to great advantage The Characters of the mother and daughter you have rendered more natural by giving jealousy to the mother, and more passion to the daughter. In short, you have both honoured and improved my outlines: my vanity is content, and truth enjoins me to do justice. Bishop Warburton, in his additional notes to Pope's works, which I saw in print in his bookseller's hands, though they have not yet been published, observed that the plan of The Castle of Otranto was regularly a drama(375) (an intention I am sure I do not pretend to have conceived; nor, indeed, can I venture to affirm that I had any intention at all but to amuse myself--no, not even a plan, till some pages were written). You, Sir, have realized his idea, and yet I believe the Bishop would be surprised to see how well you have succeeded. One cannot be quite ashamed of one's follies, if genius condescends to adopt, and put them to a sensible use. Miss Aikin flattered me even by stooping to tread in my eccentric steps. Her " Fragment," though but a specimen, showed her talent for imprinting terror. I cannot compliment the author of the " Old English Baron," professedly written in imitation, but as a corrective of The Castle of Otranto. It was totally void of imagination and interest, had scarce 'any incidents, and, though it condemned the marvellous, admitted a ghost. I suppose the author thought a tame ghost might come within the laws of probability. You alone, Sir, have kept within nature, and made superstition supply the place of phenomenon, yet acting as the agent of divine justice--a beautiful use of bigotry.

I was mistaken in thinking the end of the first act deficient. The leaves stuck together, and, there intervening two or three blank pages between the first and second acts, I examined no farther, but concluded the former imperfect, which on the second reading I found it was not.

I imagine, Sir, that the theatres of Dublin cannot have fewer good Performers than those of London; may I ask why you prefer ours? Your own directions and instructions would be of great advantage to your play; especially if you suspect antitragic prejudices in the managers. You, too, would be the best judge of the rehearsal of what might be improvements. Managers will take liberties, and often curtail necessary speeches, so as to produce nonsense. Methinks it is unkind to send a child, of which you have so much reason to be proud, to a Foundling Hospital.

(374) NOW first printed.

(375) Bishop Warburton's panegyric on the Castle of Otranto appears in a note to the following lines in Pope's imitation of one of Horace's epistles:--

"Then peers grew proud in horsemanship t'excel, Newmarket's glory rose as Britain's fell' The soldier breathed the gallantries of France, And ev'ry flow'ry courtier Writ Romance."

"Amidst all this nonsense," says the Bishop, "when things were at the worst, we have been lately entertained with what I will venture to call, a masterpiece in the Fable; and of a new species likewise. The piece I mean is, The Castle of Otranto. The scene is laid in Gothic chivalry; where a beautiful imagination, supported by strength of judgment, has enabled the author to go beyond his Subject, and effect the full purpose of the ancient tragedy; that is, to purge the passions by Pity and terror, in colouring as great and harmonious as in any of the best dramatic writers."-E.