DEAR Sir,—I have performed my office in a slovenly
way, but judge for me. I sat down at 6 o’clock, and never left reading
(and I read out to Mary) your play till
10. In this sitting I noted down lines as they occurred, exactly as you will
read my rough paper. Do not be frightened at the bulk of my remarks, for they
are almost all upon single lines, which, put together, do not amount to a
hundred, and many of them merely verbal. I had but one object in view,
abridgement for compression sake. I have used a dogmatical language (which is
truly ludicrous when the trivial nature of my remarks is considered), and,
remember, my office was to hunt out faults. You may fairly abridge one half of
them, as a fair deduction for the infirmities of Error, and a single reading,
which
| 202 | LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB | Dec. |
I will barely add, as you are on the very point of printing, that in my opinion neither prologue nor epilogue should accompany the play. It can only serve to remind your readers of its fate. Both suppose an audience, and, that jest being gone, must convert into burlesque. Nor would I (but therein custom and decorum must be a law) print the actors’ names. Some things must be kept out of sight.
I have done, and I have but a few square inches of paper to fill up. I am emboldened by a little jorum of punch (vastly good) to say that next to one man, I am the most hurt at our ill success. The breast of Hecuba, where she did suckle Hector, looked not to be more lovely than Marshal’s forehead when it spit forth sweat, at Critic-swords contending. I remember two honest lines by Marvel, (whose poems by the way I am just going to possess)
“Where every Mower’s wholesome heat Smells like an Alexander’s sweat.” |
