I SHALL be glad to come home and talk these matters
over with you. I have read your scheme very attentively. That Arabella has been mistress to King
Charles is sufficient to all the purposes of the story. It can
only diminish that respect we feel for her to make her turn whore to one of the
Lords of his Bedchamber. Her son must not know that she has been a whore: it
matters not that she has been whore to a King: equally in both cases it is
against decorum and against the delicacy of a son’s respect that he
should be privy to it. No doubt, many sons might feel a wayward pleasure in the
honourable guilt of their mothers; but is it a true feeling? Is it the best
sort of feeling? Is it a feeling to be exposed on theatres to mothers and
daughters? Your conclusion (or rather Defoe’s) comes far short of the tragic ending, which is
always expected; and it is not safe to disappoint. A tragic auditory wants blood. They care but little about a man and his wife
parting. Besides, what will you do with the son, after all his pursuits and
adventures? Even quietly leave him to take guinea-and-a-half lodgings with
mamma in Leghorn! O impotent and pacific measures! . . . I am certain that you
must mix up some strong ingredients of distress to give a savour to your
pottage. I still think that you may, and must, graft the story of Savage upon Defoe. Your
hero must kill a man or do some thing. Can’t you
bring him to the gallows or some great mischief, out of which she must have
recourse to an explanation with her husband to save him. Think on this. The
husband, for instance, has great friends in Court at Leghorn. The son is
condemned to death. She cannot teaze him for a stranger. She must tell the
whole truth. Or she may tease him, as for a stranger,
till (like Othello in Cassio’s case) he begins to suspect her for
her importunity. Or, being pardoned, can she not teaze her husband to get him
banished? Something of this I suggested
| 1801 | DRAMATIC EXPEDIENTS | 229 |
