William Godwin: his Friends and Contemporaries
Ch. IV. 1801-1803
Charles Lamb to William Godwin, 9 September 1801
“Dear Sir,—Nothing runs in
my head when I think of your story, but that you should make it as like the life of Savage as possible. That is a known
and familiar tale, and its effect on the public mind has been very great. Many
of the incidents in the true history are readily made dramatical. For instance,
Savage
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used to walk backwards and
forwards o’ nights to his mother’s window, to catch a glimpse of
her, as she passed with a candle. With some such situation the play might
happily open. I would plunge my Hero, exactly like Savage,
into difficulties and embarrassments, the consequences of an unsettled mind:
out of which he may be extricated by the unknown interference of his mother. He
should be attended from the beginning by a friend, who should stand in much the
same relation towards him as Horatio to
Altamont in the play of the Fair Penitent. A character of
this sort seems indispensable. This friend might gain interviews with the
mother, when the son was refused sight of her. Like Horatio with Calista, he
might wring his soul. Like Horatio, he
might learn the secret first. He might be exactly in the
same perplexing situation, when he had learned it, whether to tell it or
conceal it from the Ton (I have still Savage in my head)
might kill a man (as he did) in an affray—he should receive a pardon, as
Savage did—and the mother might interfere to have him
banished. This should provoke the Friend to demand an interview with her
husband, and disclose the whole secret. The husband, refusing to believe
anything to her dishonour, should fight with him. The husband repents before he
dies. The mother explains and confesses everything in his presence. The son is
admitted to an interview with his now acknowledged mother. Instead of embraces,
she resolves to abstract herself from all pleasure, even from his sight, in
voluntary penance all her days after. This is crude indeed!! but I am totally
unable to suggest a better. I am the worst hand in the world at a plot. But I
understand enough of passion to predict that your story, with some of
Savage’s, which has no repugnance, but a natural
alliance with it, cannot fail. The mystery of the suspected relationship—the
suspicion, generated from slight and forgotten circumstances, coming at last to
act as Instinct, and so to be mistaken for Instinct—the son’s unceasing
pursuit and throwing of himself in his mother’s way, something like
Falkland’s eternal persecution of
Williams—the high and intricate passion
in the mother, the being obliged to shun and keep at a distance the thing
nearest to her heart—to be cruel, where ![]()
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her heart yearns
to be kind, without a possibility of explanation. You have the power of life
and death and the hearts of your auditors in your hands—still Harris will want a skeleton, and he must have
it. I can only put in some sorry hints. The discovery to the son’s friend
may take place not before the 3d act—in some such way as this. The mother may
cross the street—he may point her out to some gay companion of his as the
Beauty of Leghorn—the pattern for wives, &c. &c. His companion, who is
an Englishman, laughs at his mistake, and knows her to have been the famous
Nancy Dawson, or any one else, who
captivated the English king. Some such way seems dramatic, and speaks to the
Eye. The audience will enter into the Friend’s surprise, and into the
perplexity of his situation. These Ocular Scenes are so many great landmarks,
rememberable headlands and lighthouses in the voyage. Macbeth’s witch has a good advice to a magic writer, what
to do with his spectator. ‘Show his eyes,
and grieve his heart.’ |
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The most difficult thing seems to be, What to do with the husband? You
will not make him jealous of his own son? that is a stale and an unpleasant
trick in Douglas, &c.
Can’t you keep him out of the way till you want him, as the husband of
Isabella is conveniently sent off till
his cue comes? There will be story enough without him, and he will only puzzle
all. Catastrophes are worst of all. Mine is most stupid. I only propose it to
fulfil my engagement, not in hopes to convert you.
“It is always difficult to get rid of a woman at the
end of a tragedy. Men may fight and die. A woman must
either take poison, which is a nasty trick, or go mad,
which is not fit to be shown, or retire, which is poor, only retiring is most
reputable.
“I am sorry I can furnish you no better: but I find
it extremely difficult to settle my thoughts upon anything but the scene before
me, when I am from home, I am from home so seldom. If any, the least hint
crosses me, I will write again, and I very much wish to read your plan, if you
could abridge and send it. In this little scrawl you must take the will for the
deed, for I most sincerely wish success to your play.—Farewell,
Nancy Dawson (1728-1767)
English dancer, the daughter of William Newton, a staymaker; she performed at Drury
Lane.
Thomas Harris (d. 1820)
Proprietor and manager of Covent Garden Theater, originally in partnership with the elder
George Colman.
Richard Savage (1698-1743)
Maladroit English poet, the reputed son of Earl Rivers, who was immortalized by Samuel
Johnson in his
Life of Savage (1744).
