That a boy,
even a Scottish boy, should have an overweening passion for this unlucky
piece, that he should expect by such a work to climb a step on fortune's
ladder, is nowadays amazing. For ten years he clung to it, modified it,
polished, improved it, and then published it in 1749, after the success
of "Roderick Random." Twice he told the story of his theatrical mishaps
and disappointments, which were such as occur to every writer for the
stage. He wailed over them in "Roderick Random," in the story of Mr.
Melopoyn; he prolonged his cry, in the preface to "The Regicide," and
probably the noble whom he "lashed" (very indecently) in his two satires
("Advice," 1746, "Reproof," 1747, and in "Roderick Random") was the
patron who could not get the tragedy acted. First, in 1739, he had a
patron whom he "discarded." Then he went to the West Indies, and,
returning in 1744, he lugged out his tragedy again, and fell foul again
of patrons, actors, and managers. What befell him was the common fate.
People did not, probably, hasten to read his play: managers and
"supercilious peers" postponed that entertainment, or, at least, the
noblemen could not make the managers accept it if they did not want it.
Our taste differs so much from that of the time which admired Home's
"Douglas," and "The Regicide" was so often altered to meet objections,
that we can scarcely criticise it. Of course it is absolutely
unhistorical; of course it is empty of character, and replete with
fustian, and ineffably tedious; but perhaps it is not much worse than
other luckier tragedies of the age.
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