What does all
this mean? Alas! that sober sense should know no other way to construe
all this, than by the tame phrase, I wish you success! That which Lamb
informed you is founded on truth. Mr. Sheridan sent, through the medium
of Stuart, a request to Wordsworth to present a tragedy to his stage;
and to me a declaration, that the failure of my piece was owing to my
obstinacy in refusing any alteration. I laughed and Wordsworth smiled;
but my tragedy will remain at Keswick, and Wordsworth's is not likely to
emigrate from Grasmere. Wordsworth's drama is, in its present state, not
fit for the stage, and he is not well enough to submit to the drudgery
of making it so. Mine is fit for nothing, except to excite in the minds
of good men the hope "that the young man is likely to do better." In the
first moments I thought of re-writing it, and sent to Lamb for the copy
with this intent. I read an Act, and altered my opinion, and with it my
wish.
Your feelings respecting Baptism are, I suppose, much like mine! At
times I dwell on Man with such reverence, resolve all his follies into
such grand primary laws of intellect, and in such wise so contemplate
them as ever-varying incarnations of the Eternal Life--that the Llama's
dung-pellet, or the cow-tail which the dying Brahmin clutches
convulsively, become sanctified and sublime by the feelings which
cluster round them.
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