But my conjectural judgments concerning his character lead me to
persuade an absolute passive obedience to his opinion, and this, too,
because I would leave to every man his own trade. "Your" trade has been,
in the present instance, "first" to furnish a wise pleasure to your
fellow-beings in general, and, "secondly", to give Mr. Kemble and his
associates the power of delighting that part of your fellow-beings
assembled in a theatre. As to what relates to the first point, I should
be sorry indeed if greater men than Mr. Kemble could induce you to alter
a "but" to a "yet" contrary to your own convictions. Above all things,
an author ought to be sincere to the public; and, when William Godwin
stands in the title-page, it implies that W. G. approves that which
follows. Besides, the mind and finer feelings are blunted by such
obsequiousness. But in the theatre it is Godwin and Co. "ex professo". I
should regard it in almost the same light as if I had written a song for
Haydn to compose and Mara to sing; I know, indeed, what is poetry, but I
do not know so well as he and she what will suit his notes or her voice.
That actors and managers are often wrong is true, but still their trade
is "their" trade, and the presumption is in favour of their being right.
For the press, I should wish you to be solicitously nice; because you
are to exhibit before a larger and more respectable multitude than a
theatre presents to you, and in a new part, that of a poet employing his
philosophical knowledge practically.
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