d all Englishmen should be grateful to
Godwin for having written the tragedy of _Antonio_; for not only was
it most justly damned, but it also elicited some letters to the
unlucky author that are unmatched in the record of candid criticism.
Mrs. Inchbald writes, briefly:

'I thank you for the play of Antonio, and I most sincerely wish you
joy of having produced a work which will protect you from being
classed with the successful dramatists of the present time, but
which will hand you down to posterity among the honoured few who,
during the past century, have totally failed in writing for the
stage.'

Coleridge goes to work more elaborately:

'In the tragedy I have frequently used certain marks (which he
gives). Of these, the first calls your attention to my suspicions
that your language is false or intolerable English. The second
marks the passages that struck me as _flat_ or mean. The third is a
note of reprobation, levelled at those sentences in which you have
adopted that worst sort of vulgar language, commonplace book
language. The last mark implies bad metre.'

All this is free speaking beyond the compass of modern literary
consultations. It may be added that Lamb also discussed the play,
before it was performed, in his letters to Godwin; and that his
description of Godwin's deportment, of his own feelings, and of the
behaviour of the audience on the memorable night that witnessed its
utter failure, has bequeathed to us a comedy over which the tragic
Muse herself might well become hysterical.

There is, indeed, in the correspondence of this remarkable group a
tone of frankness and sincerity which, combined with the absence of
malice and a strong element of fun, distinguishes it from the
half-veiled disapproval and prudish reserve of later days. 'When you
next write so eloquently and well against law and lawyers,' says
Coleridge to Godwin, 'be so good as to leave a larger place for your
wafer, as by neglect of this a part of your last was obliterated.'
Again, in a more serious tone, 'Ere I had yet read or seen your works,
I, at Southey's recommendation, wrote a sonnet in praise of the
author. When I had read them, religious bigotry, the but half
understanding of your principles, and the _not_ half understanding of
my own, combined to render me a warm and boisterous anti-Godwinist.'
His moods and circumstances, his joys and pains, are reflected in