and hopeful that his friend would be
more successful with the English statesman than with the eunuch Narses.

A few months elapsed before the poet, who had set aside the long work
upon which he was engaged ("Sordello"), called upon Macready with the
manuscript of "Strafford." The latter hoped much from it. In March the
MS. was ready. About the end of the month Macready took it to Covent
Garden Theatre, and read it to Mr. Osbaldiston, "who caught at it with
avidity, and agreed to produce it without delay."

It was an eventful first of May--an eventful twelvemonth, indeed, for it
was the initial year of the Victorian era, notable, too, as that wherein
the Electric Telegraph was established, and, in letters, wherein a new
dramatic literature had its origin. For "Strafford," already significant
of a novel movement, and destined, it seems to me, to be still more
significant in that great dramatic period towards which we are fast
converging, was not less important to the Drama in England, as a new
departure in method and radically indicative of a fresh standpoint, than
"Hernani" was in France. But in literary history the day itself is
doubly memorable, for in the forenoon Carlyle gave the first of his
lectures in London. The play was a success, despite the shamefully
inadequate acting of some of those entrusted with important parts. There
was once, perhaps there were more occasions than one, where success
poised like the soul of a Mohammedan on the invisible thread leading to
Paradise, but on either side of which lies perdition. There was none to
cry _Timbul_ save Macready, except Miss Helen Faucit, who gained a
brilliant triumph as Lady Carlisle. The part of Charles I. was enacted
so execrably that damnation for all was again and again within
measurable distance. "The Younger Vane" ranted so that a hiss, like an
embodied scorn, vibrated on vagrant wings throughout the house. There
was not even any extraneous aid to a fortunate impression. The house was
in ill repair: the seats dusty, the "scenery" commonplace and sometimes
noticeably inappropriate, the costumes and accessories almost sordid.
But in the face of all this, a triumph was secured. For a brief while
Macready believed that the star of regeneration had arisen.
Unfortunately 'twas, in the words of a contemporary dramatic poet, "a
rising sorrow splendidly forlorn." The financial condition of Covent
Garden Theatre was so ruinous that not even the most successful play