t Newcastle. In the midst of a most bewildering
correspondence with unknown people, on every possible and impossible
subject, I have forgotten this gentleman's name, though I have a kind of
hazy remembrance that he lived near Russell Square. As the Post Office
would be rather puzzled, perhaps, to identify him by such an address,
may I ask the favour of you to hand him the enclosed, and to say that it
is the second I have received since I returned from America? The last, I
think, was a defiance to mortal combat. With best remembrances to your
sister, in which Mrs. Dickens joins, believe me, my dear Harness,

Always faithfully yours.

[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]

DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Saturday, Nov. 12th, 1842._

MY DEAR MACREADY,

You pass this house every day on your way to or from the theatre. I wish
you would call once as you go by, and soon, that you may have plenty of
time to deliberate on what I wish to suggest to you. The more I think of
Marston's play, the more sure I feel that a prologue to the purpose
would help it materially, and almost decide the fate of any ticklish
point on the first night. Now I have an idea (not easily explainable in
writing but told in five words), that would take the prologue out of the
conventional dress of prologues, quite. Get the curtain up with a dash,
and begin the play with a sledge-hammer blow. If on consideration, you
should think with me, I will write the prologue heartily.

Faithfully yours ever.

PROLOGUE

TO MR. MARSTON'S PLAY OF "THE PATRICIAN'S DAUGHTER."

No tale of streaming plumes and harness bright
Dwells on the poet's maiden harp to-night;
No trumpet's clamour and no battle's fire
Breathes in the trembling accents of his lyre;

Enough for him, if in his lowly strain
He wakes one household echo not in vain;
Enough for him, if in his boldest word
The beating heart of MAN be dimly heard.

Its solemn music which, like strains that sigh
Through charmed gardens, all who hearing die;
Its solemn music he does not pursue
To distant ages out of human view;
Nor listen to its wild and mournful chime
In the dead caverns on the shore of Time;
But musing with a calm and steady gaze
Before the crackling flames of living d