gh opinion that he had formed of human nature and the
French people, which at once terrified and excited him to finish a
tragedy, which, he modestly adds, "may not have the merit of any single
one; but which one day will be discovered to include the labour bestowed
on fifty!"

No great work was ever produced without a grand plan. "Some critics,"
says our author, "have ventured to assert that my six acts may easily be
reduced to the usual five, without injury to the conduct of the fable."
To reply to this required a complete analysis of the tragedy, which,
having been found more voluminous than the tragedy itself, he
considerately "published separately." It would be curious to ascertain
whether a single copy of the analysis of a condemned tragedy was ever
sold. And yet this critical analysis was such an admirable and
demonstrative criticism, that the author assures us that it proved the
absolute impossibility, "and the most absolute too," that his piece
could not suffer the slightest curtailment. It demonstrated more--that
the gradation and the development of interest required necessarily
_seven acts!_ but, from dread of carrying this innovation too far, the
author omitted _one act_, which passed behind the scenes![170] but which
ought to have come in between the fifth and sixth! Another point is
proved, that the attention of an audience, the physical powers of man,
can be kept up with interest much longer than has been calculated; that
his piece only takes up two hours and three quarters, or three hours at
most, if some of the most impassioned parts were but declaimed
rapidly.[171]

Now we come to the history of all the disasters which happened at the
acting of this tragedy. "How can people complain that my piece is
tedious, when, after the first act, they would never listen ten minutes
to it? Why did they attend to the first scenes, and even applaud one?
Let me not be told, because these were sublime, and commanded the
respect of the cabal raised against it; because there are other scenes
far more sublime in the piece, which they perpetually interrupted. Will
it be believed, that they pitched upon the scene of the sacrifice of
Volgesie, as one of the most tedious?--the scene of Volgesie, which is
the finest in my piece; not a verse, not a word in it, can be
omitted![172] Everything tends towards the catastrophe; and it reads in
the closet as well as it would affect us on the stage. I was not,
however, astonished at t