said to me, "I am writing
_such_ a part for you!" and had no notion that the only part capable of
any effect at all in the piece was that of Julian St. Pierre, the
good-for-nothing brother of the duchess.

The play of "The Wife" was singularly wanting in interest, and except in
the character of St. Pierre was ineffective and flat from beginning to
end, in that respect a perfect contrast to "The Hunchback," in which the
interest is vivid and strong, and never flags from the first scene to
the last. I was quite unable to make anything at all of the part of
Marianna, nor have I ever heard of its becoming prominent or striking in
the hands of any one else.

"The Hunchback," according to my confident expectation, succeeded.
Knowles played his own hero with great force and spirit, though he was
in such a state of wild excitement that I expected to see him fly on the
stage whenever he should have been off it, and _vice versa_, and
followed him about behind the scenes endeavoring to keep him in his
right mind with regard to his exits and his entrances, and receiving
from him explosive Irish benedictions in return for my warnings and
promptings. Throughout the whole first representation I was really as
nervous for and about him as I was about the play itself and my own
particular part in it. My father did the impossible with Sir Thomas
Clifford, in making him both dignified and interesting; and Miss Taylor
was capital in the saucy Helen. My part played itself and was greatly
liked by the audience; the piece was one of the most popular original
plays of my time, and has continued a favorite alike with the public and
the players. The part of the heroine is one, indeed, in which it would
be almost impossible to fail; and every Julia may reckon upon the
sympathy of her audience, the character is so pre-eminently effective
and dramatic.

Of the play as a composition not much is to be said; it has little
poetical or literary merit, and even the plot is so confused and obscure
that nobody to my knowledge (not even the author himself, of whom I once
asked an explanation of it) was ever able to make it out or give a
plausible account of it. The characters are inconsistent and wanting in
verisimilitude to a degree that ought to prove fatal to them with any
tolerably reasonable spectators; in spite of all which the play is
interesting, exciting, affecting, and humorous. The powerfully dramatic
effect of the situations, and the two chara