tre, but I was clearly innocent of knowing or believing myself bound by any rules or usage, that prevented me from offering my production to the one or the other at my own free option. I went to Mr. Garrick; I found in him what my inexperience stood in need of, an admirable judge of stage-effect; at his suggestion I added the preparatory scene in the house of Stockwell, before the arrival of Belcour, where his baggage is brought in, and the domestics of the Merchant are setting things in readiness for his coming. This insertion I made by his advice, and I punctually remember the very instant when he said to me in his chariot on our way to Hampton-" I want something

more to be announced of your West Indian "before you bring him on the stage to give "eclat to his entrance, and rouse the curiosity "of the audience; that they may say-Aye, "here he comes with all his colours flying-." When I asked how this was to be done, and who was to do it, he considered awhile and then replied " Why that is your look out, my

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friend, not mine; but if neither your Mer"chant nor his clerk can do it, why, why send

"in the servants, and let them talk about him.

"Never let me see a hero step upon the stage

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without his trumpeters of some sort or other." Upon this conversation it was that I engrafted the scene above-mentioned, and this was in truth the only alteration of any consequence that the manuscript underwent in its passage to the stage.

After we came to Hampton, where that inimitable man was to be seen in his highest state of animation, we began to debate upon the cast of the play. Barry was extremely desirous to play the part of the Irish Major, and Garrick was very doubtful how to decide, for Moody was then an actor little known and at a low salary. I took no part in the question, for I was entitled to no opinion, but I remember Garrick after long deliberation gave his decree for Moody with considerable repugnance, qualifying his preference of the latter with reasons, that in no respect reflected on the merits of Mr. Barry-but he did not quite see him in the whole part of O'Flaherty; there were certain points of humour, where he thought it likely he might fail, and in that case his failure, like his name, would be more conspicuous than Moody's. In short Moody would take pains ;

it might make him, it might mar the other; so Moody had it, and succeeded to our utmost wishes. Mr. King, ever justly a favourite of the public, took the part of Belcour, and Mrs. Abingdon, with some few salvos on the score of condescension, played Charlotte Rusport, and though she would not allow it to be any thing but a sketch, yet she made a character of it by her inimitable acting.

The production of a new play was in those days an event of much greater attraction than from its frequency it is now become, so that the house was taken to the back rows of the front boxes for several nights in succession before that of its representation; yet in this interval I offered to give its produce to Garrick for a picture, that hung over his chimney piece in Southampton-Street, and was only a copy from a Holy Family of Andrea del Sarto: he would have closed with me upon the bargain, but that the picture had been a present to him from Lord Baltimore. My expectations did not run very high when I made this offer.

A rumour had gone about, that the character, which gave its title to the comedy, was satirical; of course the gentlemen, who came

under that description, went down to the the atre in great strength, very naturally disposed to chastise the author for his malignity, and their phalanx was not a little formidable.Mrs. Cumberland and I sate with Mr. and Mrs. Garrick in their private box. When the prologue-speaker had gone the length of the four first lines the tumult was excessive, and the interruption held so long, that it seemed doubtful, if the prologue would be suffered to proceed. Garrick was much agitated; he observed to me that the appearance of the house, particularly in the pit, was more hostile than he had ever seen it. It so hap→ pened that I did not at that moment feel the danger, which he seemed to apprehend, and remarked to him that the very first word, which discovered Belcour's character to be friendly, would turn the clamour for us, and so far I regarded the impetuosity of the audience as a symptom in our favour. Whilst this was passing between us, order was loudly issued for the prologue to begin again, and in the delivery of a few lines more than they had already heard they seemed reconciled to wait

the developement of a character, from which they were told to expect→

"Some emanations of a noble mind."

Their acquiescence however was not set off with much applause; it was a suspicious truce, a sullen kind of civility, that did not promise more favour than we could earn; but when the prologue came to touch upon the Major, and told his countrymen in the galleries, that

"His heart can never trip-"

they, honest souls, who had hitherto been treated with little else but stage kicks and cuffs for their entertainment, sent up such a hearty crack, as plainly told us we had not indeed little cherubs, but lusty champions, who sate up aloft.

Of the subsequent success of this lucky comedy there is no occasion for me to speak; eight and twenty successive nights it went without the buttress of an afterpiece, which was not then the practice of attaching to a new play. Such was the good fortune of an author, who happened to strike upon a popular