Works of Charles and Mary Lamb. VI-VII. Letters
Charles Lamb to William Godwin, 16 September 1801
DEAR Sir,—Nothing runs in my head when I think of
your story, but that you
should make it as like the life of
Savage as possible. That is a known and familiar tale, and its
effect on the public mind has been very great. Many of the incidents in the
true history are readily made dramatical. For instance, Savage used to walk backwards and forwards
o’ nights to his mother’s window, to catch a glimpse of her, as she
passed with a candle. With some such situation the play might happily open. I
would plunge my Hero, exactly like Savage, into
difficulties and embarrassments, the consequences of an unsettled mind: out of
which he may be extricated by the unknown interference of his mother. He should
be attended from the beginning by a friend, who should stand in much the same
relation towards him as Horatio to
Altamont in the play of the Fair Penitent. A character of
this sort seems indispensable. This friend might gain interviews with the
mother, when the son was refused sight of her. Like Horatio with Calista, he
might wring his [her?] soul. Like Horatio,
he might learn the secret first. He might be exactly in
the same perplexing situation, when he had learned it, whether to tell it ![]()
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or conceal it from the Son (I have still
Savage in my head) might kill a
man (as he did) in an affray—he should receive a pardon, as
Savage did—and the mother might interfere to have him
banished. This should provoke the Friend to demand
an interview with her husband, and disclose the whole secret. The husband,
refusing to believe anything to her dishonour, should fight with him. The
husband repents before he dies. The mother explains and confesses everything in
his presence. The son is admitted to an interview with his now acknowledged
mother. Instead of embraces, she resolves to abstract herself from all
pleasure, even from his sight, in voluntary penance all her days after. This is
crude indeed!! but I am totally unable to suggest a better. I am the worst hand
in the world at a plot. But I understand enough of passion to predict that your
story, with some of Savage’s, which has no
repugnance, but a natural alliance with it, cannot fail. The mystery of the
suspected relationship—the suspicion, generated from slight and forgotten
circumstances, coming at last to act as Instinct, and so to be mistaken for
Instinct—the son’s unceasing pursuit and throwing of himself in his
mother’s way, something like Falkland’s eternal persecution of Williams—the high and intricate passion in the
mother, the being obliged to shun and keep at a distance the thing nearest to
her heart—to be cruel, where her heart yearns to be kind, without a possibility
of explanation. You have the power of life and death and the hearts of your
auditors in your hands; still Harris
will want a skeleton, and he must have it. I can only put in some sorry hints.
The discovery to the son’s friend may take place not before the 3d act—in
some such way as this. The mother may cross the street—he may point her out to
some gay companion of his as the Beauty of Leghorn—the pattern for wives,
&c. &c. His companion, who is an Englishman, laughs at his mistake, and
knows her to have been the famous Nancy
Dawson, or any one else, who captivated the English king. Some
such way seems dramatic, and speaks to the Eye. The audience will enter into
the Friend’s surprise, and into the perplexity of his situation. These
Ocular Scenes are so many great landmarks, rememberable headlands and
lighthouses in the voyage. Macbeth’s
witch has a good advice to a magic [? tragic] writer, what to do with his
spectator. “Show his eyes, and grieve his heart.” |
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The most difficult thing seems to be, What to do with the husband? You
will not make him jealous of his own son? that is a stale and an unpleasant
trick in Douglas, &c.
Can’t you keep him out of the way till you want him, as the husband of
Isabella
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is conveniently sent off till his cue
comes? There will be story enough without him, and he will only puzzle all.
Catastrophes are worst of all. Mine is most stupid. I only propose it to fulfil
my engagement, not in hopes to convert you.
It is always difficult to get rid of a woman at the end of a
tragedy. Men may fight and die. A woman must either take
poison, which is a nasty trick, or go mad, which is not
fit to be shown, or retire, which is poor, only retiring is most reputable.
I am sorry I can furnish you no better: but I find it
extremely difficult to settle my thoughts upon anything but the scene before
me, when I am from home, I am from home so seldom. If any, the least hint
crosses me, I will write again, and I very much wish to read your plan, if you
could abridge and send it. In this little scrawl you must take the will for the
deed, for I most sincerely wish success to your play.—Farewell,
Nancy Dawson (1728-1767)
English dancer, the daughter of William Newton, a staymaker; she performed at Drury
Lane.
Thomas Harris (d. 1820)
Proprietor and manager of Covent Garden Theater, originally in partnership with the elder
George Colman.
Richard Savage (1698-1743)
Maladroit English poet, the reputed son of Earl Rivers, who was immortalized by Samuel
Johnson in his
Life of Savage (1744).
