“I shall be glad to come home and talk these matters
with you. I have read your scheme very attentively. That Arabella has been mistress to King
Charles, is sufficient to all the purposes of the story. It can only
diminish that respect we feel for her to make her turn whore to one of the
Lords of his Bedchamber. Her son must not know that she has been a whore: it
matters not that she has been whore to a King: equally
in both cases, it is against decorum and against the delicacy of a son’s
respect that he should be privy to it. No doubt, many sons might feel a wayward
pleasure in the honourable guilt of their mothers, but is it a true feeling? Is
it the best sort of feeling? Is it a feeling to be exposed on theatres to
mothers and daughters? Your conclusion (or rather Defoe’s) comes far short of the tragic ending, which is
always expected, and it is not safe to disappoint. A tragic auditory wants blood. They care but little about a man and his wife
parting. Besides, what will you do with the son, after all his pursuits and
adventures? Even quietly leave him to take guinea-and-a-half lodgings with mama
in Leghorn! O impotent and pacific measures! . . . I am certain that you must
mix up some strong ingredients of distress to give a savour to your pottage. I
still think that you may, and must, graft the story of Savage upon Defoe. Your
hero must kill a man or do some
thing. Can’t you bring him to the gallows or some great
mischief, out of which she must have recourse to an explanation with her
husband to save him. Think on this. The husband, for instance, has great
friends in Court at Leghorn. The son is condemned to death. She cannot teaze
him for a stranger. She must tell the whole truth. Or she may teaze him, as for a stranger, till (like Othello in Cassio’s
case) he begins to suspect her for her importunity. Or, being pardoned, can she
not teaze her husband to get him banished? Something of this I suggested
before. Both is best. The murder and the pardon will
make business for the fourth act, and
| 88 | WILLIAM GODWIN |
