395. Robert Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, 5 April 1799 ⁠* 

My dear Wynn

My last letter which was written before I received your accusation of laziness will I think acquit me of it. Queen Mary [1]  I have begun − & but begun. for my way is not clear thro the first act. the story has great advantages & it would be difficult to select any so unlike that of other dramas. The elder Brutus has been dramatized by Lee. [2]  Lee lived at that time when the French Romances were in vogue & made more use of them than a man of such genius ought to have done. he has made his play out of Clelia, [3]  & bad enough it is, with some brilliant exceptions as in every thing he wrote. the subject would be very difficult. his sins are scarcely dignifyed enough for tragedy − & his character seems almost above it. it is for the painter − not the poet. I have seen an account of a picture by David [4]  on this subject which appeared to me more finely conceived than any thing I ever saw or heard of else. Rousseau thought of dramatizing the story of Lucretia. [5]  in that case Brutus would be a strikingly dramatic character. but these subjects will not do − unless indeed one was to write a loyal play & make Tarquin [6]  the hero, & introduce God save the King.

The difficulty I find in every subject that has occurred to me is to make enough of it. I cannot wire-draw a subject story. this will seem odd to you who think me prolix & dilated. however in Queen Mary there is enough I have no other doubt respecting it but that of its suiting the feelings of an audience. there will be no clap-traps. no loyalty − nothing about Britannia rule the waves. & however orthodox my sufferers may be, they were dissenter then − & that will be sorely against them.

The theatrical taste of the public is certainly very bad. & but the managers are more to blame than the public. they never give them an opportunity of supporting any thing good. they bring forward Boadens Tragedies & Reynolds’s Comedies! [7]  − the play which they rejected of Coleridges  [8]  was very faulty in delineation of character – but it abounded with stage effect, with passages equal to any in our language – & with poetry even to an excess. I do not think an audience could have condemned it.

Your story of the old man dying at Elizabeths [9]  succession is new to me. it is very fine. one could have died with joy at such an event.

You know I am fond of Monodramas. the dramatic turn which my thoughts have for some time taken, has suggested to me the thought of narrating in <dialogue> poems not much longer, such historical, or other, facts which <as> would make noble scenes only.

The German plays have always something ridiculous − yet Kotzebue [10]  seems to me possessed of unsurpassed & unsurpassable genius. I wonder his plays are acted here − they are so thoroughly Jacobinical in tendency. they created Jacobinical feelings − almost irresistibly − in every one that I have yet seen (Benyowsky excepted) some old prejudice or old principle is attacked. there is a very good comedy of his lately translated − the Reconciliation. full of those quick strokes of feeling that like Sterne [11]  surprize you into a tear before you have finished a smile.

The Song of which I had the credit [12]  proves to be Sothebys. [13]  a man with whom I am sometimes confounded. he gave me his address some months since & I shall visit him when I come to London. Sotheby has considerable talents as a poet − but he is not [MS torn]kely to improve − as I judge him to be forty. his Ober[MS obscured] translated as well as the admirers of Wieland ever expect it to be − but it falls sadly short they tell me. & all the puffs in the world will never make it popular. Oberon must not stand next to the Orlando Furioso. [14]  I shall beg leave to put my own Dom-Danael [15]  between them.

God bless you.

yrs affectionately

RS.

Friday. Apr. 5. 99.

I do not continue to mend. the Spring has been too cold as yet. We have no news of Ediths brother − & little hope of any except that he may be a prisoner.