The conception was bold, and the denouement—­the time and place in which the hero of it existed, considered—­not much out of keeping; yet it must be confessed, that it required a delicacy of handling both from the author and the performer, so as not much to shock the prejudices of a modern English audience.  G., in my opinion, had done his part.

John, who was in familiar habits with the philosopher, had undertaken to play Antonio.  Great expectations were formed.  A philosopher’s first play was a new era.  The night arrived.  I was favoured with a seat in an advantageous box, between the author and his friend M——.  G. sate cheerful and confident.  In his friend M.’s looks, who had perused the manuscript, I read some terror.  Antonio in the person of John Philip Kemble at length appeared, starched out in a ruff which no one could dispute, and in most irreproachable mustachios.  John always dressed most provokingly correct on these occasions.  The first act swept by, solemn and silent.  It went off, as G. assured M., exactly as the opening act of a piece—­the protasis—­should do.  The cue of the spectators was to be mute.  The characters were but in their introduction.  The passions and the incidents would be developed hereafter.  Applause hitherto would be impertinent.  Silent attention was the effect all-desirable.  Poor M. acquiesced—­but in his honest friendly face I could discern a working which told how much more acceptable the plaudit of a single hand (however misplaced) would have been than all this reasoning.  The second act (as in duty bound) rose a little in interest; but still John kept his forces under—­in policy, as G. would have it—­and the audience were most complacently attentive.  The protasis, in fact, was scarcely unfolded.  The interest would warm in the next act, against which a special incident was provided.  M. wiped his cheek, flushed with a friendly perspiration—­’tis M.’s way of showing his zeal—­“from every pore of him a perfume falls—.”  I honour it above Alexander’s.  He had once or twice during this act joined his palms in a feeble endeavour to elicit a sound—­they emitted a solitary noise without an echo—­there was no deep to answer to his deep.  G. repeatedly begged him to be quiet.  The third act at length brought on the scene which was to warm the piece progressively to the final flaming forth of the catastrophe.  A philosophic calm settled upon the clear brow of G. as it approached.  The lips of M. quivered.  A challenge was held forth upon the stage, and there was promise of a fight.  The pit roused themselves on this extraordinary occasion, and, as their manner is, seemed disposed to make a ring,—­when suddenly Antonio, who was the challenged, turning the tables upon the hot challenger, Don Gusman (who by the way should have had his sister) baulks his humour, and the pit’s reasonable expectation at the same time, with some speeches out of the new philosophy against duelling.  The audience were here fairly caught—­their courage was up,