The day was won, and the successful author could afford to rest on his laurels.  But he was ambitious and a hard worker; so he continued to write and adapt.  To counterbalance the good-fortune of David Garrick and Home at the Haymarket, and the series of six at the Prince of Wales’s Theatre, there was a list of failures—­Birth, Progress, Dreams and War.  But his comedies were far more successful than his heavier plays:  his belief in his power to construct good acting dramas must have been sadly shaken by the total failure of For Love, the Shadow-Tree Shaft and the Nightingale.  There can be no better proof of their want of success than the fact that at a time when American managers were eager for his comedies, not one of his dramas was ever produced in the United States.  But in spite of the comparative failure of his later works, his death was felt to be the loss of a dramatic author of some performance and of greater promise,

We have a way of nicknaming a new writer after one of his most celebrated predecessors whom we imagine him to resemble, and then we find fault with him for not having all the qualities of an author whom he probably has no desire to imitate.  False friends of T.W.  Robertson called him the “modern Sheridan.”  Few writers are more dissimilar.  Robertson in his dialogue and construction imitated the modern French dramatists; Sheridan, the old English, Congreve, Farquhar and Wycherley.  Robertson especially delighted in love-scenes—­there are generally two at least in each of his comedies:  I cannot remember one in any of Sheridan’s.  The dialogue of the author of the School for Scandal is artificial and glittering—­that of the author of School is generally more natural, and always less brilliant.  They have, however, one point in common:  they both practiced Moliere’s maxim, Je prends mon bien ou je le trouve.  They both unhesitatingly plagiarized.  Robertson in particular easily assimilated foreign matter.  He turned Le Degel and Les Ganaches of M. Sardou into A Rapid Thaw and Progress. David Garrick was taken from Dr. Robin, a French play, itself imitated from the German. Home closely follows L’Aventuriere of M. Emile Augier.  Madame de Girardin’s La Joie fait peur, previously translated by Mr. G.H.  Lewes as Sunshine through the Clouds, gave Robertson the situation of the last act of War:  Mr. Dion Boucicault has since deftly adapted the same delightful little piece under the name of Kerry, or Night and Morning.  The Cinderella-like plot of School is taken from the Aschenbroedel of Roderick Benedix:  the school examination was suggested by a French vaudeville, En classe, mesdemoiselles! The part of Beau Farintosh is a weak revival of Garrick’s Lord Chalkstone and Colman and Garrick’s Lord Ogleby; and the strong situation in the fourth act is imitated from Les Beaux Messieurs de Bois-Dore of George Sand.