I finished your sons tragedy

this evening, & am glad to perceive by it that if no luckier occupation is afforded him, authorship will not be to him, as it is to so many, – a desperate profession: & that if there is, he may still find in it an a profitable & honourable pursuit.

The play is not, I think suited for representation: & at this time there is very little likelihood that any bookseller would undertake the risk of publishing it, – the book-trade more than any other having felt the effects of that retrenchment which those who formerly had money to spare are now compelled to make. My advice to him is that he should chuse a subject adapted for the stage, where if he gets a footing, he may easily obtain a good subsistence. And I would recommend a happy catastrophe as likely to promote its success. The old mixed drama

must always be more popular, – more fitted to gratify xx a mixed audience, – more congenial in fact to general feelings, than pure tragedy, which few but the young can bear.

These are trifling faults, & easily corrected, if it were worth while. But it is better to build upon a new foundation, & chuse an unexceptionable subject. There are very serious objections to the present. The story if it were true, would be monstrous, – therefore in my judgement unfit for the stage, or for relation. But in point of fact, it is as false as the tale, still asserted by Romish writers that Henry 8 married Anna Boleyn knowing her to be his own daughter.

In every thing which regards D Carlos his father is an object of compassion, – not of hatred.

The love-story is altogether fictitious

– the Prince was much x xx such a character as the Czarewitz whom Peter the Great thought it necessary to put to death.

He meant to murder his father; – the crime was proved, – the process against him strictly legal, the sentence its necessary termination,

– & after all the Prince died in his bed, not of poison, but as there is every reason to believe, of a natural disease. You may find the whole authentic statement in Llorentes Histoire Critique de l’Inquisition d’Espagne.

Philip was an odious tyrant, but for that very reason we should be careful to do him justice. The truth is that he had some good qualities & some great ones, & that his misdeeds arose rather from the circumstances in which he was placed, than from an evil heart.

I am glad to find you in the Quarterly, – tho your object has been to bolster up one whom I consider a miserable quack;

– a writer who has advanced nothing but what had been clearly & explicitly stated before (xxx by Townsend for example in his Travels)

& has brought that forward in such a manner as to render a salutary truth offensive & danger[MS mssing] – Men who mean well, agree in feeling, however they may differ in opinion, & in opinion the longer they live the nearer they approach each other. I am putting together my views & reflections upon this & other subjects connected with the progress of society.

– & I think you will go far with me in my conclusions.