ABSTRACT
These are qualities that seldom, at first starting, make their way in the world, more especially the world theatrical. And we are not sanguine of the chances of continued patronage to the Blot in the ‘Scutcheon. People are already finding out, we see, that there is a great deal that is equivocal in its sentiment, a vast quantity of mere artifice in its situations, and in its general composition not much to ‘touch humanity.’ We do not pretend to know what should touch humanity, beyond that which touches our own hearts, but we would give little for the feelings of the man who could read this tragedy without a deep emotion. It is very sad; painfully and perhaps needlessly so; but it is unutterably tender, passionate, and true. It is not copied from this or that existing notion; it is not moulded on this or the other of the old authors; it is the growth of the writer’s heart, and has the distinct truth, the animated pathos, the freshness and unexaggerated strength, which spring in that soil alone.
