After this tragedy had been in Mr. Kemble's hands for about a year, Lamb
naturally became urgent to hear his decision upon it. Upon applying for
this he found that his play was--lost! This was at once acknowledged, and
a "courteous request made for another copy, if I had one by me." Luckily,
another copy existed. The "first runnings" of a genius were not,
therefore, altogether lost, by having been cast, without a care, into the
dusty limbo of the theatre. The other copy was at once supplied, and the
play very speedily rejected. It was afterwards facetiously brought forward
in one of the early numbers of the Edinburgh Review, and there noticed as
a rude specimen of the earliest age of the drama, "older than AEschylus!"
Lamb met these accidents of fortune manfully, and did not abstain from
exercising his own Shandean humor thereon. It must be confessed that "John
Woodvil" is not a tragedy likely to bring much success to a playhouse. It
is such a drama as a young poet, full of love for the Elizabethan writers,
and without any knowledge of the requisitions of the stage, would be
likely to produce. There is no plot; little probability in the story;
which itself is not very scientifically developed.
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