In the following Play I have, without any such praiseworthy intuition on my own part, obeyed to the very letter the well-known Horatian precept——"keep your piece nine years!"

Unforeseen as it was however, such an obstacle unfortunately arose. Mr. Colman did object not to the details or the execution of the piece but to the title and the subject, and as the Duke of Montrose, the then Lord Chamberlain confirmed the decision of his "Reader of Plays" we submitted to the fiat without complaint though not without remonstrance, and the Tragedy instead of being produced at Covent Garden eight seasons ago, has remained unacted and unpublished, with little apparent chance of representation, until the spirited managers of the Victoria Theatre applied to me for permission to bring it forward on a stage honourably distinguished in this age of opera and spectacle by its encouragement of the legitimate drama.

That Mr. Colman's scruples arose from no ill-will to the writer, but were the offspring of an honest timidity, an over-zealous fear, I do not for a moment question. A Licenser must needs be somewhat of an alarmist in virtue of his office. But he who apprehends danger to the Monarchy from the representation of this Play, because it embodies the trial and condemnation of Charles the First, will do well to suppress, if he can, the striking narrative of Hume. In the present universal diffusion of literature and general knowledge, the Stage has lost much of its ancient influence over the feelings and passions of the multitude. That democratic engine the Press, has swept away the regal supremacy of the drama. And even if the theatre were as powerful as in the days of old,—if the tendency of this Play were revolutionary, which I deny,—and if Cromwells were "plenty as blackberries," which I must be permitted to doubt,—against such a King as William the Fourth, their shafts would fall harmless. The Monarch who has earned, as he has done, the honest love of a whole people, may defy the subtlest attacks of fanaticism and rebellion.

Of the tragedy, considered as a literary production, I shall say little; that is before the reader, and must speak for itself. No one can be more conscious than I am of its deficiencies; but great as those faults may be, they are not the result of negligence or carelessness. It would be the worst of all pedantries, female pedantry, were I to enumerate the very many contemporary writers, the Histories, Memoirs, Narratives, and State Papers, the Roundhead Sermons and Cavalier Ballads from which I have endeavored to gather not merely an accurate outline of this great event, but those minute and apparently trifling touches which might serve to realize the scene, and supply, by a vivid impression of the people and the time, the usual sources of dramatic attraction, the interest of story and suspense, from which I was cut off by the nature of my subject.

Many of these allusions, those for instance to the papers concealed in the stuffing of the saddle,—to the sowing of the melon seeds,—to Charles's constant perusal of Shakespeare whilst in prison, so prettily recorded by Milton, and to the falling of the head of the king's staff in the trial scene,—are mentioned by the best writers, and will be immediately recognized by all who are any ways conversant with the histories of the time.

The materials of the scene of signing the warrant, in which I believe that I have given from the marking of Marten's cheek to the guiding of Ingoldsby's hand, a very faithful version of what actually occurred, are chiefly taken from the Defences of the Trials of the Regicides. It is certain that the Judges, after the condemnation, were panic-struck at their own act; and that but for an extraordinary exertion of his singular power over the mind of all with whom he came in contact, Cromwell would never have succeeded in obtaining the signatures of the Commissioners of the High Court of Justice to an instrument essential to the completion of this great national crime, and to the purposes of his own ambition.

I am not aware of having in any material point departed from the truth of History, except in shortening the trial, in bringing the Queen to England, and in assigning to Henrietta the interruption of the sentence which was actually occasioned by Lady Fairfax; deviations, which were vitally necessary to the effect of the drama. I have some doubts also whether Cromwell did really get rid of Fairfax by dismissing him and Harrison to "seek the Lord together." Hume tells the story confidently; but Hume, although the most delightful, is by no means the most accurate of historians; and the manner in which we are, by the casual mention of cotemporary writers, as well as by the evidence on the different trials enabled to account for almost every instance of Cromwell's time during that eventful morning, goes far in my mind to disprove the circumstance. But the incident is highly dramatic, and so strictly in keeping with the characters of all parties, that I have no scruple in assuming it as a fact. The thing might have happened, if it did not, and that is excuse enough for the dramatist, although not for the historian.