Let me hark back a little to recall an evening in the previous Lyceum season when I was fortunate enough to hear Ellen Terry's thrilling rendering of the one character in Monk Lewis's dramatic poem, "The Captive." This strange writer, with his skulls and his crossbones, his coffins and shrouds, his ghosts and his goblins, is rarely read now; but for the sake of the actress's performance in it this weird piece of work was well worth revival. In the memoirs of Lewis we come across a letter written to his mother in 1803, just before the first performance of "The Captive." "The 'monodrama' (as he called it) 'comes out,' he says, on Tuesday. I have not yet been at a single rehearsal. It cannot possibly succeed." In one way it did succeed. At Covent Garden Mrs. Litchfield (a famous actress in her day) recited the fearsome lines allotted to the wretched maniac prisoner. The character is that of a mad-woman, and Mrs. Litchfield's embodiment of the author's horrible imaginings, combined with the scenic effects and other startling appearances which, with his usual skill, he introduced into the piece, threw a portion of the audience--whose nerves were unable to withstand the dreadful truth of the language--into hysterics, and the whole theatre into confusion and horror. Never, it is said, did Covent Garden present such an appearance of agitation and dismay. Ladies bathed in tears, others fainting, and some shrieking with terror--while such of the audience who were able to avoid demonstrations like these sat aghast with pale horror painted on their countenances. In another letter to his mother, Lewis says: "The papers will have already informed you that the monodrama has failed. It proved much too terrible for representation, and two people went into hysterics during the performance, and two more after the curtain dropped. It was given out again with a mixture of applause and disapprobation, but I immediately withdrew the piece. In fact, the subject (which was merely a picture of madness) was so uniformly distressing to the feelings that at last I felt my own a little painfully, and as to Mrs. Litchfield she almost fainted away. I did not expect that it would succeed, and of course am not disappointed at its failure. The only chance was whether pity would make the audience weep, but instead of that terror threw them into fits, and of course there was an end of my monodrama." At the Lyceum Ellen Terry brought about no such scene as that created by Mrs. Litchfield at Covent Garden. It is true that she harrowed as well as held her audience, and that the memory of her acting must haunt all who witnessed this bold venture; but her art was delicate as well as intense, and she was able to draw those tears so desired by the author. It is a pity that he could not see his "monodrama" at the Lyceum in 1880.