employed to overcome his reluctance. The great Mr. Pitt was prevailed on to read the play, and to pronounce in its favour. Lord Coventry exerted all his influence with the coy manager. Yet not until Lady Coventry herself had joined her solicitations to those of her husband was ‘Virginia’ put in rehearsal at Drury Lane. The piece was produced in February, 1754, and ran several nights, buoyed up by the acting and popularity of Garrick, who contributed a remarkably good epilogue.[8] But no patronage or support could keep alive a drama which, in truth, had neither poetical merit nor the qualities of a good acting play to recommend it. ‘Virginia’ was very soon withdrawn, and, as usual, the writer, while cruelly mortified by his failure, attributed it to every cause but the right one. Lord Coventry advised alterations, which Crisp hastened to execute, but Garrick, though civil, was determined that so ineffective a muse should not again cumber his stage. His firmness, of course, cost him the friendship of the ungrateful Crisp, who, conscious of considerable powers, and unable to perceive that he had mistaken their proper application, inveighed with equal bitterness against manager, performers, and the public, and in sore dudgeon betook himself across the sea to Italy. Macaulay, indeed, will have it that his disappointment ruined his temper and spirits, and turned him into ‘a cynic, and a hater of mankind.’ But in this, as in too many of the essayist’s trenchant statements, something of accuracy is sacrificed for the sake of effect. Crisp appears to have enjoyed himself not a little in Italy, and on his return, though he did not again settle in London, he fixed his first abode as near to it as the courtly village of Hampton, where he furnished a small house, filling it with pictures, statuary, and musical instruments, as became a man of taste. Far from shunning society in this luxurious retreat, he entertained so many guests there that his hospitality in a short time made a serious inroad on his small fortune. Chagrin at his imprudence brought on a severe attack of gout; and then it was that, broken alike in health and finances, he resolved on secluding himself from the world. Having sold his villa and its contents, he removed a few miles off to a solitary mansion belonging to an old friend, Christopher Hamilton, who, like himself, had lost the battle of life, and desired to be considered as dead to mankind.