"If you want to have a notion of what I am trying, take up a _translation_ of any of the _Greek_ tragedians. If I said the original, it would be an impudent presumption of mine; but the translations are so inferior to the originals, that I think I may risk it Then judge of the 'simplicity of plot,' &c. and do not judge me by your old mad dramatists, which is like drinking usquebaugh and then proving a fountain. Yet after all, I suppose that you do not mean that spirits is a nobler element than a clear spring bubbling in the sun? and this I take to be the difference between the Greeks and those turbid mountebanks--always excepting Ben Jonson, who was a scholar and a classic. Or, take up a translation of Alfieri, and try the interest, &c. of these my new attempts in the old line, by _him_ in _English_; and then tell me fairly your opinion. But don't measure me by YOUR OWN _old_ or _new_ tailors' yards. Nothing so easy as intricate confusion of plot and rant. Mrs. Centlivre, in comedy, has _ten times the bustle of Congreve_; but are they to be compared? and yet she drove Congreve from the theatre." * * * * * LETTER 406. TO MR. MURRAY. "Ravenna, January 19. 1821. "Yours of the 29th ultimo hath arrived. I must, really and seriously request that you will beg of Messrs. Harris or Elliston to let the Doge alone: it is _not_ an acting play; it will not serve _their_ purpose; it will destroy _yours_ (the sale); and it will distress me. It is not courteous, it is hardly even gentlemanly, to persist in this appropriation of a man's writings to their mountebanks. "I have already sent you by last post a short protest[28] to the public (against this proceeding); in case that _they_ persist, which I trust that they will not, you must then publish it in the newspapers. I shall not let them off with that only, if they go on; but make a longer appeal on that subject, and state what I think the injustice of their mode of behaviour. It is hard that I should have all the buffoons in Britain to deal with--_pirates_ who _will_ publish, and _players_ who _will_ act--when there are thousands of worthy men who can get neither bookseller nor manager for love nor money.