“Mirror.” He had better luck with another comedy, successively entitled “Dying for Him,” “The Usurer Matched,” and “Tortesa the Usurer,” based on the Florentine story of Genevra d’Amori and written with more care than his two previous attempts. He prepared the way for its representation by printing four installments of it in the “Mirror;” and about a year after the first of these appeared it was put on at the National, April 8, 1839, with Wallack cast for Tortesa, the principal character. It ran four times the first week, and kept the stage to the 20th, “being received,” said the “Mirror,” “with acclamations by one of the most crowded and fashionable audiences ever assembled within the walls of a theatre.” In spite of this glowing language, “Tortesa” seems to have had a _succès d’estime_ merely. Wallack had agreed to pay the author one half the proceeds of the fourth, ninth, thirteenth, and eighteenth nights, after deducting $300 each night for expenses. If it was produced in England, Willis was to have one third of the proceeds of the fourth, eighth, and twelfth performances there. Wallack did bring it out at the Surrey Theatre in London, in August of this same year. Willis was in England at the time and wrote to Dr. Porter that it had had “a splendid run--crammed houses every night.” It shared the honors of the “first night” with Willis’s old adversary, Captain Marryat, whose “Phantom Ship” was the afterpiece. All this brought the author nothing but empty glory, as Wallack was distressed for money and could not afford to pay him his one third share of the profits. “So I gave it up,” wrote Willis, “and he pocketed the whole. By the way,” he adds, “I have two more nights at the National which I authorize you to look after and receive for me. The thirteenth and eighteenth representations remain for me. Will you see if you can get Kean or Vandenhoff in for Angelo on those nights? I have seen a great deal of Kean since I have been here, and he is truly a good fellow and a great actor. He breakfasted with us a day or two ago and Mary was very much interested that he should do well in America. I have given Vandenhoff ‘Bianca’ for himself and daughter to play in America. She is a fine, handsome girl, but I have not seen her play.”