'Excluded as it were by the pride, luxury, and caprice of the world from expanding my sensations, and wedding my soul to society, I was constrained to bestow the strong affections that glowed consciously within me upon a few. My mother and sister had a large share of them. To skreen them from the indigence, obscurity, and neglect, to which without my aid they must be doomed, was a hope that encouraged me in the bold project I had conceived. 'I determined to dedicate myself to literature, poetry, and particularly to the stage. Essays of the dramatic kind indeed had been made by me very early. At length, I undertook a tragedy; as a work which, if accomplished with the degree of perfection that I hoped it would be, must at once establish my true rank in society, relieve the wants of my family, and be a passport for me to every man of worth and understanding in the world. How little did I know the world! Fond fool! Over credulous idiot! What cares the world for the toils and struggles, the restless days and sleepless nights of the man of genius! I am ashamed to think I could be so miserably mistaken! 'The ardour with which I began my work, the deep consideration I gave to every character, the strong emotions I felt while composing it, the minute attention I paid to all its parts, and the intense labour I bestowed in planning, writing, correcting, and completing it, were such as I believed must insure success. 'Surely mankind can be but little aware of the uncommon anxieties, pains, and talents that must contribute to the production of such a work; or their reception of it, when completed, would be very different! They would not suffer, surely they would not, as they so frequently do, this or that senseless blockhead to frustrate the labour of years, blast the poet's hopes, and render the birth of genius abortive! 'My tragedy at length was written; and by some small number, whose judgment I consulted, was approved: never indeed with that enthusiasm which I, perhaps the overweening author, imagined it must have excited; but it was approved. "I was a young man of some merit; it was more than they had expected." Nay, I have met with some liberal critics, who have appeared modestly to doubt whether they themselves should have written better! 'Before I made the experiment, I had supposed that every man, whose wealth or power gave him influence in society, would start up, the moment it was known that an obscure individual, the usher of a school, had written a tragedy; not only to protect and produce it to the world, but to applaud and honour the author! Would secure him from the possibility of want, load him with every token of respect, and affectionately clasp him to their bosom! The indifference and foolish half-faced kind of wonder, as destitute of feeling as of understanding, with which it was received, by the persons on whom I had depended for approbation and support, did more than astonish me; it pained, disgusted, and jaundiced my mind!