This ceaseless dreary sound of { [*water-drops*] { dropping water I would they had not fallen upon my Torch! After the lapse of sixteen years Coleridge may have confused the corrected version with the original. There is no MS. authority for the line as quoted in the Preface. [814:1] 'This circumstance.' Second edition. [814:2] The caste was as follows:--_Marquis Valdez_, Mr. Pope; _Don Alvar_, Mr. Elliston; _Don Ordonio_, Mr. Rae; _Monviedro_, Mr. Powell; _Zulimez_, Mr. Crooke; _Isidore_, Mr. De Camp; _Naomi_, Mr. Wallack; _Donna Teresa_, Miss Smith; _Alhadra_, Mrs. Glover. [814:3] Mrs. G.'s eldest child was buried on the Thursday--two others were ill, and one, with croup given over (tho' it has since recovered) and spite of her's, the physician's and my most passionate remonstrances, she was forced to act Alhadra on the Saturday!!! Mrs. Glover (I do not much like her, in some respects) was duped into a marriage with a worthless Sharper, who passed himself off on her as a man of rank and fortune and who now lives and feeds himself and his vices on her salary--and hence all her affections flow in the channel of her maternal feelings. She is a passionately fond mother, and to act Alhadra on the Saturday after the Thursday's Burial! _MS. H_. (For _MS. H_ _see_ p. 819.) [815:1] Poor Rae! a good man as Friend, Husband, Father. He did his best! but his person is so insignificant, tho' a handsome man off the stage--and, worse than that, the thinness and an insufficiency of his voice--yet Ordonio has done him service. _MS. H_. PROLOGUE BY C. LAMB[816:1] _Spoken by_ Mr. _CARR_