So with my other works: CAIN, an epic, was (save the
mark!) an imitation of SORDELLO: ROBIN HOOD, a tale in verse, took
an eclectic middle course among the fields of Keats, Chaucer and
Morris: in MONMOUTH, a tragedy, I reclined on the bosom of Mr.
Swinburne; in my innumerable gouty-footed lyrics, I followed many
masters; in the first draft of THE KING'S PARDON, a tragedy, I was
on the trail of no lesser man than John Webster; in the second
draft of the same piece, with staggering versatility, I had shifted
my allegiance to Congreve, and of course conceived my fable in a
less serious vein - for it was not Congreve's verse, it was his
exquisite prose, that I admired and sought to copy. Even at the
age of thirteen I had tried to do justice to the inhabitants of the
famous city of Peebles in the style of the BOOK OF SNOBS. So I
might go on for ever, through all my abortive novels, and down to
my later plays, of which I think more tenderly, for they were not
only conceived at first under the bracing influence of old Dumas,
but have met with resurrection: one, strangely bettered by another
hand, came on the stage itself and was played by bodily actors; the
other, originally known as SEMIRAMIS: A TRAGEDY, I have observed on
bookstalls under the ALIAS of Prince Otto. But enough has been
said to show by what arts of impersonation, and in what purely
ventriloquial efforts I first saw my words on paper.
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