Drury Lane Theatre in 1812, via Wikimedia Commons
Source: Thomas Sadler (ed.), Diary, Reminiscences, and Correspondence of Henry Crabb Robinson (London: Macmillan, 1869), vol. I, pp. 406-407
Production: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Remorse, Drury Lane, London, 23 January 1813
Text: January 23rd. — In the evening at Drury Lane, to see the first performance of Coleridge’s tragedy, “Remorse.”* I sat with Amyot, the Hamonds, Godwins, &c. My interest for the play was greater than in the play, and my anxiety for its success took from me the feeling of a mere spectator. I have no hesitation in saying that its poetical is far greater than its dramatic merit, that it owes its success rather to its faults than to its beauties, and that it will have for its less meritorious qualities applause which is really due to its excellences. Coleridge’s great fault is that he indulges before the public in those metaphysical and philosophical speculations which are becoming only in solitude or with select minds. His two principal characters are philosophers of Coleridge’s own school; the one a sentimental moralist, the other a sophisticated villain — both are dreamers. Two experiments made by Alvez on his return, the one on his mistress by relating a dream, and the other when he tries to kindle remorse in the breast of Ordonio, are too fine-spun to be intelligible. However, in spite of these faults, of the improbability of the action, of the clumsy contrivance with the picture, and the too ornate and poetic diction throughout, the tragedy was received with great and almost unmixed applause, and was announced for repetition without any opposition.
* Coleridge had complained to me of the way in which Sheridan spoke in company of his tragedy. He told me that Sheridan had said that in the original copy there was in the famous cave scene this line, —
“Drip! Drip! Drip! There’s nothing here but dripping.”
However, there was every disposition to do justice to it on the stage, nor were the public unfavourably disposed towards it.
Comments: Henry Crabb Robinson (1775-1867) was an English lawyer and diarist, whose published journals document his acquaintance with literary figures of the period and refer regularly to theatre productions that he saw. Samuel Taylor Coleridge (with whom Robinson was well acquainted) wrote a blank verse tragedy set in 16th-century Moorish Granada, entitled Osorio, in 1797. It was rejected by Drury Lane Theatre, then managed by Richard Sheridan, and went unperformed. Coleridge revised the play, and under the new title of Remorse it was put on at Drury Lane in 1813 where it was a success, enjoying twenty performances between January and May.
Links: Copy at the Internet Archive
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