Page:Table-Talk, vol. 2 (1822).djvu/170

 whether the long tedious opera of the Travellers, which preceded it, had not tired people beforehand, so that they had not spirits left for the quaint and sparkling “wit skirmishes” of the dialogue, and we all agreed it might have gone down after a tragedy, except L himself, who swore he had no hopes of it from the beginning, and that he knew the name of the hero when it came to be discovered could not be got over.—Mr. H, thou wert damned! Bright shone the morning on the play-bills that announced thy appearance, and the streets were filled with the buzz of persons asking one another if they would go to see Mr. H, and answering that they would certainly: but before night the gaiety, not of the author, but of his friends and the town was eclipsed, for thou were damned! Hadst thou been anonymous, thou haply mightst have lived. But thou didst come to an untimely end for thy tricks, and for want of a better name to pass them off!

In this manner we go back to the critical minutes on which the turn of our fate, or that of any one else in whom we are interested, depended; try them over again with new knowledge and sharpened sensibility; and thus think to alter what is irrevocable, and ease for a mo-