original unfitness for an English stage, and the difficulty of making
it otherwise--a difficulty which once appeared so formidable, that I
seriously thought I must have declined it even after I had proceeded
some length in the undertaking.

Independently of objections to the character of the Count, the
dangerous insignificance of the Butler, in the original, embarrassed me
much. I found, if he was retained in the _Dramatis Personae_,
something more must be supplied than the author had assigned him: I
suggested the verses I have introduced; but not being blessed with the
Butler's happy art of rhyming, I am indebted for them, except the
seventh and eleventh stanzas in the first of his poetic stories, to the
author of the prologue.

The part of Amelia has been a very particular object of my solicitude
and alteration: the same situations which the author gave her remain,
but almost all the dialogue of the character I have changed: the
forward and unequivocal manner in which she announces her affection to
her lover, in the original, would have been revolting to an English
audience: the passion of love, represented on the stage, is certain to
be insipid or disgusting, unless it creates smiles or tears: Amelia's
love, by Kotzebue, is indelicately blunt, and yet void of mirth or
sadness: I have endeavoured to attach the attention and sympathy of
the audience by whimsical insinuations, rather than coarse
abruptness--the same woman, I conceive, whom the author drew, with the
self-same sentiments, but with manners adapted to the English rather
than the German taste; and if the favour in which this character is
held by the audience, together with every sentence and incident which I
have presumed to introduce in the play, may be offered as the criterion
of my skill, I am sufficiently rewarded for the task I have performed.