eccentric character parts, and produced scene after scene of
furious harlequinade with the monarch as clown, and of tragic
relief in the torture chamber with the monarch as pantomime demon
committing real atrocities, not forgetting the indispensable love
interest on an enormous and utterly indecorous scale. Catherine
kept this vast Guignol Theatre open for nearly half a century,
not as a Russian, but as a highly domesticated German lady whose
household routine was not at all so unlike that of Queen Victoria
as might be expected from the difference in their notions of
propriety in sexual relations.

In short, if Byron leaves you with an impression that he said
very little about Catherine, and that little not what was best
worth saying, I beg to correct your impression by assuring you
that what Byron said was all there really is to say that is worth
saying. His Catherine is my Catherine and everybody's Catherine.
The young man who gains her favor is a Spanish nobleman in his
version. I have made him an English country gentleman, who gets
out of his rather dangerous scrape, by simplicity, sincerity, and
the courage of these qualities. By this I have given some offence
to the many Britons who see themselves as heroes: what they mean
by heroes being theatrical snobs of superhuman pretensions which,
though quite groundless, are admitted with awe by the rest of the
human race. They say I think an Englishman a fool. When I do,
they have themselves to thank.

I must not, however, pretend that historical portraiture was the
motive of a play that will leave the reader as ignorant of
Russian history as he may be now before he has turned the page.
Nor is the sketch of Catherine complete even idiosyncratically,