too little to bear his first defeat like a man. The fatal
delusion that he was a great dramatist had taken firm possession
of his mind. His failure he attributed to every cause except the
true one. He complained of the ill-will of Garrick, who appears
to have done everything that ability and zeal could do, and who,
from selfish motives, would, of course, have been well pleased if
"Virginia" had been as successful as "The Beggar's Opera." Nay,
Crisp complained of the languor of the friends whose partiality
had given him three
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benefit nights to which he had no claim. He complained of the
injustice of the spectators, when, in truth, he ought to have
been grateful for their unexampled patience. He lost his temper
and spirits, and became a cynic and a hater of mankind. From
London be retired to Hampton, and from Hampton to a solitary and
long-deserted mansion, built on a common in one of the wildest
tracts of Surrey.(10) No road, not even a sheepwalk, connected
his lonely dwelling with the abodes of men. The place of his
retreat was strictly concealed from his old associates. In the
spring, he sometimes emerged, and was seen at exhibitions and
concerts in London. But he soon disappeared and hid himself,
with no society but his books, in his dreary hermitage. He
survived his failure about thirty years. A new generation sprang
up around him. No memory of his bad verses remained among men.
His very name was forgotten. How completely the world had lost
sight of him will appear from a single circumstance. We looked
for his name in a copious Dictionary of Dramatic Authors
published while he was still alive, and we found only that Mr.
Samuel Crisp, of the Custom-house, had written a play called