its author. All the gold has his head on it. To be sure, there is plenty of
gold; and I wish somebody would put his scores of plays, big and little,
into a kind of wine-press and give us the wine. There is always the wit of
the man, whether the play be "Gertrude's Cherries," or "The Smoked Mixer,"
or "Fifteen Years of a Drunkard's Life,"--or what not. _That_ quality never
failed him. He dresses up all his characters in that brilliant livery. But
dialogue is not enough for the stage, and compared with the attraction of
an intense action is nothing. Besides, Jerrold found the modern taste for
spectacle forming thirty years ago. In his prefaces he complains bitterly
of the preference of the public for the mechanical over the higher
attractions of the art. And the satirical war he waged against actors
and managers showed that he looked back with little pleasure to the days
when his life was chiefly occupied with them and their affairs. It may be
mentioned here, that he was very shabbily treated by several people who
owed fame and fortune to his genius. I have heard a curious story about his
connection with Davidge, manager of the Surrey,--the original, as I take
it, of his Bajazet Gay. They say that he had used Douglas very ill,--that
Douglas invoked this curse upon him,--"that he might live to keep his
carriage, and yet not be able to ride in it,"--and that it was fulfilled,
curiously, to the letter. The ancient gods, we know, took the comic poet
under their protection and avenged him. Was this a case of the kind,--or
but a flying false anecdote? I would not be certain;--but at least,
when Davidge died one evening, and Douglas was informed of the hour, he
remarked, "I did not think he would have died before the half-price came
in!" Sordid fellows are not safe from genius even in the grave. It spoils
their sepulchral monuments,--as the old heralds tore the armorial blazonry
from plebeian tombs.

His first fame and success, however, were owing to the Drama; and though
his non-dramatic labors were greater and still more successful, he never