After the failure of his luckless farce, "Mr. H.," Charles Lamb wrote
to Wordsworth: "A hundred hisses (hang the word! I wrote it like
_kisses_--how different!), a hundred hisses outweigh a thousand claps.
The former come more directly from the heart." The reception of the
little play had been of a disastrous kind, and Lamb, sitting in the
front row of the pit, is said to have joined in condemning his own
work, and to have hissed and hooted as loudly as any of his
neighbours. "I had many fears; the subject was not substantial enough.
John Bull must have solider fare than a letter. We are pretty stout
about it; have had plenty of condoling friends; but, after all, we had
rather it should have succeeded. You will see the prologue in most of
the morning papers. It was received with such shouts as I never
witnessed to a prologue. It was attempted to be encored.... The
quantity of friends we had in the house--my brother and I being in
public offices, &c.--was astonishing, but they yielded at last to a
few hisses." "Mr. H." could probably in no case have achieved any
great success, but it may be that its failure was precipitated by the
indiscreet cordiality of its author's "quantity of friends.
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