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89, STRAND, LONDON.

OR THE

PLEDGE OF HONOUR.

A Play,

IN FIVE ACTS.

FROM

VICTOR HUGO.

BY

JAMES KENNEY,

AUTHOR OF

Raising the Wind, Beneyowski, Fighting by Proxy, Irish Ambassador,
King's Seal, Not a Word, Masaniello, The World, A Good Looking
Fellow, Mackintosh & Co, Black Domino, Matrimony, Too Many
Cooks, Ella Rosenberg, False Alarms, Debtor and Creditor,
Match Breaking, John Buzzby, Portfolio, Touchstone,
Alcaide, Illustrions Stranger, House out of Windows,
Sicilian Vespers, Turn Out, Love Law and
Physic, Spring and Autumn, Sweethearts and
Wives, etc., etc., etc.

WITH THE ORIGINAL PREFACE.

THOMAS HAILES LACY

89, STRAND, LONDON.

OR THE

PLEDGE OF HONOUR.

First Performed at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, (under the management of Mr. Price,) on April 8, 1831.

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CONSPIRATORS, LORDS, LADIES, PAGES, GUARDS,

ETC., ETC., ETC.

REMARKS.

Ir is well known that the following drama is a free version of Monsieur 'Victor Hugo's "Hernani." The task of adapting that extraordinary production to the English stage was neither obvious nor easy; but the original being well known among the amateurs of the French drama, and having experienced from the press the greatest candour and forwardness in acknowledging such claims as I have on the merits of the English play, I am spared all anxiety in asserting them. The difficulties I have had in producing this play on the stage, have also been so much a subject of public animadversion, that here to pass them over in silence, would seem, improperly, to disown them-I say improperly, for reasons which I shall afterwards explain, first briefly stating my case.

After the warmest reception of the play, on due perusal by the gentleman officially appointed by the manager, as the umpire of its merits, and a consequent promise to perform it immediately after having been, in the month of October, read in the green-room, and the parts distributed, the representation was delayed during a period of six months, in the course of which time I was amused with promises repeatedly broken, discourteously avoided by the manager when I sought to remonstrate, and when by dint of perseverance I succeeded in doing so, my wrongs were constantly laid to the charge of others, whom I cannot publicly implicate on such doubtful testimony. At all events, the manager alone is responsible to me, to protect and see justice done to a production which he has deliberately accepted, which he might thereby prevent, and in fact did prevent, my taking to another theatre, whence an offer, as he knew, had come to me, to purchase my play outright, provided I had cousidered myself free to entertain it. The manager, who tells me he is, in such a case, guided and influenced by opinions at variance with his own, or those he has thought proper to adopt as better than his own, especially when there is good reason to question the impartiality of those opinions, offers me a poor excuse for his injustice in such a declaration of his helplessness and misgovernment. I repeatedly, and most ingenuously, both by letter and otherwise, offered to withdraw my play in case the first impression of the manager, from whatever caase, had undergone such a change as to induce this continued postponement, or to affect its getting up in a fair and handsome manner, without which his evil anticipations would be in imminent danger of fulfilling themselves. He replied he had no wish to part with it, and that he would take care it should receive every justice. Yet this, it appears, he could say only from fear of making a mistake, which he might discover in its success at a rival theatre, for of his liberality and attention to the preparation of the play when it was got up, the following instances are curious and worth recording.

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