11/47 The composition of _Strafford_ had not only "freshened a jaded mind" but permanently quickened his zest for the drama of political crises. New projects for historical dramas chased and jostled one another through his busy brain, which seems to have always worked most prosperously in a highly charged atmosphere. thinking a Tragedy," he wrote characteristically to Miss Haworth--"(an Historical one, so I shall want heaps of criticisms on _Strafford_), and I want to have _another_ tragedy in prospect; I write best so provided."[16] [Footnote 16: Orr, _Life_, p. 103.] The "Historical Tragedies" here foreshadowed, _King Victor and King Charles_ and _The Return of the Druses_, were eventually published as the Second and Fourth of the _Bells and Pomegranates_, in 1842-43. |