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STORIES OF
possibilities of a drama in the story of the song ; but during his lifetime a fellow-dramatist, Charles Somerset, turned it to account, and produced at the Garrick Theatre, Whitechapel, in 1834, a melodrama in two acts, entitled, " The Mistletoe Bough; or, the Fatal Chest." Mr. Somerset's editor says that " a story in Rogers's 'Italy' produced the ballad upon which this drama is foimded," and gives an extract from the poem. He continues:" Mr. Somerset, seeing the dramatic impossibility of confining himself tothis single incident, has amplified the story by intro-ducing a variety of characters, the most promi-nent of which is a Goblin Page, a dwarfish, deformed, malignant imp of mischief. The lady dies, not by her own youthful frolic, but the vengeance of a rejected lover, who, after she has got into the chest, stabs her and closes the lid. His treachery meets with retribution. The spirit of his victim stands forth as his accuser ; and, in a paroxysm of shame, remorse, and despair, he plants a dagger in his heart!" The transpontine and cispontine dramas were nearly all built that way sixty years ago—the avenging spirit was always on top, so to speak. It is a most wonderful and weird concoction of tragedy and farce playing at hide and seek to the end. The song is introduced and sung as a " Romance
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