"Two or three years ago" he declared in the preface (not reprinted), "I wrote a play, about which the chief matter I much care to recollect at present is that a Pit-full of good-natured people applauded it.

Ever since I have been desirous of doing something in the same way that should better reward their attention.

What follows I mean for the first of a series of Dramatical Pieces, to come out at intervals; and I amuse myself by fancying that the cheap mode in which they appear will for once help me to a sort of Pit-audience again." But Browning's ambition for fame as a maker of plays was still keen, and nothing but a renewed invitation to write for the stage was needed to lure him back into tentative compliance with its ways.

In the course of 1841 Macready intervened with a request for another play from the author of _Strafford_.[19] Thereupon Browning produced with great rapidity _A Blot in the 'Scutcheon_.

After prolonged and somewhat sordid green-room vicissitudes, it was performed on Feb.