Autograph letter signed : London, to William Woodfall, 1800 February 17.

Concerning a play in production and other matters related to their mutual interest in the theatre; relating the departure of Miss Griffith from his company saying "Entre Nous, Miss Griffith's departure has created just such a cavity in my Company as the drawing a softer look makes in a man's head. The Evil has been so intolerable that the hole produced by its extrication, is a mere nothing. - I have, however (to follow this illusion dentistical) already transplanted better...for having taken out Miss Griffith, I have stuck in Mrs. Mountain; - & my Set is now complete. I am no better a Judge of Musick, Vocal or Instrumental, than you confess yourself to be; - but, as all dramatick Musicals, to be effective, might go to the 'ad captandum vulgus', &, as at least, two thirds of the audience, in the English Theatre, have ears as inelegant as ours, I think we may pass, after all, for so very bad Criticks on the Subject. I have not, yet, seen Morton's Play; but I have heard, every where, favourable accounts of it. Your account gives me a perfect idea of the kind of Piece I am to see. - I think he is, 'longo intervallo', before the Pecus of Dramatists; & his stealing from them, as your state, puts me in mind of Fielding's Jonathan Wild, - who had such an itch for thieving, that he could not refrain from diving into his Friend's pockets, although he was certain to find nothing in them. Emery I have engaged for his utility. - In my small kitchen (I would it were not altogether so hot) he will, I think, make a very good under-cook. - I have not enter'd a Winter Theatre this year. - Of the 'Wise Man of the East', therefore, & 'Joanna', I know nothing - but from report: - & reports are sometimes, as in these cases, unsavoury! As to Pizarro, - I remember when I was a Schoolboy blowing water out of window through a Tobacco-Pipe - & it was curious, sometimes, to see how long the bubble would float before it burst! - When are we to meet? - if not soon, by accident, let us be inveterate against chance, & meet in spite of it. That is, let us eat a Mutton chop together, by appointment."