University of Virginia Library

Dear Sir,

Your present situation, in which, happily for the professors of the drama, and to the general satisfaction of the public, you have succeeded two of the greatest Geniuses this age has produced, renders the addressing any thing in a dramatic form to you a sort of indispensable propriety; but it is not your situation that exacts this tribute: the esteem, and real affection, I have many years had for yourself, are the only motives which induce me thus publickly to boast the honour of your friendship;

to commit the following pages to your protection; to embrace this opportunity of informing those (if there are any) who do not know it, that your private virtues are as eminent as your public merits; and to subscribe myself,