Title:  Critical Strictures on the New Tragedy of Elvira, Written by Mr. David Malloch (1763)

Author:  James Boswell, Andrew Erskine and George Dempster

Release Date:  May 18, 2005 [EBook #15857]

Language:  English

Character set encoding:  ASCII

*** Start of this project gutenberg EBOOK critical strictures ***

Produced by David Starner, Clare Boothby and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team.

         The Augustan Reprint Society

James Boswell, Andrew Erskine, and George Dempster

Critical Strictures on the New Tragedy of Elvira,
        Written by Mr. David Malloch

(1763)

With an Introduction by Frederick A. Pottle

Publication Number 35

Los Angeles
William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
University of California
1952

* * * * *

GENERAL EDITORS

H. Richard Archer, Clark Memorial Library
Richard C. Boys, University of Michigan
Robert S. Kinsman, University of California, Los Angeles
John Loftis, University of California, Los Angeles

ASSISTANT EDITOR

  W. Earl Britton, University of Michigan

ADVISORY EDITORS

  Emmett L. Avery, State College of Washington
  Benjamin Boyce, Duke University
  Louis BREDVOLD, University of Michigan
  James L. Clifford, Columbia University
  Arthur Friedman, University of Chicago
  EDWARD NILES HOOKER, University of California, Los Angeles
  LOUIS A. LANDA, Princeton University
  SAMUEL H. MONK, University of Minnesota
  ERNEST MOSSNER, University of Texas
  JAMES SUTHERLAND, University College, London
  H.T.  SWEDENBERG, JR., University of California, Los Angeles

CORRESPONDING SECRETARY

  EDNA C. DAVIS, Clark Memorial Library

* * * * *

INTRODUCTION

“WEDNESDAY 19 JANUARY [1763].  This was a day eagerly expected by Dempster, Erskine, and I, as it was fixed as the period of our gratifying a whim proposed by me:  which was that on the first day of the new Tragedy called Elvira’s being acted, we three should walk from the one end of London to the other, dine at Dolly’s, & be in the Theatre at night; & as the Play would probably be bad, and as Mr. David Malloch, the Author, who has changed his name to David Mallet, Esq., was an arrant Puppy, we determined to exert ourselves in damning it."[1]