“Will you and Rogers come to my box at Covent, then?  I shall be there, and none else—­or I won’t be there, if you twain would like to go without me.  You will not get so good a place hustling among the publican boxers, with damnable apprentices (six feet high) on a back row.  Will you both oblige me and come,—­or one—­or neither—­or, what you will?

     “P.S.  An’ you will, I will call for you at half-past six, or any
     time of your own dial.”

* * * * *

TO MR. MOORE.

“I have gotten a box for Othello to-night, and send the ticket for your friends the R——­fes.  I seriously recommend to you to recommend to them to go for half an hour, if only to see the third act—­they will not easily have another opportunity.  We—­at least, I—­cannot be there, so there will be no one in their way.  Will you give or send it to them? it will come with a better grace from you than me.

     “I am in no good plight, but will dine at * ’s with you, if I can. 
     There is music and Covent-g.

     “Will you go, at all events, to my box there afterwards, to see a
     debut of a young 16[33] in the ‘Child of Nature?’”

[Footnote 33:  Miss Foote’s first appearance, which we witnessed together.]

* * * * *

TO MR. MOORE.

     “Sunday matin.

     “Was not Iago perfection? particularly the last look.  I was close
     to him (in the orchestra), and never saw an English countenance
     half so expressive.

“I am acquainted with no immaterial sensuality so delightful as good acting; and, as it is fitting there should be good plays, now and then, besides Shakspeare’s, I wish you or Campbell would write one:—­the rest of ‘us youth’ have not heart enough.

“You were cut up in the Champion—­is it not so? this day so am I—­even to shocking the editor.  The critic writes well; and as, at present, poesy is not my passion predominant, and my snake of Aaron has swallowed up all the other serpents, I don’t feel fractious.  I send you the paper, which I mean to take in for the future.  We go to M.’s together.  Perhaps I shall see you before, but don’t let me bore you, now nor ever.

     “Ever, as now, truly and affectionately,” &c.

* * * * *

TO MR. MOORE.

     “May 5. 1814.

“Do you go to the Lady Cahir’s this even?  If you do—­and whenever we are bound to the same follies—­let us embark in the same ’Shippe of Fooles.’  I have been up till five, and up at nine; and feel heavy with only winking for the last three or four nights.

“I lost my party and place at supper trying to keep out of the way of * * * *.  I would have gone away altogether, but that would have appeared a worse affectation than t’other.  You are of course engaged to dinner, or we may go quietly together to my box at Covent Garden, and afterwards to this assemblage.  Why did you go away so soon?

     “Ever, &c.