"Keep _my name_ a _secret_; or I shall be beset by all the rejected, and, perhaps, damned by a party."
"Ecco!--I have marked some passages with _double_ readings--choose between them--_cut_--_add_--_reject_--or _destroy_--do with them as you will--I leave it to you and the Committee--you cannot say so called 'a _non committendo_.' What will _they_ do (and I do) with the hundred and one rejected Troubadours? 'With trumpets, yea, and with shawms,' will you be assailed in the most diabolical doggerel. I wish my name not to transpire till the day is decided. I shall not be in town, so it won't much matter; but let us have a good _deliverer_. I think Elliston should be the man, or Pope; _not_ Raymond, I implore you, by the love of Rhythmus!
"The passages marked thus ==, above and below, are for you to choose between epithets, and such like poetical furniture. Pray write me a line, and believe me ever, &c.
"My best remembrances to Lady H. Will you be good enough to decide between the various readings marked, and erase the other; or our deliverer may be as puzzled as a commentator, and belike repeat both. If these _versicles_ won't do, I will hammer out some more endecasyllables.
"P.S.--Tell Lady H. I have had sad work to keep out the Phoenix--I mean the Fire Office of that name. It has insured the theatre, and why not the Address?"
"I send a recast of the four first lines of the concluding paragraph.
"This greeting o'er, the ancient rule obey'd, The drama's homage by her Herald paid, Receive _our welcome too_, whose every tone Springs from our hearts, and fain would win your own. The curtain rises, &c. &c.
And do forgive all this trouble. See what it is to have to do even with the _genteelest_ of us. Ever," &c.
"You will think there is no end to my villanous emendations. The fifth and sixth lines I think to alter thus:--
"Ye who beheld--oh sight admired and mourn'd, Whose radiance mock'd the ruin it adorn'd;
because 'night' is repeated the next line but one; and, as it now stands, the conclusion of the paragraph, 'worthy him (Shakspeare) and _you_,' appears to apply the '_you_' to those only who were out of bed and in Covent Garden Market on the night of conflagration, instead of the audience or the discerning public at large, all of whom are intended to be comprised in that comprehensive and, I hope, comprehensible pronoun.