MADAM, In requesting your permission to address the following pages to you, which, as they aim themselves to be critical, require every protection and allowance that approving taste or friendly prejudice can give them, I yet ventured to mention no other motive than the gratification of private friendship and esteem. Had I suggested a hope that your implied approbation would give a sanction to their defects, your particular reserve, and dislike to the reputation of critical taste, as well as of poetical talent, would have made you refuse the protection of your name to such a purpose. However, I am not so ungrateful as now to attempt to combat this disposition in you. I shall not here presume to argue that the present state of poetry claims and expects every assistance that taste and example can afford it; nor endeavour to prove that a fastidious concealment of the most elegant productions of judgment and fancy is an ill return for the possession of those endowments. Continue to deceive yourself in the idea that you are known only to be eminently admired and regarded for the valuable qualities that attach private friendships, and the graceful talents that adorn conversation. Enough of what you have written has stolen into full public notice to answer my purpose; and you will, perhaps, be the only person, conversant in elegant literature, who shall read this address and not perceive that by publishing your particular approbation of the following drama, I have a more interested object than to boast the true respect and regard with which I have the honour to be, Madam, your very sincere and obedient humble servant, R. B. SHERIDAN. DRAMATIS PERSONAE AS ORIGINALLY ACTED AT DRURY LANE THEATRE IN 1779 SIR FRETFUL PLAGIARY. _Mr. Parsons_. PUFF. _Mr. King_. DANGLE. _Mr. Dodd_ SNEER. _Mr. Palmer_. SIGNOR PASTICCIO RITORNELLO. _Mr. Delpini_. INTERPRETER. _Mr. Baddeley_. UNDER PROMPTER. _Mr. Phillimore_. MR. HOPKINS. _Mr. Hopkins_. MRS. DANGLE. _Mrs. Hopkins_. SIGNORE PASTICCIO RITORNELLO. _Miss Field and the Miss Abrams_. Scenemen, Musicians, _and_ Servants. CHARACTERS OF THE TRAGEDY LORD BURLEIGH. _Mr. Moody_. GOVERNOR OF TILBURY FORT. _Mr. Wrighten_. EARL OF LEICESTER. _Mr. Farren_. SIR WALTER RALEIGH. _Mr. Burton_. SIR CHRISTOPHER HATTON. _Mr. Waldron_. MASTER OF THE HORSE. _Mr. Kenny_. DON FEROLO WHISKERANDOS. _Mr. Bannister, jun_. BEEFEATER. _Mr. Wright_. JUSTICE. _Mr. Packer_. SON. _Mr. Lamash_. CONSTABLE. _Mr. Fawcett_. THAMES. _Mr. Gawdry_. TILBURINA. _Miss Pope_. CONFIDANT. _Mrs. Bradshaw_. JUSTICE’s LADY. _Mrs. Johnston_. FIRST NIECE. _Miss Collett_. SECOND NIECE. _Miss Kirby_. Knights, Guards, Constables, Sentinels, Servants, Chorus, Rivers, Attendants, &c., &c. SCENE—LONDON: _in_ DANGLES _House during the First Act, and throughout the rest of the Play in_ DRURY LANE THEATRE.