Having failed, in spite of shrill-sounding catcalls, to persuade the audience at Drury Lane to damn the play, our trio went to supper at the house of Erskine's sister, Lady Betty Macfarlane, in Leicester Street, and there found themselves so fertile in sallies of humour, wit, and satire on Mallet and his play that they determined to meet again and throw their sallies into order. Accordingly, they dined at Lady Betty's next day (20 January). After dinner Erskine produced a draft of their observations thrown into pamphlet size, they all three corrected it, Boswell copied it out, and they drove immediately in Lady Betty's coach to the shop of William Flexney, Churchill's publisher, and persuaded him to undertake the publication. Next day Boswell repented of the scurrility of what they had written and got Dempster to go with him to retrieve the copy. Erskine at first was sulky, but finally consented to help revise it again. It went back to Flexney in a day or two, and was published on 27 January.[6] _Elvira_ was essentially a translation or adaptation of Lamotte-Houdar's French tragedy _Ines de Castro_, a piece published forty years before, but the English audience of 1763 saw in it a compliment to the King of Portugal, whose cause against Spain Great Britain had espoused towards the end of the Seven Years' War. The preliminaries of peace had already been signed, but the spirit of belligerency had not subsided; so that the making of the only odious person in the play (the Queen) a Spaniard, and having it end with a declaration of war against Spain, could not fail to please a patriotic audience. Since nobody reads _Elvira_ any more, I shall venture to give an expanded version of Genest's outline of the plot, in order to make the comments in Critical Strictures more intelligible: Don Pedro [son of Alonzo IV, King of Portugal] and Elvira [maid of honour to the Queen, who is the King's second wife, and is mother of the King of Spain] are privately married--the King insists that his son should marry Almeyda [the Queen's daughter, sister to the King of Spain]--he acknowledges his love for Elvira--she is committed to the custody of the Queen--Don Pedro takes up arms to rescue Elvira--he forces his way into the palace--she blames him for his rashness--the King enters, and Don Pedro throws away his sword--Don Pedro is first confined to his apartment, and then condemned to death--Almeyda, who is in love with Don Pedro, does her utmost to save him--she prevails on the King to give Elvira an audience--Elvira avows her marriage, and produces her two children--the King pardons his son--Elvira dies, having been poisoned by the Queen--Don Pedro offers to kill himself, but is prevented by his father.[7]