Mr Holcroft’s next play was The Road to Ruin, which carried his fame as a dramatic writer into every corner of the kingdom, where there was a play-house. Nothing could exceed the effect produced by this play at its first appearance, nor its subsequent popularity. It not only became a universal favourite, but it deserved to be so. Mr Holcroft, in sending round one or two copies of it to his friends before it was acted, had spoken of it as his best performance. He had hitherto been generally dissatisfied with what he had written, as not answering his own wishes, or what he thought himself capable of producing: but in this instance he seems to have thought his muse had been as favourable to him as she was likely to be. Authors are perhaps seldom deceived with respect to their works, when they judge of them from their own immediate feelings, and not out of contradiction to the opinions of others, or from a desire to excel in something which the world thinks them incapable of. Mr Holcroft’s predictions were at least verified by the appearance of the Road to Ruin. It had a run greater than almost any other piece was ever known to have, and there is scarcely a theatre in the kingdom, except Drury-Lane, and the Haymarket, in which it has not been acted numberless times. The profits he received from it were nine hundred pounds from Mr Harris, and three or four hundred for the copy-right. The Road to Ruin is so well known to the public, and its merits have been so fully established, that it seems almost impertinent to make any remarks upon it: yet as it is Mr Holcroft’s greatest dramatic effort, it might be thought wrong to pass it over, without attempting to point out its leading features, or ascertain its rank among similar productions.