I defer all answers to the different criticisms on the Piece to an Essay, which I am about to publish immediately, on Dramatic Poetry, relatively to the present State of the Metropolitan Theatres. From the necessity of hastening the Publication I was obliged to send the Manuscript intended for the Stage: which is the sole cause of the number of directions printed in italics. S. T. COLERIDGE. FOOTNOTES: [812:1] Preface, Prologue, and Epilogue do not appear in the 1834 edition. [812:2] The long passage here placed within square brackets [] appeared in the first edition only. [812:3] of for _MS. R_. (For _MS. R_ see p. 819.)] [812:4] Richard Brinsley Sheridan. [812:5] Tragedy for his theatre _MS. R_. [812:6] I need not say to Authors, that as to the _essentials_ of a Poem, little can be superinduced without dissonance, after the first warmth of conception and composition. [Note by _S. T. C._, first edition.] [812:7] would condescend to point out _MS. R_. [813:1] not only returned _MS. R_. [813:2] and not only _MS. R_. [813:3] that he not only _MS. R_. [813:4] I for the first time saw _MS. R_. [813:5] likewise . . . assured not only asserted _MS. R_. [813:6] but finally (and it is this last fact alone, which was malice for which no excuse of indolence self-made is adduced which determined me to refer to what I had already forgiven and almost forgotten) in the year 1806 _MS. R_. [813:7] the this _MS. R_. [813:8] (Private.) Had the Piece been really silly (and I have proof positive that Sheridan did not think it so) yet 10 years afterwards to have committed a breach of confidence in order to injure the otherwise . . . that on the ground of an indiscretion into which he had himself seduced the writer, and the writer, too, a man whose reputation was his Bread--a man who had devoted the firstlings of his talents to the celebration of Sheridan's genius--and who after he met treatment not only never spoke unkindly or resentfully of it, but actually was zealous and frequent in defending and praising his public principles of conduct in the _Morning Post_--and all this in the presence of men of Rank previously disposed to think highly . . . I am sure you will not be surprised that _this_ did provoke me, and that it justifies to my heart the detail here printed. S. T. COLERIDGE. P.S.--I never spoke severely of R. B. S. but once and then I confess, I _did_ say that Sheridan was Sheridan. _MS. R_. [813:9] The fourth act of the play in its original shape, and, presumably, as sent to Sheridan, opened with the following lines:-- 'Drip! drip! drip! drip!--in such a place as this It has nothing else to do but drip! drip! drip! I wish it had not dripp'd upon my torch.' In _MS. III_ the opening lines are erased and the fourth Act opens thus:--