Smith's place. I would not listen to him on any other terms, and I
should think the King might be made to signify his pleasure for such an
arrangement. On this you will reflect, and if any way strikes you that I
can move in it, I need not add how happy I shall be in its success.

* * * * *

"I hope you will let me have the pleasure to hear from you soon, as I
shall think any delay unfair,--unless you can plead that you are writing
an opera, and a folio on music besides. Accept Betsey's love and duty.

"Your sincere and affectionate

"R. B. SHERIDAN."

What the book here alluded to was, I cannot with any accuracy ascertain.
Besides a few sketches of plays and poems, of which I shall give some
account in a subsequent Chapter, there exist among his papers several
fragments of Essays and Letters, all of which--including the unfinished
plays and poems--must have been written by him in the interval between
1769, when he left Harrow, and the present year; though at what precise
dates during that period there are no means of judging.

Among these there are a few political Letters, evidently designed for
the newspapers;--some of them but half copied out, and probably never
sent. One of this description, which must have been written immediately
on his leaving school, is a piece of irony against the Duke of Grafton,
giving reasons why that nobleman should not lose his head, and, under
the semblance of a defence, exaggerating all the popular charges against
him.