It would have given me great pleasure to have been enabled to enliven my
pages with even a few extracts from that portion of their
correspondence, which, as I have just mentioned, has fallen into my
hands. There is in the letters of Mr. Halhed a fresh youthfulness of
style, and an unaffected vivacity of thought, which I question whether
even his witty correspondent could have surpassed. As I do not, however,
feel authorized to lay these letters before the world, I must only avail
myself of the aid which their contents supply towards tracing the
progress of his literary partnership with Sheridan, and throwing light
on a period so full of interest in the life of the latter.

Their first joint production was a farce, or rather play, in three acts,
called "Jupiter," written in imitation of the burletta of Midas, whose
popularity seems to have tempted into its wake a number of these musical
parodies upon heathen fable. The amour of Jupiter with _Major_
Amphitryon's wife, and _Sir Richard_ Ixion's courtship of Juno, who
substitutes _Miss Peggy Nubilis_ in her place, form the subject of
this ludicrous little drama, of which Halhed furnished the burlesque
scenes,--while the form of a rehearsal, into which the whole is thrown,
and which, as an anticipation of "The Critic" is highly curious, was
suggested and managed entirely by Sheridan. The following extracts will
give some idea of the humor of this trifle; and in the character of
Simile the reader will at once discover a sort of dim and shadowy pre-
existence of Puff:--

"_Simile._ Sir, you are very ignorant on the subject,--it is the
method most in vogue.

"_O'Cul._ What! to make the music first, and then make the sense to
it afterwards!