This letter is numbered "19" in the top right of the first leaf. Three Mile Cross June 29th 1825..

I know not, my dear friend, how to thank you sufficiently for your last & kindest letter--which yet gave us great pain in the indifferent account which it contained of your health--I trust that the Circuit will set you quite up again--It always does--Do you come by Reading? And if you do can you give us a day? I want you to see my garden in its flush of roses & lilies--& I hope we need not say that we always want to see you. Just give me one line to say yes or no--& to tell me that you are better--it will not be welcome without that--only one line mind--I will not have a long letter till you are at leisure, although what can have put it into your head that you are a bad letter writer I cannot imagine--the only possible fault of your letters would be their being too well written--& really that is so rare a fault that one puts up with it. But you have the habit of making mistakes about yourself & being astonished when people find them out, which being a still rarer fault one puts up with that also.--I rejoice at Mr. Macready's "wise determination"—although there is something almost touching in the conscious infirmity of temper from whence it proceeds. I remember that Mr. Cobbett once made a similar resolution & from the same cause--but he could not hold his resolve--he had too much curiosity. By the way there are many points of resemblance between those two Worthies--both men of great power in their several ways (Mr. Cobbett much the greater of course)--both men of headstrong passion--zealous partizans, vindictive enemies, fascinating companions--both great bullies--& as I suspect both great cowards. What do you think of this parallel in the manner of Plutarch? It certainly is true.--

I send you some more scraps of . You are to know that there will be an entirely new first act (one scene of which you saw when last at Reading ) but that the rest of the piece will be merely a rifacimento of my old play, entirely altering the tone of Cromwell & leaving out Alice altogether. The only parts quite finished are the Third & Fifth acts--most of the new bits of which I send you--The last scene might perhaps be rendered more vivid, by giving even at that moment a hope for Charles--bringing in Fairfax sooner, & sending a messenger to save him--but whether after the scene of the scaffold, & with the known fate of the man before one's eyes, & no great Actor to bear one out it might not pass for a mere trick, or what would be worse an imitation of Mr. Knowles, I do not know. You will see I hope a sustaining of Cromwell, & a little improvement in Charles.--But it wants story terribly--If I could introduce a plot to save him--but then I am afraid of a number more of people & bad actors--& I could not bring it to any very great head, because there is no historical ground for the thing,--& having in the old three acts plenty of materials for the two news ones--(always altering Cromwell as well as I can & writing up Charles) why I hardly think the thingintroduction of a plot worth the trial. Do you? My firm belief is that the play written as it will be, would succeed if acted, but that it will not be acted--Either Charles Kemble's own cowardice, or the licenser's qualms, will prevent the representation. I mean on account of the cant of course for as to politics, it will be a high Tory play. Is my Cromwell worse than Dr. Cantwell in ? It will be singularly unlucky, if with three plays either of which would succeed if fairly acted, neither should come out--& yet such I fully expect to be the case.--Perhaps stands the best chance. has been copied from into the , probably sent thither officially from C.G.T. An abbreviation for Covent Garden Theater & is followed by an historical extract The extract, titled , describes the trials and exile of Jacopo Foscari, son of Francesco Foscari, the Doge of Venice. containing the story of the Two Foscari--with no reference to --& perhaps accidental, but still the coincidence struck me, & I should not wonder if C. Kemble reckoned on Mr. Fitzharris for Cosmo, which indeed he would both look & play very beautifully--I know that Mr. Kemble has in no way lost his fancy for that piece, & if Mr. Young would play the Doge I think it would do very well.Manuscript at the Rylands Library is missing a closer. Ends at the bottom of the sheet.