I have had no formal gout, but several skirmishes with it that have confined me for two or three days at a time; yet I have been once at the Opera, and was tired to death; and though I came away the moment it was ended did not get home till a quarter before twelve. The learned call the music good, but there is nothing to show the humour and action of the Storace and Morelli. I bought the book to read at home, because the Emperor paid 1,000l. for the piece as a satire on the King of Sweden—how, the Lord knows. The plot is taken from Voltaire’s deposed kings at Venice in his Candide, of whom only two are introduced, King Theodore and Sultan Achmet. The words are ten times stupider than our operas generally are; nor do I yet know that the King of Sweden, to whom I am no more partial than Caesar is, was ever deposed. In short, if it is a satire on any mortal, it is one on Caesar himself, for having paid so dear for such unintelligible nonsense.