His first play, "The Female Dramatist" (1782), for which Smollett's "Roderick Random" supplied the materials, was unanimously condemned, but "Two to One" (1784) was entirely successful. It was followed by "Turk and no Turk" (1785), a musical comedy; "Inkle and Yarico" (1787), an opera; "Ways and Means" (1788); "The Battle of Hexham" (1793); "The Iron Chest" (1796), taken from William Godwin's "Adventures of Caleb Williams"; "The Heir at Law" (1797), which enriched the stage with one immortal character, "Dr Pangloss" (borrowed of course from Voltaire's Candide); "The Poor Gentleman" (1802); "John Bull, or an Englishman's Fireside" (1803), his most successful piece; and numerous other pieces, many of them adapted from the French.