but Shakspeare's. Shakspeare was, indeed, my fa vourite author; and after my fancy had been busied in attempting to realize the scenes that he drew, I sometimes regretted the labour, and sometimes repined that it was ineffectual. I longed to see them represented on a theatre; and had formed romantic ideas of the force they would derive from proper action, habits, and machinery. The death of a wealthy relation of my wife's, who has made my little boy his heir, called me this winter to London. I set out alone: and as I had been used to that reciprocation of affection and duty, which constitutes the happiness of a family; as we all met together in the evening, after having been separated by the different employments of the day, with smiles of complacency and good-humour, and mutually rejoiced in the satisfaction which each derived from the presence of the other; I found myself, after my first day's journey, in a very forlorn and comfortless situation at an inn. My evening was passed among people, with whom I had no tender connexion; and when I went to bed, I reflected, that there was not within many miles a single person, who cared whether I should be found living or dead in the morning. The melancholy which this situation, and these reflections, however whimsical, brought upon me, increased as my home became more distant. But the moment I entered London, speculation was at an end; the innumerable objects which rushed upon my senses, left me power only to hear and see. When I turned into the inn yard, the first thing that caught my attention was a large sheet of paper, printed in characters that differed not only in size but colour, some being red and others black. By the perusal of this pompous page, I learned that a comedy and a pantomime were to be performed at the theatre in the evening. It was now two o'clock ; and I resolved to atone for the want of enjoyments which I had left behind me, by securing what I had been used to think the highest intellectual entertainment which art could furnish: the play was not indeed a tragedy, nor Shakspeare's; but if it was not excellent, it was new to me, and therefore equally excited my curiosity. As soon as I had taken possession of a room, and safely deposited my portmanteau, I communicated my purpose to my host, who told me I could not have a better opportunity; for that both the play and entertainment were thought by the best judges to be very fine, and the principal parts were to be performed by the most celebrated actors of the age. My imagination was fired with this account; and being told that the house would be so soon full, that to secure a good place I must be there by four o'clock; I hastily swallowed my dinner, and getting into a hackney-coach, was driven to the theatre, and by the coachman conducted to the door that leads to the pit. At this door I waited near half an hour with the utmost impatience; and the moment it was open rushed in, driven forward by the crowd that had gathered round me. Following the example of others, I paid my three shillings, and entering the pit among the first that gained admittance, seated myself as near as I could to the centre. After having gazed once or twice round me with wonder and curiosity, my mind was wholly taken up in the anticipation of my entertainment, which did not, however, much alleviate the torments of delay. At length, the stage was illuminated, the last music was played, and I beheld the curtain rise with an emotion, which, perhaps, was little inferior to that of a lover, when he is first admitted to the presence of his mistress. But just at this moment a very tall man, by the contrivance of two ladies, who had kept a seat for him by spreading their hoops, placed himself so exactly before me, that his head intercepted great part of the stage, and I could now see the actors no lower than the knee. This incident, after all my care and solicitude to secure an advantageous situation was extremely vexatious: my attention to the play was for some time suspended, and I suffered much more than I enjoyed: but it was not long before the scenery and the dialogue wholly possessed my mind: I accommodated myself the best I could to the inconvenience of my seat, and thought of it no more. The first act, as it was little more than a prelude to the action, pleased me rather by what it promised, than by what it gave: I expected the sequel with yet more ardour, and suffered the interval with all the fretfulness of suspended curiosity. The second act gratified my imagination with a greater variety of incidents; but they were such as had a direct tendency to render appetite too strong for the curb of reason: I this moment rioted in the luxurious banquet, that was by a kind of enchantment placed before me; and the next reflected with regret and indignation upon those arts, under the influence of which I perceived my virtue to be enervated, and that I became contemptible even to myself. But this struggle did not last long: these images, which could not be seen without danger, were still multiplying before me my resistance grew proportionably more languid; and at length I indulged every sensation without inquiring whether I was animated to the imitation of virtue, or seduced' by the blandishments of vice. In the third act I was become acquainted with the characters, which the author intended to exhibit; and discerned that, though some of them were sus-' : tained with great judgment and address, yet others were mistaken: I had still some person before me, whose manner was that of a player, and who, when I had been introduced into scenes of real life by the skill of another, immediately brought me back to a croud and a theatre; I found that, upon the whole, I was not so constantly present to the events of the drama, as if I had read them silent in. my study, though some circumstances might be more forcibly represented but these critical remarks, as they lessened my pleasure, I resolved to remit. In the fourth act, therefore, I endeavoured to supply every defect of the performer by the force of my own fancy, and in some degree I succeeded: but my pleasure was now interrupted by another cause; for though my entertainment had not been equal to my expectation, yet I now began to regret that it was almost at an end, and earnestly wished that it was again to begin. In the fifth act, curiosity was no longer excited; I had discovered in what events the action would terminate, and what was to be the fate of the persons: nothing remained but the forms necessary to the conclusion of the play; the marriage of lovers, their reconciliation with offended parents, and the sudden reformation of a rake, who had, through the whole representation, been employed to produce incidents which might render his vices contagious, and to display qualities that might save them from contempt. But though the last act was thus rendered insipid, yet I was sorry when it was over: I reflected with a sigh, that the time was at hand, in which I must return to the comfortless soli. tude of my inn. But this thought, however mortifying, was tran sient; I pleased myself with the expectation of the pantomime, an entertainment of which I had no conception, and of which I had heard the highest 157 encomiums from those about me: I, therefore, once more sat down upon the rising of the curtain, with an attention to the stage which nothing could divert. I gazed at the prodigies which were every moment produced before me with astonishment; I was bewildered in the intricacies of enchantment; I saw woods, rivers, and mountains, alternately appear, and vanish; but I knew not in what cause, or to what end. The entertainment was not adapted to my understanding, but to my senses; and my senses were indeed captivated with every object of delight; in particular, the dress of the women discovered beauties which I could not behold without confusion: the wanton caresses which they received and returned, the desire that languished in their eyes, the kiss snatched with eagerness, and the embrace prolonged with reciprocal delight, filled my breast with tumultuous wishes, which, though I feared to gratify, I did not wish to suppress. Besides all these incentives to dissolute pleasure, there was the dance, which indulged the spectators with a view of almost every charm that apparel was intended to conceal; but of the pleasure of this indulgence I was deprived by the head of the tall man who sat before me, and I suffered again all the vexation which had interrupted my attention to the first act of the play. But before the last scene, my mind had been so violently agitated, and the inconveniences of so long a confinement, in a multitude, were become so sensible, I was so much oppressed with heat, and offended with the smell of the candles that were either burning in the sockets or expiring in smokę, that I grew weary of my situation; my faculties were suspended as in a dream, and I continued to sit motionless, with my eyes fixed upon the curtain, some moments after it fell. When I was roused from my reverie, I found myself almost alone; my attachment to the place was dissolved, the company that had |