friend in a country company, the ladies of which have their sensibility strung up to so fine a tone that he cannot take the tragedy of King Lear for his benefit, because not one of them will play either Regan or Goneril. If their feelings are so exquisite in the country, where our wise laws treat players as vagabonds, what must they be when loaded with all the legal, tragic, and royal dignity of a London theatre ?'

This was so incredible that I expressed my doubts of the fact; but they were ill founded, for Glibly produced the letter.

A moment afterward two more of his acquaintance caught his eye.

Look to the right,' said he; the box next the gallery. There they sit ! Mr. and Mrs. Whiffle-Wit! They are now in state! They have really a capacious appearance! Were Rubens or Jordaens but here, we should have them painted in all the riches of oil colours, grinning

I

grinning in in company with Silenus and his ass. Let the poor author beware; they are prodigious critics! Madam can write a farce, or even a solution to an enigma, with as little labour as any lady in the land; and her dear Mr. WhiffleWit can set them both to music, with no less facility and genius! Nothing can equal them, except his own jigs on the organ! They never fail to attend the first night of a new play; and their taste is so very refined that nothing less than writing it themselves could afford them satisfaction. They never admire any nonsense but their own. The manager and author have always to thank them for exerting their whole stock of little wit, and abundant envy, to put the house into an ill temper. The favour is the more conspicuous because they are orderly people. But that perhaps is a phrase you do not understand, Mr. Trevor? They never pay for their places; yet always occupy a first row for themselves, and in

genera

7

general the rest of the box for their friends; who they take good care shall be as well disposed toward the house and the author as they are. You may be sure to meet them to-morrow, very industriously knocking at every door where they can gain admission, to tell their acquaintance what a vile piece it was; and what a strange blockhead the manager must be, who had refused farces of their writing, and operas of their setting, yet could dare to insult the town with such trash! They have now continued for years in this state of surprise, and there is no knowing when it will end.'

The satire of Glibly was incessant, till the tinkling of the prompter's bell, and the rising of the curtain, put an end to his remarks on persons, and turned them all on the piece. I cannot but own the author opened an ample field for the effluvia of critic gall. I know not whether Glibly might influence the tone of my mind, but I think I never felt such

ineffable

ineffable contempt for any human production as for the thing called a comedy, which I that night saw. Disjointed dialogue, no attempt at plan or fable,' each scene a different story, and each story improbable and absurd, quibbles without meaning, puns without point, cant without character, sentiments as dull as they were false, and a continual outrage on manners, morals and common sense, were its leading features. Yet, strange to tell, the audience endured it all; and, by copious retrenchments and plaistering and patching, this very piece had what is called a run!

How capricious a thing is public taste! It can regale on garbage, from which Hottentots would turn with loathing, and yet, in the frenzy of idiotism, could reject and condemn Congreve's "Way of the World!"

Glibly treated the piece with unceasing contempt, yet clapped every scene; and when, on two or three occasions, some

few

few raised their voices and called off! off! he more loudly than the rest vociferated, Go on! go on! When it was over, he left me; saying it was the most execrable piece he had ever bebeld; but he had promised to give it a good character, in the paper with which he was connected, and this he must_immediately go and write.'

CHAP. III.

REPETITION OF DOUBTS: A VERY OLD ACQUAINTANCE: ANOTHER PLEASING RENCONTRE: PERPLEXITY AND SUSPENSE CREATED.

THE adventures of the evening sent me home with no very agreeable reflections. What a world was this! How replete with folly, hypocrisy, and vice! What certainty had the man of virtue that his claims should be heard? Amid the tumultuous pursuits of selfishness, where all were eager to gratify their own pas