receive payment, it is a hundred to one but they will be undone by it. My bonds to Beauties must suffer a very great discount. They are indeed of fuch a nature that prescription foon bars them; and most of them are so conceived, that coverture or marriage in the obligee renders them abfolutely void. Authors will be often difappointed in the claims they pretend to have upon me. I never receive a fiftieth part of the books that modern writers defire their bookfellers to fend me. In order, however, to conciliate your favour, Sir, I will give you my promife (though it is but fair to confess that I fometimes forget my promises), that the Lounger fhall make one of my library. Your most obedient fervant, TO-MORROW. I HAVE lately received feveral letters on the fubject of the Stage, and among others, one figned Nerva, cenfuring in very strong terms that boisterous and noisy kind of applause which, in the midft of the most affecting paffages of a tragedy, the bulk of a British audience are difposed to indulge in. It feems to have been written during the time of Mrs. Pope's late performance in our theatre, whose tones of pity and of tenderness, my correfpondent complains, were often often interrupted or rendered inaudible by the drumming of fticks and the clapping of hands in the pit and gallery. He was the more ftruck with the impropriety, he says, from his being accompanied by a gentleman, a native of Italy, though enough a proficient in our language to understand the play. He defcribes "the fur"prife and horror of the fufceptible Albani,” (fo it seems the stranger is called,) accustomed as he had been to the decorum of the Italian itage, to find, instead of silent and involuntary tears, the roar and riot with which our audience received the most pathetic fpeeches of one of the beft of our tragedies. "On Sunday," continues my correspondent, "Albani and I went to church. The plainnefs "of the edifice, and the fimplicity of our wor ship, ftruck him much; yet he was pleased "with the decency which prevailed, and charmed "with the difcourfe." "I am furprised," faid he, as we walked home, "that fo elegant "a preacher is not a greater favourite with the "public."--" You are mistaken," I replied, "he has long been their favourite.". Nay,” faid he, " do not tell me fo; you saw they "did not give him a fingle mark of applause "during the whole discourse, nor even at the "end."- "I laughed, Mr. Lounger, and fo "perhaps will you; but I believe you will find "it difficult to affign any good reason, why "filence, attention, and tears, which are thought ❝ample approbation in the one place, should be "held infufficient in the other; or why that "boisterous applause which is thought fo ho"nourable in the Theatre, fhould be thought a difgrace to merit in the Pulpit or at the Bar." I cannot, however, perfectly agree with my correfpondent in this last observation. At the Bar, indeed, the clapping of hands, and the beating the floor with people's fticks, might do well enough; but at the Bar it is a rule, never to make a noise for nothing. In the Church, not to mention the indecency of the thing, disturbances of that kind are perfectly averse to the purpose for which many grave and good Christians go thither. In the Playhouse, befides the prefcriptive right which the audience have now acquired to this fort of freedom, I think that part of the house by which it is commonly exercised have much to plead in its defence. The boxes frequently contrive to drown the noise of the stage, and it is but fair that the pit and gallery fhould in their turn drown the noise of the boxes. My correfpondent feems to allow this fort of applause at the reprefentation of Comedy, or at least of Farce; and indeed I am inclined to think, that in fome of our late Farces, a very moral mòral use may be made of it, as the less that is heard of them by the boxes the better. The cudgels of the audience, of the barbarity of which Nerva complains fo warmly, cannot be better employed, except perhaps they could be applied to recompenfe the merit of the author, instead of the talents of the actors. Moral writers on the subject of the Stage used to vent their reproaches against the Comic authors of the last age, who mixed so much indecency with their wit. The cenfure does not exactly apply to the petite piece writers of our days; for they keep ftrictly to the unity of compofition, and mix no wit with their indecency. I fairly confess, that I have been obliged to abate somewhat of the severity of my former opinion with regard to the wicked wits of the old school, and am content to go back to Wycherley and Congreve, having always thought, with my friend Colonel Cauftic, that if one muft fin, it is better to fin like a gentleman. Befides, a very dull or a very innocent perfon may poffibly mifs the allufion of a free speech, when it is covered with the veil of wit or of irony. But the good things of our modern Farce-mongers have nothing of disguise about them; the dishes they are pleased to serve up to us are not garlicked ragouts, but ragouts of garlic. I was much pleased with the answer which I heard a plain country-gentleman give to another in the pit fome weeks ago, who obferved to him, that the farce was droll and laughable enough, but that there was a good deal of double entendre in it. I don't know what you may think double, faid he in reply; but in my mind, it was as plain fingle entendre as ever I heard in my life. V |