DANGLE.. You are enough to provoke Enter Mr. SNEER. -Ha! my dear Sneer, I am vaftly glad to fee you. My dear, here's Mr. Sneer. Mrs. DANGLE. Good morning to you, Sir. DANGLE. Mrs. Dangle and I have been diverting ourfelves with the papers.-Pray, Sneer, won't you go to Drury-lane theatre the first night of Puff's tragedy? SNEER. Yes; but I fuppofe one shan't be able to get in, for on the first night of a new piece they always fill the houfe with orders to fupport it. But here, Dangle, I have brought you two pieces, one of which you must exert yourfelf to make the managers accept, I can tell you that, for 'tis written by a perfon of confequence. DANGLE. So now my plagues are beginning! SNEER. Aye, I am glad of it, for now you'll be happy. Why, my dear Dangle, it is a plea B4 fure fure to fee how you enjoy your volunteer fa- DANGLE. It's a great trouble-yet, egad, its pleasant too. Why, fometimes of a morning, I have a dozen people call on me at breakfast time, whofe faces I never faw before, nor ever defire to fee again. SNEER. That must be very pleasant indeed! DANGLE. And not a week but I receive fifty letters, and not a line in them about any business of my own. SNEER. An amusing correspondence! DANGLE (reading.) "Burfts into tears, and exit." What, is this a tragedy! SNEER. No, that's a genteel comedy, not a tranflation-only taken from the French; it is written in a ftile which they have lately tried to run down; the true fentimental, and nothing ridiculous in it from the beginning to the end. Mrs. DANGLE. Well, if they had kept to that, I fhould not have been fuch an enemy to the stage, there was fome edification to be got from those pieces, Mr. Sneer! SNEER. I am quite of your opinion, Mrs. Dangle; the theatre, in proper hands, might certainly be made the school of morality; but now, I am forry to say it, people feem to go there principally for their entertainment! Mrs. D ANGLE. It would have been more to the credit of the Managers to have kept it in the other line. SNEER. Undoubtedly, Madam, and hereafter perhaps to have had it recorded, that in the midst of a luxurious and diffipated age, they preferv'd two houses in the capital, where the converfation was always moral at least, if not entertaining! DANGLE. Now, egad, I think the worst alteration is in the nicety of the audience.-No double entendre, no fmart inuendo admitted; even Vanburgh and Congreve obliged to undergo a bungling reformation! NEER. SNEER. Yes, and our prudery in this refpect is just on a par with the artificial bafhfulnefs of a courtezan, who encreafes the blufh upon her cheek in an exact proportion to the diminution of her modefty. DANGLE. Sneer can't even give the Public a good word !---But what have we here ?-This feems a very odd SNEER. O, that's a comedy, on a very new plan; replete with wit and mirth, yet of a moft ferious moral! You fee it is call'd " THE REFORMED HOUSEBREAKER;" where by the mere force of humour, HOUSEBREAKING is put into fo ridiculous a light, that if the piece has its proper run, I have no doubt but that bolts and bars will be entirely ufelefs by the end of the season, DANGLE. Egad, this is new indeed! SNEER. Yes; it is written by a particular friend of mine, who has difcovered that the follies and foibles of fociety, are fubjects unworthy the notice of the Comic Muse, whofhould be taught to stoop only at the greater vices and blacker crimes of humanity-gibbeting capital offences in five acts, and pillorying petty larcenies in two.---In short, 4 his his idea is to dramatize the penal laws, and make the stage a court of eafe to the Old Bailey. DANGLE. It is truly moral. Enter SERVANT. Sir Fretful Plagiary, Sir. DANGLE. Beg him to walk up.--[Exit Servant.] Now, Mrs. Dangle, Sir Fretful Plagiary is an author to your own taste. Mrs. DANGLE. I confefs he is a favourite of mine, becaufe every body else abufes him. SNEER. -Very much to the credit of your charity, Madam, if not of your judgment. DANGLE. But, egad, he allows no merit to any author but himself, that's the truth on't-tho' he's my friend. SNEER. Never. He is as envious as an old maid verging on the defperation of fix-and-thirty: and then the infiduous humility with which he feduces you to give a free opinion on any of his his |