spirit, you would have been at the head of one of the Westminster associations-or trailing a volunteer pike in the Artillery Ground! But you-o' my conscience, I believe, if the French were landed to-morrow, your first inquiry would be, whether they had brought a theatrical troop with them.

Dang. Mrs. Dangle, it does not signify—I say the stage is the Mirror of Nature, and the actors are the Abstract and brief Chronicles of the Time: and pray, what can a man of sense study better?-Besides, you will not easily persuade me that there is no credit or importance in being at the head of a band of critics, who take upon them to decide for the whole town, whose opinion and patronage all writers solicit, and whose recommendation no manager dares refuse.

Mrs. Dang. Ridiculous!-Both managers and authors of the least merit laugh at your pretensions.-The public is their critic without whose fair approbation they know no play can rest on the stage, and with whose applause they welcome such attacks as yours, and laugh at the malice of them, where they can't at the wit.

Dang. Very well, madam-very well!

Enter SERVANT

Ser. Mr. Sneer, sir, to wait on you.

Dang. Oh, show Mr. Sneer up.-[Exit SERVANT.] Plague on't, now we must appear loving and affectionate, or Sneer will hitch us into a story.

Mrs. Dang. With all my heart; you can't be more ridiculous than you are.

Dang. You are enough to provoke

Enter SNEER

Ha! my dear Sneer, I am vastly glad to see you.-My dear, here's Mr. Sneer.

Mrs. Dang. Good morning to you, sir.

Dang. Mrs. Dangle and I have been diverting ourselves with the papers. Pray, Sneer, won't you go to Drury Lane Theatre the first night of Puff's tragedy?

Sneer. Yes; but I suppose one shan't be able to get in, for on the first night of a new piece they always fill the house with orders to support it. But here, Dangle, I have brought you two pieces, one of which you must exert your

self to make the managers accept, I can tell you that; for 'tis written by a person of consequence.

Dang. So now my plagues are beginning.

Sneer. Ay, I am glad of it, for now you'll be happy. Why, my dear Dangle, it is a pleasure to see how you enjoy your volunteer fatigue, and your solicited solicitations.

Dang. It's a great trouble—yet, egad, it's pleasant too. Why, sometimes of a morning I have a dozen people call on me at breakfast-time whose faces I never saw before nor ever desire to see again.

Sneer. That must be very pleasant indeed?

Dang. 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!

Dang. [Reading.] Bursts into tears, and exit.—What, is this a tragedy?

Sneer. No, that's a genteel comedy, not a translationonly taken from the French: it is written in a style which they have lately tried to run down: the true sentimental, and nothing ridiculous in it from the beginning to the end.

Mrs. Dang. Well, if they had kept to that, I should not have been such an enemy to the stage; there was some 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 sorry to say it, people seem to go there principally for their entertainment !

Mrs. Dang. 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 dissipated age, they preserved two houses in the capital where the conversation was always moral at least, if not entertaining!

Dang. Now, egad, I think the worst alteration is in the nicety of the audience !—No double entendre, no smart innuendo admitted; even Vanbrugh and Congreve obliged to undergo a bungling reformation !

Sneer. Yes, and our prudery in this respect is just on a par with the artificial bashfulness of a courtesan, who increases the blush upon her cheek in an exact proportion to the diminution of her modesty.

Dang. Sneer can't even give the public a good word! But what have we here ?-This seems a very odd

Sneer. Oh, that 's a comedy, on a very new plan; replete with wit and mirth, yet of a most serious moral! You see it is called The Reformed House-breaker; where, by the mere force of humour, house-breaking is put into so ridiculous a light, that if the piece has its proper run, I have no doubt but that bolts and bars will be entirely useless by the end of the season.

Dang. Egad, this is new indeed!

Sneer. Yes; it is written by a particular friend of mine, who has discovered that the follies and foibles of society are subjects unworthy the notice of the comic muse, who should 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, his idea is to dramatise the penal laws, and make the stage a court of ease to the Old Bailey.

Dang. It is truly moral.

Re-enter SERVANT

Ser. Sir Fretful Plagiary, sir.

Dang. Beg him to walk up.-[Exit SERVANT.] Now, Mrs. Dangle, Sir Fretful Plagiary is an author to your own taste.

Mrs. Dang. I confess he is a favourite of mine, because everybody else abuses him.

Sneer. Very much to the credit of your charity, madam, if not of your judgment.

Dang. But, egad, he allows no merit to any author but himself, that's the truth on 't-though he's my friend.

Sneer. Never.-He is as envious as an old maid verging on the desperation of six-and-thirty; and then the insidious humility with which he seduces you to give a free opinion on any of his works can be exceeded only by the petulant arrogance with which he is sure to reject your observations.

Dang. Very true, egad-though he 's my friend.

Sneer. Then his affected contempt of all newspaper strictures; though, at the same time, he is the sorest man alive, and shrinks like scorched parchment from the fiery ordeal of true criticism: yet he is so covetous of popularity, that he had rather be abused than not mentioned at all.

Dang. There's no denying it-though he is my friend. Sneer. You have read the tragedy he has just finished, haven't you?

Dang. Oh yes; he sent it to me yesterday.

Sneer. Well, and you think it execrable, don't you? Dang. Why, between ourselves, egad, I must own— though he is my friend-that it is one of the mostHe's here [Aside.]-finished and most admirable perform

Sir Fret. [Without.] Mr. Sneer with him, did you say?

Enter SIR FRETFUL PLAGIARY

Dang. Ah, my dear friend !-Egad, we were just speaking of your tragedy.-Admirable, Sir Fretful, admirable! Sneer. You never did anything beyond it, Sir Fretfulnever in your life.

Sir Fret. You make me extremely happy; for without a compliment, my dear Sneer, there isn't a man in the world whose judgment I value as I do yours and Mr. Dangle's.

Mrs. Dang. They are only laughing at you, Sir Fretful; for it was but just now that

4

Dang. Mrs. Dangle !-Ah, Sir Fretful, you know Mrs. Dangle. My friend Sneer was rallying just now:-he knows how she admires you, and

Sir Fret. Oh Lord, I am sure Mr. Sneer has more taste and sincerity than to- [Aside] A damned double-faced

fellow !

Dang. Yes, yes-Sneer will jest-but a better humoured

Sir Fret. Oh, I know

Dang. He has a ready turn for ridicule-his wit costs him nothing.

it.

Sir Fret. No, egad—or I should wonder how he came by [Aside Mrs. Dang. Because his jest is always at the expense of his friend. [Aside Dang. But, Sir Fretful, have you sent your play to the managers yet?—or can I be of any service to you?

Sir Fret. No, no, I thank you: I believe the piece had sufficient recommendation with it.-I thank you, though. -I sent it to the manager of Covent Garden Theatre this morning.

Sneer. I should have thought, now, that it might have been cast (as the actors call it) better at Drury Lane. Sir Fret. O lud! no-never send a play there while I live-hark 'ee ! [Whispers SNEER

Sneer. Writes himself!-I know he does.

Sir Fret. I say nothing-I take away from no man's merit-am hurt at no man's good fortune-I say nothing. -But this I will say-through all my knowledge of life, I have observed--that there is not a passion so strongly rooted in the human heart as envy.

Sneer. I believe you have reason for what you say, indeed.

Sir Fret. Besides-I can tell you it is not always so safe to leave a play in the hands of those who write themselves.

Sneer. What, they may steal from them, hey, my dear Plagiary?

Sir Fret. Steal !-to be sure they may; and, egad, serve your best thoughts as gypsies do stolen children, disfigure them to make 'em pass for their own.

Sneer. But your present work is a sacrifice to Melpomene, and he, you know, never

Sir Fret. That's no security: a dexterous plagiarist may do anything. Why, sir, for aught I know, he might take out some of the best things in my tragedy, and put them into his own comedy.

Sneer. That might be done, I dare be sworn.

Sir Fret. And then, if such a person gives you the least hint or assistance, he is devilish apt to take the merit of the whole

Dang. If it succeeds.

Sir Fret. Ay, but with regard to this piece, I think I can hit that gentleman, for I can safely swear he never read it.

Sneer. I'll tell you how you may hurt him more.
Sir Fret. How?

Sneer. Swear he wrote it.

Sir Fret. Plague on 't now, Sneer, I shall take it ill !— I believe you want to take away my character as an author. Sneer. Then I am sure you ought to be very much obliged to me.

Sir Fret. Hey !-sir !

Dang. Oh, you know, he never means what he says. Sir Fret. Sincerely then-you do like the piece?