It was the
Highlanders who flung their targes down, and made fierce work among us
redcoats. If they had fought all their fields as well as that, and young
Perkin had not turned back from Derby----"

"I know which side would be rebels, and who would be called the Young
Pretender," interposed George.

"Hush! you must please to remember my cloth, Mr. Warrington," said the
General, with some gravity; "and that the cockade I wear is a black, not
a white one! Well, if you will not love Mr. Home for his politics, there
is, I think, another reason, George, why you should like him."

"I may have Tory fancies, Mr. Lambert, but I think I know how to love
and honour a good Whig," said George, with a bow to the General: "but
why should I like this Mr. Home, sir?"

"Because, being a Presbyterian clergyman, he has committed the heinous
crime of writing a play, and his brother-parsons have barked out an
excommunication at him. They took the poor fellow's means of livelihood
away from him for his performance; and he would have starved, but that
the young Pretender on our side of the water has given him a pension."

"If he has been persecuted by the parsons, there is hope for him," said
George, smiling. "And henceforth I declare myself ready to hear his
sermons."

"Mrs. Woffington is divine in it, though not generally famous in
tragedy. Barry is drawing tears from all eyes; and Garrick is wild
at having refused the piece. Girls, you must bring each half a dozen
handkerchiefs! As for mamma, I cannot trust her; and she positively must
be left at home."

But mamma persisted she would go; and, if need were to weep, she would
sit and cry her eyes out in a corner. They all went to Covent Garden,
then; the most of the party duly prepared to see one of the masterpieces
of the age and drama. Could they not all speak long pages of Congreve;
had they not wept and kindled over Otway and Rowe? O ye past literary
glories, that were to be eternal, how long have you been dead? Who knows
much more now than where your graves are? Poor, neglected Muse of the
bygone theatre! She pipes for us, and we will not dance; she tears her
hair, and we will not weep. And the Immortals of our time, how soon
shall they be dead and buried, think you? How many will survive? How
long shall it be ere Nox et Domus Plutonia shall overtake them?

So away went the pleased party to Covent Garden to see the tragedy of
the immortal John Home. The ladies and the General we