ells me, makes it the more pity, that
the original author (for it is a French play, translated, you know,
Madam), had not conducted it, since it was his choice, with less
terror, and with greater propriety, to the passions intended to be
raised, and actually raised in many places.

But the epilogue spoken after the play, by Mrs. Oldfield, in the
character of Andromache, was more shocking to me, than the most
terrible parts of the play; as by lewd and even senseless _double
entendre_, it could be calculated only to efface all the tender, all
the virtuous sentiments, which the tragedy was designed to raise.

The pleasure this gave the men was equally barbarous and insulting;
all turning to the boxes, pit, and galleries, where ladies were, to
see how they looked, and stood an emphatical and too-well pronounced
ridicule, not only upon the play in general, but upon the part of
Andromache in particular, which had been so well sustained by an
excellent actress; and I was extremely mortified to see my favourite
(and the only perfect) character debased and despoiled, and the widow
of Hector, prince of Troy, talking nastiness to an audience, and
setting it out with all the wicked graces of action, and affected
archness of look, attitude, and emphasis.

I stood up--"Dear Sir!--Dear Miss!" said I.

"What's the matter, my love?" said Mr. B. smiling.

"Why have I wept the distresses of the injured Hermione?" whispered I:
"why have I been moved by the murder of the brave Pyrrhus, and shocked
by the madness of Orestes! Is it for this? See you not Hector's
widow, the noble Andromache, inverting the design of the whole play,
satirizing her own sex, but indeed most of all ridiculing and shaming,
in _my_ mind, that part of the audience, who can be delighted with
this vile epilogue, after such scenes of horror and distress?"

He was pleased to say, smiling, "I expected, my dear, that your
delicacy, and Miss Darnford's too, would be shocked on this
preposterous occasion. I never saw this play, rake as I was, but the
impropriety of the epilogue sent me away dissatisfied with it, and
with human nature too: and you only see, by this one instance, what a
character that of an actor or actress is, and how capable they are to
personate any thing for a sorry subsistence."

"Well, but, Sir," said I, "are there not, think you, extravagant
scenes and characters enough in most plays to justify the censures
of the virtuous upon them, that the wic