at he has a mind to go home
melancholy. I wish the gentleman may not be more grave than wise. For
my own part, I must confess, I think it very sufficient to have the
anguish of a fictitious piece remain upon me while it is representing;
but I love to be sent home to bed in a good humour. If Physibulus is
however resolved to be inconsolable, and not to have his tears dried
up, he need only continue his old custom, and when he has had his
half-crown's worth of sorrow, slink out before the epilogue begins.

"It is pleasant enough to hear this tragical genius complaining of the
great mischief Andromache had done him. What was that? Why, she
made him laugh. The poor gentleman's sufferings put me in mind of
Harlequin's case, who was tickled to death. He tells us soon after,
through a small mistake of sorrow for rage, that during the whole
action he was so very sorry, that he thinks he could have attacked
half a score of the fiercest Mohawks in the excess of his grief. I
cannot but look upon it as a happy accident, that a man who is so
bloody-minded in his affliction, was diverted from this fit of
outrageous melancholy. The valour of this gentleman in his distress
brings to one's memory the Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance, who
lays about him at such an unmerciful rate in an old romance. I shall
readily grant him that his soul, as he himself says, would have made a
very ridiculous figure, had it quitted the body and descended to the
poetical shades in such an encounter.

"As to his conceit of tacking a tragic head with a comic tail, in
order to refresh the audience, it is such a piece of jargon, that I
don't know what to make of it.

"The elegant writer makes a very sudden transition from the playhouse
to the church, and from thence to the gallows.

"As for what relates to the church, he is of opinion that these
epilogues have given occasion to those merry jigs from the organ-loft,
which have dissipated those good thoughts and dispositions he has
found in himself, and the rest of the pew, upon the singing of two
staves culled out by the judicious and diligent clerk.

"He fetches his next thought from Tyburn; and seems very apprehensive
lest there should happen any innovations in the tragedies of his
friend Paul Lorrain.

"In the mean time, Sir, this gloomy writer, who is so mightily
scandalised at a gay epilogue after a serious play, speaking of
the fate of those unhappy wretches who are condemned to suffer an
ignom