"The Rivals."
Miss Languish's maid Lucy returns after having traversed half the
town, and visited all the circulating libraries in Bath. She has
failed to obtain "The Reward of Constancy;" "The Fatal Connexion;"
"The Mistakes of the Heart;" "The Delicate Mistress, or the Memoirs of
Lady Woodford." But she has secured, as she says, "taking the books
from under her cloak, and from her pockets, 'The Gordian Knot' and
'Peregrine Pickle.' Here are 'The Tears of Sensibility' and 'Humphry
Clinker.' This, 'The Memoirs of a Lady of Quality,' written by
herself; and here the second volume of 'The Sentimental Journey.'"

LYDIA. Heigh-ho! What are those books by the glass?

LUCY. The great one is only "The Whole Duty of Man," where I
press a few blonds, ma'am.

LYDIA. Very well; give me the sal volatile.

LUCY. Is it in a blue cover, ma'am?

LYDIA. My smelling-bottle, you simpleton!

LUCY. Oh, the drops! Here, ma'am.

Presently the approach of Mrs. Malaprop and Sir Anthony Absolute is
announced. Cries Lydia: "Here, my dear Lucy, hide these books. Quick,
quick. Fling 'Peregrine Pickle' under the toilet; throw 'Roderick
Random' into the closet; put 'The Innocent Adultery' into 'The Whole
Duty of Man;' thrust 'Lord Aimworth' under the sofa; cram 'Ovid'
behind the bolster; there, put 'The Man of Feeling' into your
pocket--so, so--now lay 'Mrs. Chapone' in sight, and leave 'Fordyce's
Sermons' open on the table."

LUCY. O, burn it, ma'am. The hairdresser has torn away as far as
"Proper Pride."

LYDIA. Never mind; open at "Sobriety." Fling me "Lord
Chesterfield's Letters." Now for 'em!

It will be perceived that the property-master of the theatre is here
required to produce quite a library of stage-books. Does he buy them
by the dozen, from the nearest book-stall--out of that trunk full of
miscellaneous volumes, boldly labelled, "All these at fourpence"? And
does he then recover them with the bright blue or scarlet that is so
dear to him, daubing them here and there with his indispensable Dutch
metal? Of course their contents can matter little. Like all the other
things of the theatre, they are not what they pretend to be, nor what
they would have the audience think them. The "book of the play" is
something of a mystery. Let us take for granted, however, that it is
rarely interesting to the reader, that it is not one of those volumes
which, when once taken up, cannot aga