"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 wicked friend of the author must
crown the work in an epilogue, for fear the audience should go away
improved by the representation? It is not, I see, always narrowness of
spirit, as I have heard some say, that opens the mouths of good people
against these diversions."
In this wild way talked I; for I was quite out of patience at this
unnatural and unexpected piece of ridicule, tacked to so serious a
play, and coming after such a moral.
Here is a specimen, my dear lady, of my observations on the first
play I saw. How just or how impertinent, I must leave to your better
judgment. I very probably expose my ignorance and folly in them, but I
will not say presumption, because you have put me upon the task, which
otherwise I should hardly have attempted. I have very little reason
therefore to blame myself on this score; but, on the contrary, if I
can escape your ladyship's censure, have cause to pride myself in the
opportunity you have thereby given me to shew my readiness to obey
you; and the rather, since I am sure of your kindest indulgence,
now you have given me leave to style myself _your ladyship's obliged
sister, and humble servant,_