strugling, and at last yielding Fair!_ [1]

Such an Image as this ought, by no means, to be presented to a Chaste
and Regular Audience. I expect your Opinion of this Sentence, and
recommend to your Consideration, as a SPECTATOR, the conduct of the
Stage at present with Relation to Chastity and Modesty.

_I am, SIR,
Your Constant Reader
and Well-wisher._

The Complaint of this Young Lady is so just, that the Offence is [great
[2]] enough to have displeased Persons who cannot pretend to that
Delicacy and Modesty, of which she is Mistress. But there is a great
deal to be said in Behalf of an Author: If the Audience would but
consider the Difficulty of keeping up a sprightly Dialogue for five Acts
together, they would allow a Writer, when he wants Wit, and can't please
any otherwise, to help it out with a little Smuttiness. I will answer
for the Poets, that no one ever writ Bawdy for any other Reason but
Dearth of Invention. When the Author cannot strike out of himself any
more of that which he has superior to those who make up the Bulk of his
Audience, his natural Recourse is to that which he has in common with
them; and a Description which gratifies a sensual Appetite will please,
when the Author has nothing [about him to delight [3]] a refined
Imagination. It is to such a Poverty we must impute this and all other
Sentences in Plays, which are of this Kind, and which are commonly
termed Luscious Expressions.

This Expedient, to supply the Deficiencies of Wit, has been used more or
less, by most of the Authors who have succeeded on the Stage; tho' I
know but one who has professedly writ a Play upon the Basis of the
Desire of Multiplying our Species, and that is the Polite Sir _George
Etherege;_ if I understand what the Lady would be at, in the Play called
_She would if She could._ Other Poets have, here and there, given an
Intimation that there is this Design, under all the Disguises and
Affectations which a Lady may put on; but no Author, except this, has
made sure Work of it, and put the Imaginations of the Audience upon this
one Purpose, from the Beginning to the End of the Comedy. It has always
fared accordingly; for whether it be, that all who go to this Piece
would if they could, or that the Innocents go to it, to guess only what
_She would if She could_, the Play has always been well received.

It lifts an heavy empty Sentence, when there is added to it a lascivious
Gesture of Body; and when it