re
nature suggested; and from the other, such as flowed from the exactest
art and judgment; though I must confess that my curiosity led me so
much to observe the knight's reflections that I was not so well at
leisure to improve myself by yours. Nature, I found, played her part
in the knight pretty well, till at the last concluding lines she
entirely forsook him. You must know, Sir, that it is always my custom,
when I have been well entertained at a new tragedy, to make my retreat
before the facetious epilogue enters; not but that those pieces are
often very well writ, but having paid down my half-crown, and made a
fair purchase of as much of the pleasing melancholy as the poet's art
can afford me, or my own nature admit of, I am willing to carry some
of it home with me; and cannot endure to be at once tricked out of
all, though by the wittiest dexterity in the world. However, I kept my
seat the other night, in hopes of finding my own sentiments of this
matter favoured by your friend's; when, to my great surprise, I found
the knight, entering with equal pleasure into both parts, and as much
satisfied with Mrs. Oldfield's gaiety, as he had been before with
Andromache's greatness. Whether this were no more than an effect of
the knight's peculiar humanity, pleased to find at last, that, after
all the tragical doings, everything was safe and well, I do not know.
But for my own part, I must confess I was so dissatisfied, that I was
sorry the poet had saved Andromache, and could heartily have wished
that he had left her stone-dead upon the stage. For you cannot
imagine, Mr. Spectator, the mischief she was reserved to do me. I
found my soul, during the action, gradually worked up to the highest
pitch; and felt the exalted passion which all generous minds conceive
at the sight of virtue in distress. The impression, believe me, Sir,
was so strong upon me, that I am persuaded, if I had been let alone in
it, I could at an extremity have ventured to defend yourself and Sir
Roger against half a score of the fiercest Mohocks; but the ludicrous
epilogue in the close extinguished all my ardour, and made me look
upon all such noble achievements as downright silly and romantic. What
the rest of the audience felt, I cannot so well tell. For myself I
must declare, that at the end of the play I found my soul uniform,
and all of a piece; but at the end of the epilogue, it was so jumbled
together and divided between jest and earnest, that, if y