ld me, with a sigh, that despairing of ever reclaiming him, she would
not offer to place him in a civil family, but got him in a post upon a
stall in Wapping, where he may be seen from sun-rising to sun-setting,
with a glass in one hand, and a pipe in the other, as sentry to a
brandy-shop. The great revolutions of this nature bring to my mind the
distresses of the unfortunate Camilla[244], who has had the ill-luck to
break before her voice, and to disappear at a time when her beauty was
in the height of its bloom. This lady entered so thoroughly into the
great characters she acted, that when she had finished her part, she
could not think of retrenching her equipage, but would appear in her own
lodgings with the same magnificence that she did upon the stage. This
greatness of soul has reduced that unhappy princess to an involuntary
retirement, where she now passes her time among the woods and forests,
thinking on the crowns and sceptres she has lost, and often humming over
in her solitude,

_"I was born of royal race,
Yet must wander in disgrace," &c._

But for fear of being overheard, and her quality known, she usually
sings it in Italian:

_"Naqui al regno, naqui al trono
E pur sono
Inventurata Pastorella--"_

Since I have touched upon this subject, I shall communicate to my reader
part of a letter I have received from an ingenious friend at Amsterdam,
where there is a very noble theatre; though the manner of furnishing it
with actors is something peculiar to that place, and gives us occasion
to admire both the politeness and frugality of the people.

My friends have kept me here a week longer than ordinary to see one of
their plays, which was performed last night with great applause. The
actors are all of them tradesmen, who, after their day's work is over,
earn about a guilder a night by personating kings and generals. The hero
of the tragedy I saw, was a journeyman tailor, and his first minister of
state a coffee-man. The empress made me think of Parthenope[245] in "The
Rehearsal"; for her mother keeps an ale-house in the suburbs of
Amsterdam. When the tragedy was over, they entertained us with a short
farce, in which the cobbler did his part to a miracle; but upon inquiry,
I found he had really been working at his own trade, and representing on
the stage what he acted every day in his shop. The profits of the
theatre maintain a hospital: for as here they do not think the
profession of an