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_Clink._ Mighty just! for a lady can no more put up a kiss than a gentleman a box on the ear. Take my muse, Sir, into your protection [_Gives him her play_] the players I see are here. Your personating the author will infallibly introduce my play on the stage, and spite of their prejudice, make the theatre ring with applause, and teach even that injudicious Canaille to know their own interest.
_Exit._
ACT II.
PLOTWELL, TOWNLEY, CLINKET, with Sir TREMENDOUS and two Players, discovered seated round a Table.
_Plot._ Gentlemen, this lady who smiles on my performances, has permitted me to introduce you and my tragedy to her tea-table.
_Clink._ Gentlemen, you do me honour.
1st _Play._ Suffer us, Sir, to recommend to your acquaintance, the famous Sir Tremendous, the greatest critick of our age.
_Plot._ Sir Tremendous, I rejoice at your presence; though no lady that has an antipathy, so sweats at a cat as some authors at a critick. Sir Tremendous, madam, is a Gentleman who can instruct the town to dislike what has pleased them, and to be pleased with what they disliked.
Sir _Trem._ Alas! what signifies one good palate when the taste of the whole town is viciated. There is not in all this Sodom of ignorance ten righteous criticks, who do not judge things backward,
_Clink._ I perfectly agree with Sir Tremendous: your modern tragedies are such egregious stuff, they neither move terror nor pity.
_Plot._ Yes, madam, the pity of the audience on the first night, and the terror of the author for the third. Sir Tremendous's plays indeed have rais'd a sublimer pa.s.sion, astonishment.
_Clink._ I perceive here will be a wit-combat between these beaux-esprits. Prue, be sure you set down all the similes.
_Prue retires to the back part of the stage with pen and ink._
Sir _Trem._ The subjects of most modern plays are as ill chosen as----
_Plotw._ The patrons of their dedications.
[_Clink. makes signs to Prue._
Sir _Trem._ Their plots as shallow----
_Plotw._ As those of bad poets against new plays
Sir _Trem._ Their episodes as little of a piece to the main action, as----
_Clink._ A black gown with a pink-colour'd petticoat. Mark that, Prue.
[_Aside._
Sir _Trem._ Their sentiments are so very delicate--
_Plotw._ That like whipt syllabub they are lost before they are tasted.
Sir _Trem._ Their diction so low, that--that--
_Plotw._ Why, that their friends are forced to call it simplicity.
1st _Play._ Sir to the play if you please.
2d _Play._ We have a rehearsal this morning.
Sir _Trem._ And then their thefts are so open----
_Plotw._ that the very French taylors can discover them.
Sir _Trem._ O what felony from the ancients! what petty larceny from the moderns! there is the famous Ephigenia of Racine, he stole his Agamemnon from Seneca, who stole it from Euripides, who stole it from Homer, who stole it from all the ancients before him. In short there is nothing so execrable as our most taking tragedies.
1st _Play._ O! but the immortal Shakespeare, Sir.
Sir _Trem._ He had no judgnent.
2d _Play._ The famous ben Johmson!
_Clink._ Dry.
1st _Play._ The tender Otway!
Sir _Trem._ Incorrect.
2d _Play._ Etheridge!
_Clink._ Mere chit-chat.
1st _Play._ Dryden!
Sir _Trem._ Nothing but a knack of versifying.
_Clink._ Ah! dear Sir Tremendous, there is that delicatesse in your sentiments!
Sir _Trem._ Ah madam! there is that justness in your notions!
_Clink._ I am so much charm'd with your manly penetration!
Sir _Trem._ I with your profound capacity!
_Clink._ That I am not able--
Sir _Trem._ That it is impossible--
_Clink._ To conceive--
Sir _Trem._ To express--
