Upon Pyrrhus his threatening afterwards to leave her, the knight shook his head, and muttered to himself, "Ay, do if you can." This part dwelt so much upon my friend's imagination, that at the close of the third act, 5 as I was thinking of something else, he whispered in my ear, "These widows, sir, are the most perverse creatures in the world. But pray," says he, "you that are a critic, is this play according to your dramatic rules, as you call them? Should your people in tragedy always talk to be Io understood? Why, there is not a single sentence in this play that I do not know the meaning of." The fourth act very luckily begun before I had time to give the old gentleman an answer. "Well," says the knight, sitting down with great satisfaction, “I suppose 15 we are now to see Hector's ghost." He then renewed his attention, and, from time to time, fell a praising the widow. He made, indeed, a little mistake as to one of her pages, whom at his first entering he took for Astyanax; but he quickly set himself right in that particular, though 20 at the same time he owned he should have been very glad to have seen the little boy, "who," says he, "must needs be a very fine child by the account that is given of him." Upon Hermione's going off with a menace to Pyrrhus, the audience gave a loud clap, to which Sir Roger added, 25 "On my word, a notable young baggage!" As there was a very remarkable silence and stillness in the audience during the whole action, it was natural for them to take the opportunity of these intervals between the acts to express their opinion of the players and of their 30 respective parts. Sir Roger, hearing a cluster of them praise Orestes, struck in with them, and told them that he thought his friend Pylades was a very sensible man; as they were afterwards applauding Pyrrhus, Sir Roger put in a second time: "And let me tell you," says he, "though he speaks but little, I like the old fellow in whiskers as well as any of them." Captain Sentry, seeing two or three wags who sat near us lean with an attentive ear towards Sir Roger, and fearing lest they should smoke the knight, plucked him by the elbow, and whispered something in his 5 ear that lasted till the opening of the fifth act. The knight was wonderfully attentive to the account which Orestes gives of Pyrrhus his death, and, at the conclusion of it, told me it was such a bloody piece of work that he was glad it was not done upon the stage. Seeing afterwards 10 Orestes in his raving fit, he grew more than ordinary serious, and took occasion to moralize, in his way, upon an evil conscience, adding that Orestes in his madness looked as if he saw something. As we were the first that came into the house, so we 15 were the last that went out of it; being resolved to have a clear passage for our old friend, whom we did not care to venture among the justling of the crowd. Sir Roger went out fully satisfied with his entertainment, and we guarded him to his lodgings in the same manner that we 20 brought him to the playhouse; being highly pleased, for my own part, not only with the performance of the excellent piece which had been presented, but with the satisfaction which it had given to the good old man. L. As we were at the club last night, I observed that my 25 friend Sir Roger, contrary to his usual custom, sat very silent, and instead of minding what was said by the com pany, was whistling to himself in a very thoughtful mood, and playing with a cork. I jogged Sir Andrew Freeport who sat between us; and as we were both observing him, we saw the knight shake his head and heard him say to 5 himself, "A foolish woman! I can't believe it." Sir Andrew gave him a gentle pat upon the shoulder, and offered to lay him a bottle of wine that he was thinking of the widow. My old friend started, and, recovering out of his brown study, told Sir Andrew that once in his life 10 he had been in the right. In short, after some little hesitation, Sir Roger told us, in the fullness of his heart, that he had just received a letter from his steward, which acquainted him that his old rival and antagonist in the county, Sir David Dundrum, had been making a visit to 15 the widow. However," says Sir Roger, "I can never think that she'll have a man that's half a year older than I am, and a noted Republican into the bargain." 66 Will Honeycomb, who looks upon love as his particular province, interrupting our friend with a jaunty laugh, 20 "I thought, knight," says he, "thou hadst lived long enough in the world not to pin thy happiness upon one that is a woman and a widow. I think that without vanity I may pretend to know as much of the female world as any man in Great Britain, though the chief of my knowl25 edge consists in this, that they are not to be known.” Will immediately, with his usual fluency, rambled into an account of his own amours. "I am now," says he, “upon the verge of fifty" (though, by the way, we all knew he was turned of threescore). "You may easily guess," con30 tinued Will, "that I have not lived so long in the world without having had some thoughts of settling in it, as the phrase is. To tell you truly, I have several times tried my fortune that way, though I can't much boast of my success. "I made my first addresses to a young lady in the country; but when I thought things were pretty well drawing to a conclusion, her father happening to hear that I had formerly boarded with a surgeon, the old put forbid me his house, and within a fortnight after married his daugh- 5 ter to a fox hunter in the neighborhood. "I made my next applications to a widow, and attacked her so briskly that I thought myself within a fortnight of her. As I waited upon her one morning, she told me that she intended to keep her ready money and jointure in her Ic own hand, and desired me to call upon her attorney in Lyon's Inn, who would adjust with me what it was proper for me to add to it. I was so rebuffed by this overture that I never inquired either for her or her attorney afterwards. "A few months after, I addressed myself to a young 15 lady who was an only daughter and of a good family; I danced with her at several balls, squeezed her by the hand, said soft things to her, and, in short, made no doubt of her heart; and, though my fortune was not equal to hers, I was in hopes that her fond father would not deny her 20 the man she had fixed her affections upon. But, as I went one day to the house in order to break the matter to him, I found the whole family in confusion, and heard, to my unspeakable surprise, that Miss Jenny was that very morning run away with the butler. 25 "I then courted a second widow, and am at a loss to this day how I came to miss her, for she had often commended my person and behavior. Her maid, indeed, told me one day that her mistress had said she never saw a gentleman with such a spindle pair of legs as Mr. 30 Honeycomb. "After this I laid siege to four heiresses successively, and being a handsome young dog in those days, quickly made a breach in their hearts; but I don't know how it came to pass, though I seldom failed of getting the daughter's consent, I could never in my life get the old people on my side. "I could give you an account of a thousand other unsuc5 cessful attempts, particularly of one which I made some years since upon an old woman, whom I had certainly borne away with flying colors if her relations had not come pouring in to her assistance from all parts of England; nay, I believe I should have got her at last, had not she 10 been carried off by an hard frost." As Will's transitions are extremely quick, he turned from Sir Roger, and applying himself to me, told me there was a passage in the book I had considered last Saturday which deserved to be writ in letters of gold; 15 and taking out a pocket Milton, read the following lines, which are part of one of Adam's speeches to Eve after the "Oh! why did our Creator wise, that peopled highest Heaven With Spirits masculine, create at last 20 25 30 35 fall: This novelty on Earth, this fair defect Of Nature, and not fill the World at once For either Mankind? This mischief had not then befallen, By parents; or his happiest choice too late To human life, and household peace confound." |