restrain them. All taylors, sir, all taylors.”—“Why
should the taylors be so angry with you?” cries
the player. “I suppose you don’t
employ so many in making your clothes.”—“I
admit your jest,” answered the poet; “but
you remember the affair as well as myself; you know
there was a party in the pit and upper gallery that
would not suffer it to be given out again; though much,
ay infinitely, the majority, all the boxes in particular,
were desirous of it; nay, most of the ladies swore
they never would come to the house till it was acted
again. Indeed, I must own their policy was good
in not letting it be given out a second time:
for the rascals knew if it had gone a second night
it would have run fifty; for if ever there was distress
in a tragedy—I am not fond of my own performance;
but if I should tell you what the best judges said
of it—Nor was it entirely owing to my enemies
neither that it did not succeed on the stage as well
as it hath since among the polite readers; for you
can’t say it had justice done it by the performers.”—“I
think,” answered the player, “the performers
did the distress of it justice; for I am sure we were
in distress enough, who were pelted with oranges all
the last act: we all imagined it would have been
the last act of our lives.”
The poet, whose fury was now raised, had just attempted
to answer when they were interrupted, and an end put
to their discourse, by an accident, which if the reader
is impatient to know, he must skip over the next chapter,
which is a sort of counterpart to this, and contains
some of the best and gravest matters in the whole book,
being a discourse between parson Abraham Adams and
Mr Joseph Andrews.
Containing the exhortations of parson Adams to
his friend in affliction; calculated for the instruction
and improvement of the reader.
Joseph no sooner came perfectly to himself than, perceiving
his mistress gone, he bewailed her loss with groans
which would have pierced any heart but those which
are possessed by some people, and are made of a certain
composition not unlike flint in its hardness and other
properties; for you may strike fire from them, which
will dart through the eyes, but they can never distil
one drop of water the same way. His own, poor
youth! was of a softer composition; and at those words,
“O my dear Fanny! O my love! shall I never,
never see thee more?” his eyes overflowed with
tears, which would have become any but a hero.
In a word, his despair was more easy to be conceived
than related.
