No. XXIV. SATURDAY, JANUARY 27. Longa mora est, quantum noxæ sit ubique repertum, The various ills ordain'd to man by fate, TO THE ADVENTURER. SIR, YOU have lately remarked, that the sedentary and recluse, those who have not acquired an extensive and experimental knowledge of mankind, are frequently warmed with conceptions, which, when communicated, are received with the most frigid indifference." As I have no pretensions to this knowledge, it is probable that the subject of my letter, though it pleased me in the fervour of my imagination, may yet appear to others trite and unimportant. To your judgment, therefore, I appeal, as the substitute of the public, and leave you to determine both for them and for me. I have a small estate in a remote and sequestered part of the kingdom, upon which I have constantly resided. As in this place I was not seduced to entertainments that endangered either my virtue or my fortune, I indulged my inclination to books; and by reading I could always prevent solitude from becoming irksome. My library consisted chiefly of books of entertainment, but they were the best of their kind; and, therefore, though I was most delighted with dramatic writers, I had no plays but Shakspeare's. Shakspeare was, indeed, my favourite author; and, after my fancy had been busied in attempting to realize the scenes that he drew, I sometimes regretted the labour, and sometimes repined that it was ineffectual. I longed to see them represented on a theatre; and had formed romantic ideas of the force they would derive from proper action, habits, and machinery. The death of a wealthy relation of my wife's, who has made my little boy his heir, called me this winter to London. I set out alone; and as I had been used to that reciprocation of affection and duty which constitutes the happiness of a family; as we all met together in the evening, after having been separated by the different employments of the day, with smiles of complacency and good-humour, and mutually rejoiced in the satisfaction which each derived from the presence of the other, I found myself, after my first day's journey, in a very forlorn and comfortless situation at an inn. My evening was passed among people with whom I had no tender connexion; and when I went to bed, I reflected that there was not within many miles a single person who cared whether I should be found living or dead in the morning. The melancholy which this situation, and these reflections, however whimsical, brought upon me, encreased as my home became more distant. But the moment I entered London, speculation was at an end; the innumerable objects which rushed upon my senses left me power only to hear and see. When I turned into the inn-yard, the first thing that caught my attention was a large sheet of paper, printed in characters that differed not only in size but colour, some being red and others black. By the perusal of this pompous page, I learned that a comedy and a pantomime were to be performed at the theatre in the evening. It was now two o'clock, and I resolved to atone for the want of enjoyments which I had left behind me, by securing what I had been used to think the highest intellectual entertainment which art could furnish. The play was not indeed a tragedy, nor Shakspeare's; but if it was not excellent, it was new to me, and therefore equally excited my curiosity. As soon as I had taken possession of a room, and safely deposited my portmanteau, I communicated my purpose to my host, who told me that I could not have a better opportunity; for that both the play and entertainment were thought by the best judges to be very fine, and the principal parts were to be performed by the most celebrated actors of the age. My imagination was fired with this account; and being told that the house would be so soon full, that to secure a good place I must be there by four o'clock. I hastily swallowed my dinner, and getting into a hackney-coach, was driven to the theatre, and by the coachman conducted to the door that leads to the pit. me. At this door I waited near half an hour with the utmost impatience; and the moment it was open rushed in, driven forward by the crowd that had gathered round Following the example of others, I paid my three shillings, and entering among the first that gained admittance, seated myself as near as I could to the centre. After having gazed once or twice round me with wonder and curiosity, my mind was wholly taken up in the anticipation of my entertainment, which did not, however, much alleviate the torments of delay. At length, the stage was illuminated, the last music was played, and I beheld the curtain rise, with an emotion, which, perhaps, was little inferior to that of a lover when he is first admitted to the presence of his mistress. But just at this moment, a very tall man, by the contrivance of two ladies, who had kept a seat for him by spreading their hoops, placed himself so exactly before me, that his head intercepted great part of the stage, and I could now see the actors no lower than the knee. This incident, after all my care and solicitude to secure an advantageous situation, was extremely vexatious; my attention to the play was for some time suspended, and I suffered much more than I enjoyed. But it was not long before the scenery and the dialogue wholly possessed my mind; I accommodated myself the best I could to the inconvenience of my seat, and thought of it no more. The first act, as it was little more than a prelude to the action, pleased me rather by what it promised than by what it gave: I expected the sequel with yet more ardour, and suffered the interval with all the fretfulness of suspended curiosity. The second act gratified my imagination with a great variety of incidents; but they were such as had a direct tendency to render appetite too strong for the curb of reason. I this moment rioted in the luxurious banquet that was, by a kind of enchantment, placed before me; and the next, reflected, with regret and indignation upon those arts, under the influence of which I perceived my virtue to be enervated, and that I became contemptible even to myself. But this struggle did not last long: these images, which could not be seen without danger, were still multiplying before me: my resistance grew proportionably more languid; and, at length, I indulged every sensation without inquiring whether I was animated to the imitation of virtue, or seduced by the blandishments of vice. In the third act I was become acquainted with the characters which the author intended to exhibit; and discerned that, though some of them were sustained with great judgment and address, yet others were mistaken. I had still some person before me, whose manner was that of a player, and who, when I had been introduced into scenes of real life by the skill of another, immediately brought me back to a crowd and a theatre. I found that, upon the whole, I was not so constantly present to the events of the drama as if I had read them silently in my study, though some circumstances might be more forcibly represented. But these critical remarks, as they lessened my pleasure, I resolved to remit. In the fourth act, therefore, I endea VOL. I. voured to supply every defect of the performer by the force of my own fancy, and in some degree I succeeded: but my pleasure was now interrupted by another cause; for though my entertainment had not been equal to my expectation, yet I now began to regret that it was almost at an end, and earnestly wished that it was again to begin. In the fifth act, curiosity was no longer excited; I had discovered in what events the action would terminate, and what was to be the fate of the persons: nothing remained but the forms necessary to the conclusion of the play; the marriage of lovers, their reconciliation with offended parents, and the sudden reformation of a rake, who had, through the whole representation, been employed to produce incidents which might render his vices contagious, and to display qualities that might save them from contempt. But though the last act was thus rendered insipid, yet I was sorry when it was over. I reflected, with a sigh, that the time was at hand, in which I must return to the comfortless solitude of my inn. But this thought, however mortifying, was transient ; I pleased myself with the expectation of the pantomime: an entertainment of which I had no conception, and of which I had heard the highest encomium from those about me: I, therefore, once more sat down upon the rising of the curtain, with an attention to the stage which nothing could divert. I gazed at the prodigies which were every moment produced before me, with astonishmect; I was bewildered in the intricacies of enchantment; I saw woods, rivers, and mountains, alternately appear and vanish; but I knew not in what cause, or to what end. The entertainment was not adapted to my understanding, but to my senses; and my senses were indeed captivated with every object of delight: in particular, the dress of the women discovered beauties which I could not behold without confusion; the wanton caresses which they received and returned, the desire that languished in their eyes, |