She rejoices that she was
out of the way of it: for, she says, love is so awkward a thing to
Mr. Murray, and good-humour so uncommon an one to Miss Nancy, that she
hopes she shall never see such another courtship.
We have been at the play-house several time; and, give me leave to
say, Madam, (for I have now read as well as seen several), that I
think the stage, by proper regulations, might be made a profitable
amusement.--But nothing more convinces one of the truth of the common
observation, that the best things, corrupted, prove the worst, than
these representations. The terror and compunction for evil deeds,
the compassion for a just distress, and the general beneficence which
those lively exhibitions are so capable of raising in the human mind,
might be of great service, when directed to right ends, and induced by
proper motives: particularly where the actions which the catastrophe
is designed to punish, are not set in such advantageous lights, as
shall destroy the end of the moral, and make the vice that ought to be
censured, imitable; where instruction is kept in view all the way, and
where vice is punished, and virtue rewarded.
But give me leave to say, that I think there is hardly one play I
have seen, or read hitherto, but has too much of love in it, as that
passion is generally treated.
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