friend stood up ler, had, I found, provided themselves with good oaken plants, to attend their master upon this occasion. When he had placed him in his coach, with myself at his left hand, the captain before him, and his butler at the head of his footmen in the rear, we convoyed him in safety to the playhouse, where, after having marched up the entry in good order, the captain and I went in with him, and seated him betwixt us in the pit. As soon as the house was full, and the candles lighted, my old and looked about him with that pleasure, which a mind seasoned with humanity naturally feels in itself, at the sight of a multitude of people who seem pleased with one another, and partake of the same common entertainment. I could not but fancy to myself, as the old man stood up in the middle of the pit, that he made a very proper center to a tragic audience. Upon the entering of Pyrrhus,1 the knight told me, that he did not believe the King of France himself had a better strut. I was indeed very attentive to my old friend's remarks, because I looked upon them as a piece of natural criticism, and was well pleased to hear him at the conclusion of almost every scene, telling me that he could not imagine how the play would end. One while he appeared much concerned for Andromache; 2 and a little while after as much for Hermione: 3 and was extremely puzzled to think what would become of Pyrrhus. When Sir Roger saw Andromache's obstinate refusal to her lover's importunities, he whispered me in the ear, that he was sure she would never have him; to which he added, with a more than ordinary vehemence, "You can't imagine, sir, what 'tis to have the British under William III. were defeated by the French under Marshal Luxemburg, July, 1692. 1 Pyrrhus, also called Neoptolemus, was a fabulous Greek warrior, son of Achilles, one of the heroes concealed in the Wooden Horse at the capture of Troy. 2 A Trojan woman, wife of Hector, noted for her beauty and virtue. She became the captive of Pyrrhus at the fall of Troy. 3 Daughter of Menelaus and Helen. She married Pyrrhus, and after his death became the wife of Orestes. to do with a widow." Upon Pyrrhus's 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, 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 understood? Why, there is not a single sentence in this play that I do not know the meaning of." The fourth act very luckily began before I had time to give the old gentleman an answer: "Well," says the knight, sitting down with great satisfaction, "I suppose 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; 1 but he quickly set himself right in that particular, though, 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, “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 respective parts. Sir Roger hearing a cluster of them praise Orestes,2 struck in with them, and told them, that he thought his friend Pylades3 was a 1 Astyanax, also called Scamander, was the son of Hector and Andromache. Killed in infancy at siege of Troy. 2 Orestes, son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, became King of Mycena. 3 Pylades was the son of Strophimus, King of Phoces, and cousin and friend of Orestes. 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 1 the knight, plucked him by the elbow, and whispered something in his ear, that lasted till the opening of the fifth act. The knight was wonderfully attentive to the account which Orestes gives of Pyrrhus's 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 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 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 jostling 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 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. 1 To quiz or ridicule. L. WILL HONEYCOMB AT THE CLUB. [BUDGELL, in SPECTATOR, No. 359. Tuesday, April 22, 1712.] "Torva leana lupum sequitur, lupus ipse capellam; S we were at the Club last night, I observed that my friend Sir Roger, contrary to his usual custom, sat very silent, and instead of minding what was said by the company, 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 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 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 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.” Will Honeycomb, who looks upon love as his particular province, interrupting our friend with a jaunty laugh; “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 1 Warton's translation: : "Lions the wolves, and wolves the kids pursue, The kids sweet thyme,- and still I follow you." female world as any man in Great Britain, though the chief of my knowledge 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," continued 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 put1 forbid me his house, and within a fortnight after married his daughter 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 own hand, and desired me to call upon her attorney in Lyon's Inn,2 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 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 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 1 Put, i.e., a rustic; an uncouth, awkward person. 2 On Newcastle Street, Strand, London, an inn of chancery belonging to the Inner Temple. |