quarter: Still I hold it just to my family and prudent towards myself to continue my precautions: Upon the little fortune I raised in Smyrna, with fome aids I have occafionally received from the head of our house, who is my nephew, and several profitable commiffions for the fale of Spanish wool, I live contentedly, though humbly as you fee,, and I have befides wherewithal, (bleffed be God!) to be of some ufe and affiftance to my fellow-creatures. Thus I have related to you my brief history, not concealing that bloody act, which would fubject me to death by the sentence of a human tribunal, but for which I hope my interceffion and atonement have been accepted by the Supreme Judge of all hearts, with whom there is mercy and forgiveness. Reflect I pray you upon my fituation at that dreadful moment; enter into the feelings of a fon; picture to yourfelves the scene of horror before my eyes; conceive a brutal zealot spurning the dead corpse of my father, and that father his moft generous benefactor, honoured for his virtues and adored for his charities, the best of parents and the friend of mankind; reflect, I fay, upon these my agonies and provocations, make allowance for a distracted heart in fuch a crifis, and judge me with that charity, Ꭲ 4 charity, which takes the law of God, and not the law of man for it's direction. Hete Abrahams concluded, and here also I fhall adjourn to the fucceeding volume what remains to be related of the perfons, whofe adventures have already engrossed fo large a portion of this mifcellaneous work. N° CXXIII. Natio comoda eft. If the fat; for F the prefent tafte for private plays spreads as IF faft as moft fafhions do in this country, we may expect the rifing generation will be, like the Greeks in my motto, one entire nation of actors and actreffes. A father of a family may fhortly reckon it amongst the bleffings of a numerous progeny, that he is provided with a fufficient company for his domeftic ftage, and may caft a play to his own liking without going abroad for his theatrical amufements. Such a fteady fteady troop cannot fail of being under better regulation than a set of strollers, or than any set whatever, who make acting a vocation: Where a manager has to deal with none but players of his own begetting, every play bids fair to have a strong cast, and in the phrase of the stage to be well got up. Happy author, who shall fee his characters thus grouped into a family-piece, firm as the Theban band of friends, where all is zeal and concord, no bickerings nor jealousies about stage-precedency, no ladies to fall fick of the spleen, and tofs up their parts in a huff, no heart-burnings about flounced petticoats and filver trimmings, where the mother of the whole company stands wardrobe-keeper and propertywoman, whilft the father takes poft at the fide scene in the capacity of prompter with plenipotentiary controul over P S's and O P's. I will no longer fpeak of the difficulty of writing a comedy or tragedy, because that is now done by so many people without any difficulty at all, that if there ever was any mystery in it, that mystery is thoroughly bottomed and laid open; but the art of acting was till very lately thought fo rare and wonderful an excellence, that people began to look upon a perfect actor as a phenomenon in the world, which they were not to expect above once in a century; but but now that the trade is laid open, this prodigy is to be met at the turn of every street; the nobility and gentry to their immortal honour have broken up the monopoly, and new-made players are now as plentiful as new-made peers. Nec tamen Antiochus, nec erit mirabilis illic Garrick and Powell would be now no wonder, Though the public profeffors of the art are fo compleatly put down by the private practitioners of it, it is but justice to obferve in mitigation of their defeat, that they meet the comparison under fome disadvantages, which their rivals have not to contend with. One of thefe is diffidence, which volunteers cannot be fuppofed to feel in the degree they do, who are preffed into the fervice: I never yet faw a public actor come upon the stage on the first night of a new play, who did not feem to be nearly, if not quite, in as great a shaking fit as his author; but as there can be no luxury In a great fright, I cannot believe that people of fashion, who act for their amusement only, would fubject themselves to it; they muft certainly have a proper confidence in their own abilities, or they would never step out of a drawing drawing room, where they are fure to figure, upon a stage, where they run the rifque of expofing themselves; fome gentlemen perhaps, who have been mutæ perfonæ in the fenate, may ftart at the first found of their own voices in a theatre, but graceful action, just elocution, per fect knowledge of their author, elegant depórt↳ ment, and every advantage, that refined man ners and courtly address can bestow, is exclu fively their own: In all scenes of high life they are at home; noble fentiments are natural to them; love-parts they can play by inftinct, and as for all the cafts of rakes, gamesters and fine gentlemen they can fill them to the life. Think only what a violence it must be to the nerves of an humble unpretending actor to be obliged te play the gallant gay feducer and be the cuckold, maker of the comedy, when he has no other ob ject at heart but to go quietly home, when the play is over, to his wife and children and parti cipate with them in the honest earnings of his vocation; can fuch a man compete with the Lothario of high life? And now I mention the cares of a family, I ftrike upon another disadvantage, which the public performer is fubject to and the private exempt from: The Andromache of the ftage may have an infant Hector at home, whom the more |