way, and insulting the Baron in so noble a way, when he expected to be hanged for the robbery. In point of taste and sentiment, it was in his opinion far more genteel than the Beggar's Opera; though he could not help admiring and respecting the courage and gallantry of Captain Macheath, and the tender feelings of Miss Polly.

In short, Mr. Director, I am apprehensive that the Playhouse has done nothing but prepare my boy for the highway, and my girls for a bagnio. After` so much care and expence incurred in my children's education, to exchange all my hopes for such dreadful apprehensions, is a grievous and heartbreaking thing to me. Pray, my good Sir, consider whether there is no way, on the stage, of being, at the same time, merry and wise; and whether Wit and Mirth may not, by some contrivance or other, be made consistent with honesty and virtue; and the stage be thereby made,

THE day after the arrival of Mr. Moody's letter, I received the following from his hopeful son.

My dear Fellow,

your fin

I HAVE discovered that Dad has been writing to you on what he terms the Morality of the Stage. I therefore send you a word of caution, not to burn gers with any such subjects; for if you meddle with them, depend upon it you will find yourself in the wrong box. When that ease and freedom of conduct, which some people call Vice and Immo

rality, has got possession of all the purlicus and passages of the playhouse, it would be unreasonable to expect morality, or even decency, upon the stage: and, when the neighbourhood of the Theatre swarms with thieves and rogues, nothing could be more idle than to try to deter people from what you call crimes, by any dramatic representation. The greatest wit and genius of the present age has placed this subject in so ridiculous a light as to put all attempts of the kind out of the question. Read what Mr. Sneer says in the Critic, and meddle further with the matter, if you dare.

་

I am, my dear fellow,
Yours, &c.

MATTHEW MOODY, Junr,

THE next is in a female hand; and, if I conjecture right, from one of the public characters of the metropolis.

Drury Lane,
April 24.

My dear Director,

THERE are so few of us, who can write or read at all, that you may probably consider a letter from me as a literary curiosity; and notice it as such, in your Bibliographiana. My sisters in the trade, it must be confessed, are, generally speaking, the most uneducated of their sex; but no inconvenience attends it, as the gentlemen who are most regular in their devotions to them, are pretty nearly in the same situation.

I LIKE Some of your papers, but I am displeased with that on the theatre; and particularly with the slight manner, in which you affect to treat the Play of the FASHIONABLE FRIENDS. I know it was damned; but that was by the old fashioned prejudices of the Gallery; and it is no proof that it is not witty or brilliant. There are many other witty and brilliant things in this world, that are

very likely to meet the same fate. But this play, my dear unseasonable moralist, has so much tender, not to say morbid sensibility in it, and contains such a true picture of some persons in fashionable life, that I trust you will be impartial, and insert what I have to say in its favor. I have frequently read scenes from it, at our little funny parties; and both the ladies and gentlemen agreed, that they should have acted just in the same way, in the same situation..

I DON'T say but that there is a little of what people pretend to call fashionable vice in the characters and conduct of the piece. But there is no harm done. Mrs. Lovell does not fall a prey to Mr. Dorimant's cleverness; and Mr. Dorimant himself and Miss Rackett are married. So that in any event, the catastrophe, as they nickname it, is good.

SURELY you will not deny that Lady Selina, the heroine of the Play, is an example of the most refined sentimentality.