There is really, Sir, no accounting for the fancies of some of our order. Dean Swift was fond of vulgar manners, and therefore he would take his dinner in a cellar; some clergymen love the sports of the field, and therefore join the hounds at a fox-chase: I suppose this “certain officer of the Society” has a sort of ear for public speaking, and has sometimes stepped a little out of his way in order to gratify it. But then (as you might naturally say) are not the _theatres_ open for him, as well as for his brethren; and if he wants a slice of good oratory, cannot he give six shillings to a box-keeper, and take it like a gentleman? _He_ may perhaps have a doubt (for he seems to hold opinions of his own) “how a clergyman of the church can attend” _the theatre_, “without danger to his principles, or gross indecorum towards the church and its spiritual superior.” Perhaps also he may entertain a doubt “how a clergyman of the church can, securely, and without breach of trust, take his pupils to hear the harangues of those” dramatic characters, “which,” as Archbishop Tillotson says, “do most notoriously minister to infidelity and vice.” {54a} Possibly “this,” to his understanding, may “not appear to be the likely way ‘to frame and fashion himself and his family according to the doctrine of Christ, and to make both himself and them, as much as in him lieth, wholesome examples and patterns to the flock of Christ,’ {54b} which every clergyman at his ordination solemnly promises to do.” But I think with you, that the whole of this matter “wants clearing up.” I have, I confess, some difficulty about conceiving how this priest can execute either such, or so many duties as he is said to do, of a parochial and domestic nature; and yet find either time to conduct his pupils to hear the church reviled, or pupils tractable enough to be conducted by him. But, as I said before, the whole matter “wants clearing up;” and if you should be found to have aimed a blow at his professional character, which he has not quite deserved, you have nothing to do but to say, as the Roman assassins are reported to do when they stab the wrong man in the dark, “_Padrone è un sbaglio_,”—“I beg your pardon, it was _a mistake_.”