My health and usual tranquillity were almost restored, and I now condemned that pride which had made me refractory to the hand of correction. Man little knows what calamities are beyond his patience to bear till he tries them; as in ascending the heights of ambition, which look bright from below, every step we rise shows us some new and gloomy prospect of hidden disappointment; so in our descent from the summits of pleasure, though the vale of misery below may appear at first dark and gloomy, yet the busy mind, still attentive to its own amusement, finds, as we descend, something to flatter and to please. Still as we approach the darkest objects appear to brighten, and the mental eye becomes adapted to its gloomy situation. I now proceeded forward, and had walked about two hours, when I perceived what appeared at a distance like a waggon, which I was resolved to overtake: but when I came up with it found it to be a strolling company's cart, that was carrying their scenes and other theatrical furniture to the next village, where they were to exhibit. The cart was attended only by the person who drove it, and one of the company; as the rest of the players were to follow the ensuing day. "Good company upon the road," says the proverb, "is the shortest cut." I therefore entered into conversation with the poor player; and, as I once had some theatrical powers myself, I descanted on such topics with my usual freedom; as I was but little acquainted with the present state of the stage, I demanded who were the present theatrical writers in vogue, who the Drydens and Otways of the day? "I fancy, sir," cried the player, "few of our modern dramatists would think themselves much honoured by being compared to the writers you mention. Dryden's and Rowe's manner, sir, are quite out of fashion: our taste has gone back a whole century; Fletcher, Ben Jonson, and all the plays of Shakespeare are the only things that go down." "How!" cried I, "is it possible the present age can be pleased with that antiquated dialect, that obsolete humour, those overcharged characters, which abound in the works you mention?" "Sir," returned my companion, "the public think nothing about dialect, or humour, or character; for that is none of their business; they only go to be amused, and find themselves happy when they can enjoy a pantomime, under the sanction of Jonson's or Shakespeare's name." "So then, I suppose," cried I, "that our modern dramatists are rather imitators of Shakespeare than nature?" "To say the truth," returned my companion, "I don't know that they imitate anything at all; nor indeed does the public require it of them: it is not the composition of the piece, but the number of starts and attitudes that may be introduced, that elicits applause. I have known a piece, with not one jest in the whole, shrugged into popularity, and another saved by the poet's throwing in a fit of the gripes. No, sir, the works of Congreve and Farquhar have too much