"No certainly," replied the favorite: "there are a hundred bad for one good. This is not brought on properly, that is quite miraculous. Is an author encumbered with a personage, which he has drag'd from scene to scene thro' five acts, he dispatches him with a stab of a ponyard: every body falls to crying, and I burst into laughter. Besides, did mortals ever speak as we declaim? Do kings and princes walk otherwise than a well-bred man? Have they ever gesticulated like persons possessed or raging mad? Do princesses speak in a shrill squeaking tone? It is generally supposed that we have carried tragedy to a high degree of perfection; and I on the contrary think it is next to demonstration, that of all the kinds of literary works, to which the Africans have applied themselves in these latter ages, this is the most imperfect." The favorite was advanced thus far in her sally against our theatrical pieces, when Mangogul returned. "Madam," said he, "you will oblige me in continuing. You see I have a secret to abridge a poetical subject, when I find it tedious." "I suppose," continued the favorite, "a person just arrived from Angola, who had never heard a play mentioned, but otherwise does not want good sense and breeding, has some acquaintance with the courts of princes, the intrigues of courtiers, the jealousies of ministers, and the double dealings of women; to whom I say in confidence 'My friend, there are terrible commotions actually in the Seraglio. The prince, dissatisfied with his son, in whom he suspects a passion for the Manimonbanda, is a man capable of taking the most cruel vengeance of them both. This adventure will, in all probability, be attended with dismal consequences. If you choose it, I will make you an eye-witness of all that passes.' He accepts my offer, and I carry him into a box screen'd by a blind, from whence he sees the stage, which he takes for the Sultan's palace, Do you believe, notwithstanding the serious air I put on, that this person's illusion can last a moment? Will you not rather agree with me, that the stiff-affected carriage of the actors, the oddity of their dress, the extravagance of their gestures, the emphasis of a singular language in rhyme and cadence, and a thousand other shocking dissonances, must make him laugh in my face before the first scene is over, and tell me either that I make game of him, or that the prince and all his court are mad." "I own," said Selim, "that this supposition strikes me: but may I not observe to you, that people go to the play-house, fully perswaded that they are to see the imitation of an event, and not the event itself." "And ought that perswasion," replied Mirzoza, "to hinder the players from representing the event in the most natural manner?" "All this means, madam," interrupted Mangogul, "that you put yourself at the head of the censors."