“Our Portuguese Queen is an excellent judge of the niceties of our language,” said Fareham. “I question if she understands five sentences in as many acts.” “Nor should _I_ understand anything low or vulgar,” said Hyacinth. “Then, madam, you are best at home, for the whole entertainment would be Hebrew to you.” “That cannot be,” protested Lady Sarah; “for all our plays are written by gentlemen. The hack writers of King James’s time have been shoved aside. It is the mark of a man of quality to write a comedy.” “It is a pity that fine gentlemen should write foul jests. Nay, it is a subject I can scarce speak of with patience, when I remember what the English stage has been, and hear what it is; when I recall what Lord Clarendon has told me of his Majesty’s father, for whom Shakespeare was a closet companion, who loved all that was noblest in the drama of the Elizabethan age. Time, which should have refined and improved the stage, has sunk it in ignominy. We stand alone among nations in our worship of the obscene. You have seen plays enough in Paris, Hyacinth. Recall the themes that pleased you at the Marais and the Hôtel de Bourgogne; the stories of classic heroism, of Christian fortitude, of manhood and womanhood lifted to the sublime. You who, in your girlhood, were familiar with the austere genius of Corneille——” “I am sick of that Frenchman’s name,” interjected Lady Sarah. “St. Évremond was always praising him, and had the audacity to pronounce him superior to Dryden; to compare _Cinna_ with the _Indian Queen_.” “A comparison which makes one sorry for Mr. Dryden,” said Fareham. “I have heard that Condé, when a young man, was affected to tears at the scene between Augustus and his foe.” “He must have been very young,” said Lady Fareham. “But I am not going to depreciate Corneille, or to pretend that the French theatre is not vastly superior to our own. I would only protest that if our laughter-loving King prefers farce to tragedy, and rhyme to blankverse, his subjects should accommodate themselves to his taste, and enjoy the plays he likes. It is a foolish prejudice that deprives me of such a pleasure. I could always go in a mask.” “Can you put a mask upon your mind, and preserve that unstained in an atmosphere of corruption? Indeed, your ladyship does not know what you are asking for. To sit and simper through a comedy in which the filthiest subjects are discussed in the vilest language; to see all that is foolish or lascivious in your own sex exaggerated with a malignant licence, which makes a young and beautiful woman an epitome of all the vices, uniting the extreme of masculine profligacy with the extreme of feminine silliness. Will you encourage by your presence the wretches who libel your sex? Will you sit smiling to see your sisters in the pillory of satire?” “I should smile as at a fairy tale. There are no such women among my friends——” “And if the satire hits an enemy, it is all the more pungent,” said Lady Sarah.