To say the truth, I believe honest Partridge, though a raw country fellow and ignorant of those dramatic rules which learned critics from the Temple and the other Inns of Court have introduced, along with improved catcalls, into our playhouses, was here uttering the sentiments of nature. Should we be concerned about the fortunes of those ancient Romans were they utter strangers to us and did we not put ourselves in their places, which is as much as to turn them all from Romans into Britons? To be sure, while our imagination is thus turning them, it will not forbear a few necessary amendments for the sake of verisimilitude. For, to name only one particular, no free and independent Briton could imagine himself bribed by so paltry a legacy as a couple of guineas; but he can multiply that sum in his mind until it shall have reached the much more considerable amount which he will consent to take for his vote at a Westminster election; and thus honour will be satisfied. And the critics aforesaid will then be able to point out to us the advantages of British over Roman liberty, being attended not only with the proud privileges of our great and glorious Constitution, but also with a higher emolument. Mr. Jones would doubtless have made these reflections to himself had he not, while Partridge was still speaking, been distracted by the sudden appearance in an opposite box of Lady Bellaston and Sophia. As he had only left her ladyship that very afternoon, after a conversation of so private a nature that it must on no account be communicated to the reader, he would have disregarded the imperious signals which she forthwith began making to him with her fan; but the truth is, whatever reluctance he may have felt to rejoin her ladyship at that moment was overborne by his eagerness to approach the amiable Sophia, though he turned pale and his knees trembled at the risk of that approach in circumstances so dangerous. As soon as he had recovered his composure he hastened to obey her ladyship’s commands, but on his entry into the box his spirits were again confounded by the evident agitation of Sophia, and, seizing her hand, he stammered, “Madam, I——.” “Hoity, toity! Mr. Jones,” cried Lady Bellaston; “do you salute a chit of a girl before you take notice of a dowager? Are these the new manners among people of fashion? It is lucky for my heart that I can call myself a dowager, for I vow to-night you look like a veritable Adonis, and,” she added in a whisper too low to be heard by Sophia, “your Venus adores you more madly than ever, you wicked wretch.”