in which the corruption of the heart chiefly consists, dethrones our reason, and renders us more like unto savages. It is incredible, how prone we are to imitation, and how strangely, unknown to ourselves, we are shaped and fashioned after the models and examples that are often set before us. No anger nor jealousy are ever to be seen at an opera, that distort the features; no flames that are noxious, nor is any love represented in them, that is not pure and next to seraphic; and it is impossible for the remembrance to carry any thing away from them, that can sully the imagination. Secondly, the company is of another sort: the place itself is a security to peace, as well as every one's honour; and it is impossible to name another, where blooming innocence and irresistible beauty stand in so little need of guardians. Here we are sure never to meet with petulancy or ill manners, and to be free from immodest ribaldry, libertine wit, and detestable satire. If you will mind, on the one hand, the richness and splendour of dress, and the quality of the persons that appear in them; the variety of colours, and the lustre of the fair in a spacious theatre, well illuminated and adorned; and on the other, the grave deportment of the assembly, and the consciousness that appears in every countenance, of the respect they owe to each other, you will be forced to confess, that upon earth there cannot be a pastime more agreeable: believe me, Madam, there is no place, where both sexes have such opportunities of imbibing exalted sentiments, and raising themselves above the vulgar, as they have at the opera; and there is no other sort of diversion or assembly, from the frequenting of which, young persons of quality can have equal hopes of forming their manners, and contracting a strong and lasting habit of virtue. Ful. You have said more in commendation of operas, Horatio, than I ever heard or thought of before; and I think every body who loves that diversion is highly obliged to you. The grand gout, I believe, is a great help in panegyric, especially, where it is an incivility strictly to examine and over-curiously to look into matters. Cleo. What say you now, Fulvia, of nature and good sense, are they not quite beat out of doors? Ful. I have heard nothing yet, to make me out of conceit with good sense; though what you insinuated of nature, as if it was not to be imitated in painting, is an opinion, I must confess, which hitherto I more admire at, than I can approve of it. Hor. I would never recommend any thing, Madam, that is repugnant to good sense; but Cleomenes must have some design in over-acting the part he pretends to have chosen. What he said about painting is very true, whether he spoke it in jest or in earnest; but he talks so diametrically opposite to the opinion which he is known every where to defend of late, that I do not know what to make of him.