You may generally observe, that the Appetites are sooner moved than the
Passions: A sly Expression which alludes to Bawdry, puts a whole Row
into a pleasing Smirk; when a good Sentence that describes an inward
Sentiment of the Soul, is received with the greatest Coldness and
Indifference. A Correspondent of mine, upon this Subject, has divided
the Female Part of the Audience, and accounts for their Prepossession
against this reasonable Delight in the following Manner. The Prude, says
he, as she acts always in Contradiction, so she is gravely sullen at a
Comedy, and extravagantly gay at a Tragedy. The Coquette is so much
taken up with throwing her Eyes around the Audience, and considering the
Effect of them, that she cannot be expected to observe the Actors but as
they are her Rivals, and take off the Observation of the Men from her
self. Besides these Species of Women, there are the _Examples_, or the
first of the Mode: These are to be supposed too well acquainted with
what the Actor was going to say to be moved at it. After these one might
mention a certain flippant Set of Females who are Mimicks, and are
wonderfully diverted with the Conduct of all the People around them, and
are Spectators only of the Audience. But what is of all the most to be
lamented, is the Loss of a Party whom it would be worth preserving in
their right Senses upon all Occasions, and these are those whom we may
indifferently call the Innocent or the Unaffected. You may sometimes see
one of these sensibly touched with a well-wrought Incident; but then she
is immediately so impertinently observed by the Men, and frowned at by
some insensible Superior of her own Sex, that she is ashamed, and loses
the Enjoyment of the most laudable Concern, Pity. Thus the whole
Audience is afraid of letting fall a Tear, and shun as a Weakness the
best and worthiest Part of our Sense.
[Sidenote: Pray settle what is to be a proper Notification of a
Persons being in Town, and how that differs according to Peoples
Quality.]
_SIR,_
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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