_Promp_. Common Sense, sir, desires to speak with you in the green-room. _Fust_. I'll wait upon her. _Sneer_. You ought, for it is the first message, I believe, you ever received from her. [_Aside_. [_Exeunt_ Fus. _and_ SNEER. _Enter_ a Dancer. _Dane_. Look'e, Mr Prompter, I expect to dance first goddess; I will not dance under Miss Minuet; I am sure I shew more to the audience than any lady upon the stage. _Promp_. Madam, it is not my business. _Dane_. I don't know whose business it is; but I think the town ought to be the judges of a dancer's merit; I am sure they are on my side; and if I am not used better, I'll go to France; for now we have got all their dancers away, perhaps they may be glad of some of ours. _Promp_. Heyday! what's the matter? [_A noise within_. _Enter_ Player. _Play_. The author and Common Sense are quarrelling in the green-room. _Promp_. Nay, then, that's better worth seeing than anything in the play. [_Exit_ Promp. _Danc_. Hang this play, and all plays; the dancers are the only people that support the house; if it were not for us they might act their Shakspeare to empty benches. ACT IV. SCENE I.--_Enter_ FUSTIAN _and_ SNEERWELL. _Fust_. These little things, Mr Sneerwell, will sometimes happen. Indeed a poet undergoes a great deal before he comes to his third night; first with the muses, who are humorous ladies, and must be attended; for if they take it into their head at any time to go abroad and leave you, you will pump your brain in vain: then, sir, with the master of a playhouse to get it acted, whom you generally follow a quarter of a year before you know whether he will receive it or no; and then, perhaps, he tells you it won't do, and returns it to you again, reserving the subject, and perhaps the name, which he brings out in his next pantomime; but if he should receive the play, then you must attend again to get it writ out into parts and rehearsed. Well, sir, at last, the rehearsals begin; then, sir, begins another scene of trouble with the actors, some of whom don't like their parts, and all are continually plaguing you with alterations: at length, after having waded through all these difficulties, his play appears on the stage, where one man hisses out of resentment to the author, a second out of dislike to the house, a third out of dislike to the actor, a fourth out of dislike to the play, a fifth for the joke sake, a sixth to keep all the rest in company. Enemies abuse him, friends give him up, the play is damned, and the author goes to the devil: so ends the farce. _Sneer_. The tragedy, rather, I think, Mr Fustian. But what's become of Trapwit? _Fust_. Gone off, I suppose; I knew he would not stay; he is so taken up with his own performances, that he has no time to attend any others. But come, Prompter, will the tragedy never begin? _Enter_ Prompter.