On the duties of audiences, Mr. Bickerstaffe is a little loose, but we may readily acquiesce in one of his sentiments. "When we see anything divert an audience, either in tragedy or comedy, that strikes at the duties of civil life, or exposes what the best men in all ages have looked upon as sacred and inviolable, it is the certain sign of a profligate race of men, who are fallen from the virtue of their forefathers, and will be contemptible in the eyes of their posterity." This was said when audiences thought only of the quality of the actor, and troubled not themselves with that of the maxims uttered, unless these had some political tendency, or allusion to well-known popular circumstance. The _Tatler_ lived before the time when the stories of Regulus and Virginia were turned into burlesque, and children received their first impressions of Alfred and of Tell through the caricature of extravaganza. But there was much that was illegitimate in those legitimate days. If a play was not likely to attract, an audience was advertised, in order to draw one. The promised presence of royalty, naturally enough, helped to fill the house; but so would that of a leash of savages, or a quack doctoress. Of the latter class, there was the clever and impudent Mrs. Mapp, the bone-setter, who came into town daily from Epsom, in her own carriage, and set bones, or explained her principle in doing so, at the Grecian Coffee House. The Lincoln's Inn Field managers invited her to honour their house and the performance with her presence, and the astute old lady was well aware that her presence thus granted would be a profitable advertisement of herself. That presence I find announced at the above theatre on the 16th October, 1736, with that of Taylor, the oculist, at Lincoln's Inn Fields. The play was the "Husband's Relief," but the full house was owing to Mrs. Mapp being there. In honour of this "bone-setter," near whom also sat Ward, the worm doctor, a song was sung on the stage,--as the national anthem when a sovereign sanctions the doings of the evening. Of this chant I give the first and last verses:-- "Ye surgeons of London, who puzzle your pates, To ride in your coaches and purchase estates, Give over, for shame, for your pride has a fall, And the doctress of Epsom has outdone you all. Derry down. * * * * * "Dame Nature has giv'n her a doctor's degree, She gets all the patients and pockets the fee; So if you don't instantly prove her a cheat, She'll loll in her chariot, while you walk the street. Derry down!" Let us now glance at the example set to audiences by greater folk than Mrs. Mapp.