These little ebullitions appear to have amused the grave King, for Cibber hints that they raised a smile on the royal countenance, and he suggests that such a fact was entirely natural and reasonable. He adds, "that an audience may be as well too much reserved as too profuse of their applause. For though it is possible a Betterton would not have been discouraged from throwing out an excellence, or elated into an error, by his auditors being too little or too much pleased; yet as actors of his judgment are rarities, those of less judgment may sink into a flatness in their performance for want of that applause which, from the generality of judges, they might, perhaps, have some pretence to; and the auditor, when not seeming to feel what ought to affect him, may rob himself of something more that he might have had, by giving the actor his due, who measures out his power to please, according to the value he sets upon the hearer's taste or capacity; but, however, as we were not here itinerant adventurers, and had properly but one royal auditor to please, after that honour was attained to, the rest of our ambition had little to look after." And now what of this George's successor as an "auditor?" Among the unmerited censures which have been flung at Charles II., the most conspicuous and the least reasonable is that the grossness of the dramas produced in his days was owing to his bad taste exhibited in his fondness for French comedy. Had the poets of that period imitated that comedy, they would not have offended as they did, for, taken altogether, French comedy was remarkable for its freedom from utter, abounding, and continual coarseness. I think that George II. was more blameworthy than his predecessor Charles, for he encouraged the representation of immoral dramas, and commanded the restoration of scenes which actors had begun to deem too indecent for acting or expression. For didactic plays the monarch had no stomach; but he savoured Ravenscroft's beastly comedies--the very worst of them did he the most delight in, and helped to keep them on the stage when actors and audiences were alike disgusted with them. This perverted taste was strong upon him from the first. When Prince of Wales, he witnessed the acting of "Venice Preserved," but, discovering subsequently, on reading the old edition of the play, there were scenes in it which are flattered by merely being designated as "filthy," he sent for the "master" of one of the houses, and commanded that the omitted scenes should be restored. They are those which chiefly lie between Aquilia and Antonio, characters which never take part in modern representations of Otway's tragedy. The former part was given to Mrs. Horton, who, though she was something of the quality of the creature she represented, was not only young and beautiful, but was draped in a certain mantle of modesty which heightened the charms of her youth and her beauty; and