| Citation |
NYGWPB.762.006
14 Jan 1762:32 (993)
Sir, I hope the argument that accompanies the enclosed, will
be of sufficient weight to procure it a place in your next
paper. To see it there would greatly oblige, one of your
constant readers,
A letter to Amanda, from a female Friend.
My dear Amanda, You can't conceive how uneasy I was to find
by the Thursday's paper of the 31st ult. that you was very
ill, and almost dead with the overflowing of the gall. . . .
[25 lines, then describing her attendance at church]
Singing set us all in such a titter that day was this same
Philodemos, who has the impudence to write against the
stage, and to reprove a lady because (forsooth) in the heat
of her laudable zeal for plays, she happen'd a little to
ridicule the precepts of the Gospel; for as you well
observe, since it came from a woman, it was very, very low,
nay let me add, `twas the most unpolite and clownish thing
in the world to reprove her for it.
Indeed, my Dear, I shall ever honour you as a noble
champion for the liberties of the sex, and hope you'll teach
such old rustics better manners, than to reprove a lady for
trifles, such as laughing and gigling at Church,---bantering
the Scriptures,---attending plays, and many, many other
things . . . [6 lines] You have now, my dear Amanda,
sufficiently proved that plays are very instructing,--and
had not Philodemos been an old fool, he might have only put
on his spectacles, and seen it by their very titles, such as
"The Devil to pay", --"The Virgin unmask'd",-- "Woman is a
Riddle", &c. The first of these you know, has been acted
twice already, and the very title agrees with the wise
maxim, "Give the Devil his due", and who can say this is not
good morality. Strange! that Philodemos, should not know
that 'tis better to pay the devil twice or thrice, than to
be seized by him with a Habeas Corpus, and carried to jail.-
-Let all then, that would be good Christians, diligently
attend the theatre, and learn to pay the devil well, lest he
should handle them too roughly when they fall into his
clutches.--I dare say the gentleman who wrote that
prescription for your late disorder in the Mercury, has
found the farce of the "Mock Doctor" very instructing, and
has greatly improved by it, and while he is so zealous an
advocate for these useful entertainments, we have nothing to
fear from all the opposition that can be made, either from
the mischievous practitioners of the law, or the pretended
friends of the Gospel.
I am, my dear Amanda, Your much obliged friend, Dolly
Blithe.
. . . [1 line]
This appellation is not intended for any gentleman of the
Faculty, but is a metaphorical expression alluding to
Amanda's sickness.
We have another piece come to hand, in vindication of the
stage, but as it is long and wants the proper argument for
its admission, it is uncertain whether it will appear in our
paper.
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