" He
concludes with an account, written in an Addisonian vein, of a club to
which he had the honour to belong. "There are fourteen of us, who are
all authors that have been once in our lives what is called 'damned.'
We meet on the anniversaries of our respective nights, and make
ourselves merry at the expense of the public.... To keep up the memory
of the cause in which we suffered, as the ancients sacrificed a goat,
a supposed unhealthy animal, to AEsculapius, on our feast-nights we cut
up a goose, an animal typical of the popular voice, to the deities of
Candour and Patient Hearing. A zealous member of the society once
proposed that we should revive the obsolete luxury of viper-broth;
but, the stomachs of some of the company rising at the proposition, we
lost the benefit of that highly salutary and antidotal dish."
It is to be observed that when a play is hissed there is this
consolation at the service of those concerned: they can shift the
burden of reproach. The author is at liberty to say: "It was the fault
of the actors. Read my play, you will see that it did not deserve the
cruel treatment it experienced.
Pages:
694
695
696
697
698
699
700
701
702
703
704
705
706
707
708
709
710
711
712
713
714
715
716
717
718