serious Entertainments, and such Incidents, as should move one sort of Concern, excite in them a quite contrary one.  In the Tragedy of Macbeth, the other Night, [2] when the Lady who is conscious of the Crime of murdering the King, seems utterly astonished at the News, and makes an Exclamation at it, instead of the Indignation which is natural to the Occasion, that Expression is received with a loud Laugh:  They were as merry when a Criminal was stabbed.  It is certainly an Occasion of rejoycing when the Wicked are seized in their Designs; but I think it is not such a Triumph as is exerted by Laughter.

You may generally observe, that the Appetites are sooner moved than the Passions:  A sly Expression which alludes to Bawdry, puts a whole Row into a pleasing Smirk; when a good Sentence that describes an inward Sentiment of the Soul, is received with the greatest Coldness and Indifference.  A Correspondent of mine, upon this Subject, has divided the Female Part of the Audience, and accounts for their Prepossession against this reasonable Delight in the following Manner.  The Prude, says he, as she acts always in Contradiction, so she is gravely sullen at a Comedy, and extravagantly gay at a Tragedy.  The Coquette is so much taken up with throwing her Eyes around the Audience, and considering the Effect of them, that she cannot be expected to observe the Actors but as they are her Rivals, and take off the Observation of the Men from her self.  Besides these Species of Women, there are the Examples, or the first of the Mode:  These are to be supposed too well acquainted with what the Actor was going to say to be moved at it.  After these one might mention a certain flippant Set of Females who are Mimicks, and are wonderfully diverted with the Conduct of all the People around them, and are Spectators only of the Audience.  But what is of all the most to be lamented, is the Loss of a Party whom it would be worth preserving in their right Senses upon all Occasions, and these are those whom we may indifferently call the Innocent or the Unaffected.  You may sometimes see one of these sensibly touched with a well-wrought Incident; but then she is immediately so impertinently observed by the Men, and frowned at by some insensible Superior of her own Sex, that she is ashamed, and loses the Enjoyment of the most laudable Concern, Pity.  Thus the whole Audience is afraid of letting fall a Tear, and shun as a Weakness the best and worthiest Part of our Sense.

    [Sidenote:  Pray settle what is to be a proper Notification of a
    Persons being in Town, and how that differs according to Peoples
    Quality.]

  SIR,