about it.  The first ridiculous airs, that break from her, are upon a gallant never seen before, who delivers her a letter from her father, recommending him to her good graces as an honourable lover.  Here, now, one would think she might naturally shew a little of the sex’s decent reserve, though never so slightly covered.  No, sir, not a tittle of it:  Modesty is a poor-souled country gentlewoman; she is too much a court lady to be under so vulgar a confusion.  She reads the letter, therefore, with a careless dropping lip, and an erected brow, humming it hastily over, as if she were impatient to outgo her father’s commands, by making a complete conquest of him at once; and, that the letter might not embarrass the attack, crack! she crumbles it at once into her palm, and pours down upon him her whole artillery of airs, eyes, and motion; down goes her dainty diving body to the ground, as it she were sinking under the conscious load of her own attractions; then launches into a flood of fine language and compliment, still playing her chest forward in fifty falls and risings, like a swan upon waving water; and, to complete her impertinence, she is so rapidly fond of her own wit, that she will not give her lover leave to praise it.  Silent assenting bows, and vain endeavours to speak, are all the share of the conversation he is admitted to, which, at last, he is removed from by her engagement to half a score of visits, which she swims from him to make, with a promise to return in a twinkling.” Cibber’s Apology, p. 99.

By this lively sketch, some judgment may be formed of the effect produced by the character of Melantha, when ably represented; but, to say the truth, we could hardly have drawn the same deduction from a simple perusal of the piece.  Of the French phrases, which the affected lady throws into her conversation, some have been since naturalized, as good graces, minuet, chagrin, grimace, ridicule, and others.  Little can be said of the tragic part of the drama.  The sudden turn of fortune in the conclusion is ridiculed in “The Rehearsal.”

The researches of Mr Malone have ascertained that “Marriage A-la-Mode” was first acted in 1673, in an old theatre in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, occupied by the King’s company, after that in Drury-Lane had been burned, and during its re-building.  The play was printed in the same year.

TO

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

THE

EARL OF ROCHESTER[1].

MY LORD,

I humbly dedicate to your Lordship that poem, of which you were pleased to appear an early patron, before it was acted on the stage.  I may yet go farther, with your permission, and say, that it received amendment from your noble hands ere it was fit to be presented.  You may please likewise to remember, with how much favour to the author, and indulgence to the play, you commended it to the view of his Majesty, then