CAMILLA, though her personal sorrows were blunted by the view of the calamities and resignation of her sister, was so little disposed for amusement, that she had accepted the invitation of Mrs. Arlbery, only from wanting spirit to resist its urgency. Mr Tyrold was well pleased that such a recreation came in her way, but desired Lavinia might be of the party; not only that she might partake of the same pleasure, but from a greater security in her prudence, than in that of her naturally thoughtless sister.

The town of Etherington afforded no theatre; and the room fitted up for the night’s performance could contain but two boxes, one of which was secured for Mrs. Arlbery and her friends.

The attentive Major was ready to offer his hand to Camilla upon her arrival. The rest of the officers were in the box.

The play was Othello; and so miserably represented, that Lavinia would willingly have retired after the first scene: but the native spirits of Camilla revisited her in the view of the ludicrous personages of the drama. And they were soon joined by Sir Sedley Clarendel, whose quaint conceits and remarks assisted the risibility of the scene. She thought him the least comprehensible person she had ever known; but as he was totally indifferent to her, his oddity entertained without tormenting her.

The actors were of the lowest strolling kind, and so utterly without merit, that they had never yet met with sufficient encouragement to remain one week in the same place. They had only a single scene for the whole performance, which depictured a camp, and which here served for a street, a senate, a city, a castle, and a bed-chamber.

The dresses were almost equally parsimonious, everyone being obliged to take what would fit him, from a wardrobe that did not allow quite two dresses a person for all the plays they had to enact. Othello, therefore, was equipped as King Richard the Third, save that instead of a regal front he had a black wig, to imitate wool: while his face had been begrimed with a smoked cork.

Iago wore a suit of cloaths originally made for Lord Foppington: Brabantio had borrowed the armour of Hamlet’s Ghost: Cassio, the Lieutenant General in the christian army, had only been able to equip himself in Osmyn’s Turkish vest; and Roderigo, accoutred in the garment of Shylock, came forth a complete Jew.

Desdemona, attired more suitably to her fate than to her expectations, went through the whole of her part, except the last scene, in the sable weeds of Isabella. And Amelia was fain to content herself with the habit of the first witch in Macbeth.

The gestures, both of the gentlemen and ladies, were as outrageous as if meant rather to intimidate the audience, than to shew their own animation; and the men approached each other so closely with arms a-kimbo, or double fists, that Sir Sedley, with pretended alarm, said they were giving challenges for a boxing match.

The ladies also, in the energy of their desire not to be eclipsed, took so much exercise in their action, that they tore out the sleeves of their gowns; which, though pinned up every time they left the stage, completely exposed their shoulders at the end of every act; and they raised their arms so high while facing each other, that Sir Sedley expressed frequent fears they meant to finish by pulling caps.

So imperfect were they also in their parts, that the prompter was the only person from whom any single speech passed without a blunder.

Iago, who was the master of the troop, was the sole performer who spoke not with a provincial dialect; the rest all betrayed their birth and parentage the first line they uttered.

Cassio proclaimed himself from Norfolk:

The Deuk dew greet yew, General,

- - - - - - - - - - -

Being not at yew’re lodging to be feund - - -

The senate sent above tree several quests, &c.

Othello himself proved a true Londoner; and with his famed soldier-like eloquence in the senate-scene, thus began his celebrated defence.

Most potent, grawe, and rewerend Seignors,

My wery noble and approwed good masters,

That I have ta’en avay this old man’s darter–

I vill a round, unwarnish’d tale deliver

Of my whole course of love; vhat drugs, vhat charms,

Vhat conjuration, and vhat mighty magic

I von his darter with - - -

Her father lov’d me, oft inwited me - -

- - - My story being done,

She gave me for my pains a vorld of sighs,

She svore in faith ‘tvas strange, ‘tvas passing strange,

‘Tvas pitiful, ‘tvas vondrous pitiful;

She vish’d she had not heard it; yet she vish’d

That Heawen had made her such a man. - -

This only is the vitchcraft I have us’d;

Here comes the lady, let her vitness it.

This happily making the gentle Desdemona recognised, notwithstanding her appearance was so little bridal, her Somersetshire father cried:

I preay you hear ‘ur zpeak.

If a confez that a waz half the woer

Deztruction on my head, if my bead bleame

Light o’ the mon!

His daughter, in the Worcestershire pronunciation, answered:

Noble father,

Hi do perceive ere a divided duty;

To you hi howe my life hand heducation,

My life hand heducation both do teach me

Ow to respect you. You’re the lord hof duty;

Hi’m itherto your daughter: but ere’s my usband!–

The fond Othello then exclaimed:

Your woices, lords! beseech you let her vill

Have a free vay! - - -

And Brabantio took leave with

Look to ‘ur, Moor! if th’ azt eyez to zee;

A haz deceiv’d ‘ur veather, and may thee. -

They were detained so long between the first and second act, that Sir Sedley said he feared poor Desdemona had lost the thread-paper from which she was to mend her gown, and recommended to the two young ladies to have the charity to go and assist her. ‘Consider,’ he said, ‘the trepidation of a fair bride but just entered into her shackles. Who knows but Othello may be giving her a strapping, in private, for wearing out her cloaths so fast! you young ladies think nothing of these little conjugal freedoms.’

Mrs. Arlbery, though for some time she had been as well diverted by the play as Camilla, less new to such exhibitions, was soon tired of the sameness of the blunders, and, at the end of the fourth act, proposed retiring. But Camilla, who had long not felt so much entertained, looked so disappointed, that her good humour overcame her fatigue, and she was insisting upon staying; when a gentleman, who visited them from the opposite box, proposed that the young ladies should be carried home by his mother, a lady who lived at Etherington, and was acquainted at the rectory, and who intended to stay out not only the play but the farce. Lavinia consented; the son went with the proposition, and the business was soon arranged. Mrs. Arlbery, who had three miles to go beyond the parsonage-house, and who, though she delighted to oblige, was but little in the habit of practising se............