I HAVE been told I could prevent tous proceed

ings.-But I uit beg leave to observe, that theatrical opinions are so variable, unsettled, and prejudiced, that I fear my reasons will have as little effect as if I were to entreat that all methodifts would follow the playhouse, or that methodifts could perfuade all play attendants to become devotees at the tabernacle.

The good government that prevails in general at Drury Lane and Covent Garden theatres is owing to uniformity; decorum begets decorum. Confequently the ftrict order to be found in the London audiences does not owe its happy prefervation entirely to three or four constables in waiting, or to ten or twelve of the King's guards. VOL. IV. B

Witness the great riot on the Chinese Festival at Drury Lane, in spite of the fanction of his Majesty King George the Second, who was there in perfon. Another inftance.-When the French actors were to hrave performed at the Haymarket theatre, Juftice Du Veil, attended by constables, and reinforced with the King's guards, were defeated by numbers and determined phrenzy; then, truly, might overcame right.

Nay, yearly at Christmas holidays in London, on retrospection, the plays are indistinctly and with difficulty got through.

On an uproar, when Lady Coventry and several other perfons of quality were obliged to quit the stage-box, on account of a supposed affront given to Miss Bellamy in Juliet, it was the audience and not any other force compelled thofe difturbers to leave the theatre.

In 1754, when Captain Smith of the guards gave offence on the first night Mr. Murphy appeared in Jaffier, and only his fecond character on the stage, it was the general voice that would not permit the play to proceed till the cause of interruption was removed.

At York formerly, on a Shrove Tuesday, merely from a favage cuftom, the upper gallery was fo noify from numbers, that it could not be conquered but by raising the price on that night, and

which has by the experiment in a great measure removed the evil....

I beg leave to be here understood as speaking of theatres in general; but when the propriety of London is fingled out, let it be well recollected that the audiences there preferve their own respect; for the inftant the curtain draws up all noise fubfides, and every perfon fits down; nor will they fuffer the actors to proceed if a hat remains on a head: but in most country theatres, when the performance begins, the vgazers in the galleries stand up, and with their hats on; nay hats are too often seen on in the pit.

If at London a rioter is vociferous in the gallery, they are from custom and good regulation fo habituated to order and neceffary attention, that the offender is by univerfal consent delivered over to the constables, who not only conducts the culprit out of the gallery, but if guilty of throwing bottles, &c. on the stage, or into the pit or boxes, he is conveyed before a juftice to be properly punished. A difturbance there, even of a fhort duration, feldom happens in the pit; for the inftant of interruption the perfon is removed by force, and turned out with disgrace and ignominy.

To repeat more as to myself concerning the winter at Edinburgh in 1765 would not only be fulfome.and impertinent, but is far from being