This page has been validated.
[ 148 ]
THE THEATRE.
The amuſements which this place afford are generally ſuppoſed the moſt rational, and are really ſo to a cultivated mind; yet one that is not quite formed may learn affectation at the theatre. Many of our admired tragedies are too full of declamation, and a falſe diſplay of the paſſions. A heroine is often made to grieve ten or twenty years, and yet the unabated ſorrow has not given her cheeks a pallid hue; ſhe ſtill inſpires the moſt violent paſſion in every beholder, and her own yields not to time. The prominent features of a paſſion are eaſily
copied,