“No certainly,” replied the favorite: “there are a hundred bad for one good. This is not brought on properly, that is quite miraculous. Is an author encumbered with a personage, which he has drag’d from scene to scene through five acts, he dispatches him with a stab of a poniard: everybody falls to crying, and I burst into laughter. Besides, did mortals ever speak as we declaim? Do kings and princes walk otherwise than a well-bred man? Have they ever gesticulated like persons possessed or raging mad? Do princesses speak in a shrill squeaking tone? It is generally supposed that we have carried tragedy to a high degree of perfection; and I on the contrary think it is next to demonstration, that of all the kinds of literary works, to which the Africans have applied themselves in these latter ages, this is the most imperfect.”

The favorite was advanced thus far in her sally against our theatrical pieces, when Mangogul returned. “Madam,” said he, “you will oblige me in continuing. You see I have a secret to abridge a poetical subject, when I find it tedious.”