“I suppose,” continued the favorite, “a person just arrived from Angola, who had never heard a play mentioned, but otherwise does not want good sense and breeding, has some acquaintance with the courts of princes, the intrigues of courtiers, the jealousies of ministers, and the double dealings of women; to whom I say in confidence ‘My friend, there are terrible commotions actually in the Seraglio. The prince, dissatisfied with his son, in whom he suspects a passion for the Manimonbanda, is a man capable of taking the most cruel vengeance of them both. This adventure will, in all probability, be attended with dismal consequences. If you choose it, I will make you an eyewitness of all that passes.’ He accepts my offer, and I carry him into a box screen’d by a blind, from whence he sees the stage, which he takes for the Sultan’s palace, Do you believe, notwithstanding the serious air I put on, that this person’s illusion can last a moment? Will you not rather agree with me, that the stiff-affected carriage of the actors, the oddity of their dress, the extravagance of their gestures, the emphasis of a singular language in rhyme and cadence, and a thousand other shocking dissonances, must make him laugh in my face before the first scene is over, and tell me either that I make game of him, or that the prince and all his court are mad.”