THE LONDON MAGAZINE, For JANUARY, 1769. THE BRITISH THEATRE. To the AUTHOR of the BRITISH ing on the imagination.—The au SIR, Y THEATRE. thor beheld the whole, as he declares in his preface, with an eye of due OU will not conceive fenfibility-it was his head therefore, me to be an enemy to not his heart, that failed him in the exbobby borfes when I con- ecution; for that he honoured, and withfefs to you, that I my- ed to do honour to his favourite Fieldfelf am apt to mount ing, is fufficiently proved by his facriwith no fmall extra- ficing what was his own (on the neceffavagance-nor would I ry abridgments) to retain as much as on any confideration interrupt the poffible of the invaluable original. But, ambling of my friends, provided they if you please, we will proceed to exahad either the good fenfe, or (ac- mine the piece. cording to my practice) the modefprivate road—yet ty to chufe a DRAMATIS PERSONÆ. fach is the infirmity of my temper, Allworthy dignation. Nightingale MEN. You will not therefore be furprized, Old Nightingale that the long-expected opera of Tom Blifil Jones thould become the object of Mr. Mattocks WOMEN. least quarrel with Mr. Reed for his Sophia kind of conftitutional paffion for the Nancy mafes, it is his hope of impofing on my Honour understanding that I complain of Landlady my criticifm. Not that I have the Mrs. Western Mrs. Green Mrs. Baker Mrs. Mattocks and as I really refpect him in every Four country Gentlemen, Servants, other character, except the literary, I Huntfmen, &c. am doubly folicitous to convince him, Scene during the first and fecond acts how poffible it is for a very good fort of man to be a very execrable poet. But that I may not be charged with in Somerfetfhire, in the laft at Upton. THE FABLE. WESTERN, a ftrange compound of throwing dirt without provocation, I ignorance and obstinacy, from his own will candidly diffect this notable com- approbation of Tom Jones, a youth polition, and appeal to the impartial under the protection of his neighbour reader for judgment between us. I myself, in conjunction with the Mr. Allworthy, very wifely expofes his daughter to repeated opportunities multitude, from weighing the pretty of converfing with the agreeable young but the offspring would have borne which is, their mutual tender, though capabilities of the origin, had no doubt fellow-the natural confequence of fome happy features-the characters fecret, attachment to each other. finely marked the plot luckily form But notwithstanding Jones's refolu ed-and the opportunities for both hu- tions of filence, he lets fall fome Xmour and pathos fo perpetually open- preflions before Mis. Honour, the Jan. 1769. A 2 waiting |