Persuaded by these motives and assurances, he trusted himself once
more in the midst of their community, and everything proceeded
with great decorum; all dispute and altercation was avoided, and
the college applied itself seriously to the purposes of its meeting,
namely, to hear the grievances of individuals, and assist them with
salutary advice. The first person that craved redress was a noisy
North Briton, who complained, in a strange dialect, that he had,
in the beginning of the season, presented a comedy to the manager
of a certain theatre, who, after it had lain six weeks in his hands,
returned it to the author, affirming there was neither sense nor
English in the performance.
The president, who, by the bye, had revised the piece, thinking
his own reputation concerned, declared, in presence of the whole
society, that, with regard to sense, he would not undertake to
vindicate the production; but, in point of language, no fault could
be justly laid to its charge. "The case, however, is very plain,"
said he; "the manager never gave himself the trouble to peruse the
play, but formed a judgment of it from the conversation of the
author, never dreaming that it had undergone the revisal of an
English writer; be that as it will, you are infinitely obliged to
him for having despatched you so soon, and I shall have the better
opinion of him for it so long as I live; for I have known other
guise authors than you, that is, in point of interest and fame,
kept in continual attendance and dependence during the best part
of their lives, and, after all, disappointed in the expectation of
seeing their performances exhibited on the stage.
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