University of Virginia Library

ADVERTISEMENT.

That the Public may know how different an effect this Tragedy had on the Stage, from that which it has been allowed to produce in the Closet, it has been judged proper to print the following Account; which might also, from its own candour and merit, claim some notice.

“ON Saturday evening a new Tragedy, in four Acts, called PHILODAMUS was performed, for the first Time, at Covent-Garden Theatre, and proved the most entertaining of any Blank Verse Production represented on the Stage for some Years, since the Audience were repeatedly provoked to laughter, by the strange and ridiculous jumble of the Low and the Lofty, of vulgar Familiarity and elevated Imagery which made up the dialogue of a Play, without either Plot, Interest, or Situation, sufficiently powerful to render its exhibition tolerably affecting. The Audience having unequivocally expressed their contempt for the Tragedy, the Manager, without the smallest scruple, made up his mind to the matter, and determined not to provoke the indignation of his best Patrons, by attempting to disgrace his Theatre with a second exhibition of Philodamus. If any thing could apologize for the error of having brought such a Play upon the Stage, it was the unusual handsome manner in which the sentence of the Audience was submitted to; a circumstance that redounds much to the credit of the Manager.”