deceit and disguise. She has no virtue; is all pride; and her devil is
as much within her, as without her.

How then can the fall of such a one create a proper distress, when all
the circumstances of it are considered? For does she not brazen out her
crime, even after detection? Knowing her own guilt, she calls for
Altamont's vengeance on his best friend, as if he had traduced her;
yields to marry Altamont, though criminal with another; and actually beds
that whining puppy, when she had given up herself, body and soul, to
Lothario; who, nevertheless, refused to marry her.

Her penitence, when begun, she justly styles the phrensy of her soul;
and, as I said, after having, as long as she could, most audaciously
brazened out her crime, and done all the mischief she could do,
(occasioning the death of Lothario, of her father, and others,) she stabs
herself.

And can this be the act of penitence?

But, indeed, our poets hardly know how to create a distress without
horror, murder, and suicide; and must shock your soul, to bring tears
from your eyes.

Altamont indeed, who is an amorous blockhead, a credulous cuckold, and,
(though painted as a brave fellow, and a soldier,) a mere Tom. Essence,
and a quarreler with his best friend, dies like a fool, (as we are led to
suppose at the conclusion of the play,) without either sword or pop-gun,
of mere grief and nonsense for one of the vilest of her sex: but the Fair
Penitent, as she is called, perishes by her own hand; and, having no
title by her past crimes to laudable pity, forfeits all claim to true