[A tea-table brought in.]
Clink. This finish'd drama is too good for an age like this.
Plotw. The Universal Deluge, or the tragedy of Deucalion and Pyrrha.
[Reads
Clink. Mr. Plotwell, I will not be deny'd the pleasure of reading it, you will pardon me.
1st Play. The deluge! the subject seems to be too recherche.
Clink. A subject untouch'd either by ancients or moderns, in which are terror and pity in perfection.
1st Play. The stage will never bear it. Can you suppose, Sir, that a box of ladies will sit three hours to see a rainy day, and a feather in a storm; make your best of it, I know it can be nothing else.
2d Play. If you please, madam, let us hear how it opens.
Clink. [reads.] The scene opens and discovers the heavens cloudy. A prodigious shower of rain. At a distance appears the top of the mountain Parnassus; all the fields beneath are over-flowed; there are seen cattle and men swimming. The tops of steeples rise above the flood, with men and women perching on their weathercocks——
Sir Trem. Begging your pardon, Sir, I believe it can be proved, that weather-cocks are of a modern invention. Besides, [if stones were dissolved, as a late philosopher hath proved], how could steeples stand?