 that they have been able to play in full Concert at the first rising
of the Curtain.
    The same Advantages may be drawn from these Chapters, in which the Critic
will be always sure of meeting with something that may serve as a Whetstone to
his noble Spirit; so that he may fall with a more hungry Appetite for Censure on
the History itself. And here his Sagacity must make it needless to observe how
artfully these Chapters are calculated for that excellent Purpose; for in these
we have always taken Care to intersperse somewhat of the sour or acid Kind, in
order to sharpen and stimulate the said Spirit of Criticism.
    Again, the indolent Reader, as well as Spectator, finds great Advantage from
both these; for as they are not obliged either to see the one or read the
others, and both the Play and the Book are thus protracted, by the former they
have a Quarter of an Hour longer allowed them to sit at Dinner, and by the
Latter they have the Advantage of beginning to read at the fourth or fifth Page
instead of the first; a Matter by no means of trivial Consequence to Persons who
read Books with no other View than to say they have read them, a more general
Motive to reading than is commonly imagined; and from which not only Law Books,
and Good Books, but the Pages of Homer and Virgil, of Swift and Cervantes have
been often turned over.
    Many other are the Emoluments which arise from both these, but they are for
the most part so obvious that we shall not at present stay to enumerate them;
especially since it occurs to us that the principal Merit of both the Prologue
and the Preface is that they be short.
 

                                   Chapter II

 A whimsical Adventure which befel the Squire, with the distressed Situation of
                                    Sophia.
 
We must now convey the Reader to Mr. Western's Lodgings which were in Piccadilly
, where he was placed by the Recommendation of the Landlord at the Hercules
Pillars at Hide-Park-Corner; for at that Inn, which was the first he saw on his
Arrival in Town, he placed his Horses, and in those Lodgings, which were the
first he heard of, he deposited himself.
    Here when Sophia alighted from the Hackney-Coach, which brought her from the
House of Lady Bellaston, she desired to retire to the Apartment provided for
her, to which her Father very readily agreed, and whither he attended her
himself. A short Dialogue, neither very material nor pleasant to relate
minutely, then passed between them, in which he pressed her vehemently to give
her Consent to the Marriage with Blifil,
