The argument stands
thus--Osborne, in love with Amelia, has asked an old friend to
dinner and to Vauxhall--Jos Sedley is in love with Rebecca. Will he
marry her? That is the great subject now in hand.
We might have treated this subject in the genteel, or in the
romantic, or in the facetious manner. Suppose we had laid the scene
in Grosvenor Square, with the very same adventures--would not some
people have listened? Suppose we had shown how Lord Joseph Sedley
fell in love, and the Marquis of Osborne became attached to Lady
Amelia, with the full consent of the Duke, her noble father: or
instead of the supremely genteel, suppose we had resorted to the
entirely low, and described what was going on in Mr. Sedley's
kitchen--how black Sambo was in love with the cook (as indeed he
was), and how he fought a battle with the coachman in her behalf;
how the knife-boy was caught stealing a cold shoulder of mutton, and
Miss Sedley's new femme de chambre refused to go to bed without a
wax candle; such incidents might be made to provoke much delightful
laughter, and be supposed to represent scenes of "life." Or if, on
the contrary, we had taken a fancy for the terrible, and made the
lover of the new femme de chambre a professional burglar, who bursts
into the house with his band, slaughters black Sambo at the feet of
his master, and carries off Amelia in her night-dress, not to be let
loose again till the third volume, we should easily have constructed
a tale of thrilling interest, through the fiery chapters of which
the reader should hurry, panting.
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