Read it through once

Some time after the election, when, indeed, it was a thing forgotten, Dr. Valpy, the head-master of the Grammar School, decided to have a Greek play performed by the boys, and to this function the Mitfords were invited. The play was the _Hercules Furens_ of Euripides and, of course, Miss Mitford made fun of the whole performance, especially of the last scene when, to slow music, the curtain dropped on “Theseus and Hercules in the midst of a hug which assuredly no Greek poet, painter or sculptor ever dreamt of. That hug was purely Readingtonian—conceived, born and bred in the Forbury.” However, the play was well received and became an annual fixture, with Miss Mitford as the official reporter or, as she put it, the “official puffer for the Reading paper.”