In other words, the noble Halifax merely expressed his satisfaction that Mr.Rowe could now read "Don Quixote" in the original.
Thus Nance played on, sometimes in comedy, and again in tragedy, when, despite her customary objections, the pages had to drag her train about.

It was a train that swept all before it.
The speaking of trains and pages suggests the fact that in old times the heroes and heroines of tragedy always wore, either in peculiarity of dress or pomp of surroundings, the badge of greatness.

Nowadays a few bars of romantic music, to usher these characters on the stage, will suffice.

But things were different then; our ancestors insisted that the aforesaid _dramatis personnae_ should be labelled, frilled and furbelowed.
Addison has an interesting essay on the subject.[A] [Footnote A: _Spectator_, No.

42.] "But among all our tragic artifices," he says, "I am the most offended at those which are made use of to inspire us with magnificent ideas of the persons that speak.