#7.] Letter on 



" Though lost to sight, to memory dear !" when she writes to a 



riend who has lately had his eye poked out ; " Though absent, unfor- 

 gottcn !" to a female correspondent, whom she has not written to for per- 

 haps the last three (twopenny) posts ; or, " Vous le meritez /" with the 

 figure of a " rose" emblematic of every thing beautiful when she writes 

 o a lover. It was the receiving a note with this last seal to it that put the 

 subject of seals into my mind ; and I have some notion of getting one en- 

 graved with the same motto, " vous le meritez," only with, the personi- 

 fication of a horseivhip under it instead of a " rose" for peculiar occa- 

 sions. And, perhaps, a second would not do amiss with the same em- 

 blem ; only with the motto " Tu I' auras .'" as a sort of corollary upon the 

 first, in case of emergency ! At all events, I patronize the system of a 

 variety of " posies ;" because, where the inside of a letter is likely to 

 be stupid, it gives you the chance of a joke upon the out. 



Two-thirds of the distinction between wit and impertinence it 

 always struck me lies in the character of the individual by whom 

 the given matter happdns to be uttered. All the world has been most 

 affectedly delighted with the conversations about " acting," lately retailed, 

 between Buonaparte and Talma ; and the true knowledge and taste for 

 the drama, &c. displayed in them by the former, &c. &c. 



u Come!" said the leader of men or this is the purport (for I quote 

 from memory) of what he is reported to have said " to my levee in a 

 morning. You will there see kings, who have been deprived of their 

 crowns ; soldiers, who are ambitious candidates for sovereignty ; prin- 

 cesses, who have lost their lovers, &c. &c. All this is undoubtedly Tra- 

 gedy. I am myself incomparably the most tragic person in existence. 

 But you will see, in the demeanour of these personages, no rage no 

 fury no violence no seeming despair. All bear themselves calmly, like 

 other people," &c. From which the reallyadmirable soldier is held to 

 have deduced, that the style and manner of Tragedy upon the stage 

 should not " overstep the modesty" of that which was seen in the Thuil- 

 leries. Now Comic acting I take to be so perfectly national so local 

 that it is impossible to try or discuss it with any reference to general 

 principles. No Englishman can have more than a very imperfect view 

 of the merits, or demerits, of a French actor of humorous, or what we 

 call " low " comedy, as compared with those of an actor of the same 

 school in his own country. But Tragedy stands in a different situation. 

 Tragedy belongs not to nations, but to nature : the passions of rage and 

 grief are every where (even in their expression) pretty nearly the same ; 

 and, therefore, as we may have an opinion for the WORLD with respect 

 to Tragedy, I think that what Buonaparte is related to have said unless 

 it is to be taken in a very limited line of application indeed -would only 

 shew that he had bestowed no consideration upon the subject that he 

 talked about. , 



Because every body knows, I take it, in the first place, that it would 

 be perfectly absurd to justify or applaud any exhibition or representation 

 upon the stage any more than one would applaud such a presentation in 

 a picture merely because the thing presented was perfectly natural. No 

 attributes or qualities are more natural than those of heaviness, clumsi- 

 ness, ugliness, or vulgarity ; but when we produce a " hero " upon the 

 stage, we endeavour to exhibit, not that merely which may be " Nature," 

 but that which is nature in its most striking and curious shape the thing 

 observe what a vtist number of these persons, who cry out for "cheap 



