186 Letter on Affairs in general. [ Aue. 
charging him openly with fomenting the disturbances in Lancashire. In 
the mean time, the districts in the North are kept from open tumult 
chiefly by contribution; the King has sent another thousand pounds 
to the Spital-fields’ weavers; and at Dumfries a mealman has had 
his bones broken—who seems to have been a sort of person that de- 
served it. 
Agriculture looks up fairly, taking the country through ; though the 
want of rain in May and April has brought the hay harvest to nothing. 
The heat has been excessive during the greater part of the last two 
months; so much so, that ponds and lakes have been evaporating (accord- 
ing to the newspaper calculations) at the rate of near half a cubic inch 
aday. The evaporation of ale and porter, too (in some districts), has 
gone on with extraordinary rapidity during the same period; so much 
so, that, unless the distress of the population of the manufacturing 
towns should go to balance it, there ought to be a great increase upon the 
article of excise in the next quarter’s revenue. Human beings, too, have 
shewn a disposition to “ evaporate,”—no doubt in consequence of the 
extreme dry weather: three persons rose from the surface of the earth 
on Friday night last in a balloon from Vauxhall. « They effected their 
descent ” “ without injury ” (except to the fields and ern about 
midnight, inthe neighbourhood of Richmond. And “ returned imme- 
diately in a post-chaise and four” to the “Royal Gardens !”—where a 
gala on the preceding evening, for the benefit of the Spanish Refugees, 
by the way, produced nothing. 
Theatrical, affairs are moving very eccentrically: Mr. Bish has aban- 
doned his contract for Drury Lane. The drawing of the « last lottery,” 
moreover, (I don’t know whether the two events have any natural 
connexion,) is postponed until the 18th of October. About that time, 
Mr. Price, the American gentleman who has taken the theatre on Mr. 
Bish’s lease, will return from New York : where he has proceeded, it is 
said, in search of leading performers. Mr. Bish is lucky upon any terms, 
in having got out of his speculation, for theatrical property is about as 
bad, just now, as any property well can be; how far an American is 
likely to be popular as a purveyor of public amusements in England 
seems rather problematical, but the event of Mr. Price’s first season 
possibly will shew. 
Very few new books indeed in production at present ; and dramatic 
novelties none at all worth mentioning. Ouvrard, the French contractor, 
has published a first volume of his memoirs: it will not have much in- 
terest except for mere commercial and financial people ; but Ouvrard 
seems to have been a bold and successful speculator, and a man of general 
capacities. At the English Opera-House, a very dull play has been picked 
out of a very dull story—one of the “ Tales of the O’Hara.” I believe it 
“‘ went off well,” however, as the minor newspapers say; for audiences 
go on under suffering it, night after night, with admirable patience. At 
the Haymarket Theatre, a new actor (Mr. Osbaldiston,) made his ap- 
pearance. I apprehend he “went off” well too, for I have never 
heard any thing about him since. . 
The barbers of London seem to be very impertinent people ; I think 
they are always getting into scrapes of late. There were three taken 
up out of Birchin Lane, the other day, for being beaten by one shoe- 
maker ; and the Lord Mayor threatened to send them all—where they, 
said the shoemaker (probably in virtue of his occupation) ought to be 
