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down their pride in favour of actors. Many actresses have been married by gentlemen, and even noblemen, and some of them were not undeserving of their good fortune. In France this was not done. English independence disdains the sanction of custom, either to do right or to do wrong; and rules of conduct admit of much more latitude here than in France, where individual characters are, in a great measure, all cast in the mould which belongs to their respective ranks in society. This originality is said to wear off in England, and it would be a matter of regret; for, although not without inconveniences, it is a most valuable quality. The best species of fruit are apt to degenerate in the course of time; and, as they were originally obtained by happy accidents, and were the spontaneous production of a wild stock, it is, after all, on the nursery of trees raised from the kernel that hopes are to rest for new varieties. Europe runs some risk of becoming Chinese, and retaining no other distinctions of character than those of rank and situation, or no other moral qualities than seemliness and decorum.

It is not easy for women to procure proper places at Covent-Garden. A box is taken a fortnight beforehand by people favoured by the boxkeeper. They fill their box if the play-bill of the day suits them; if not, they leave it empty, or occupy only a few seats. And, as you pay only on entering, and not at the time of engaging the box, there is no risk in taking it thus beforehand. After the first act, the public has a right to any vacant box or seats; but it is clear that all those who have not interest with the box-keeper have no chance for seats when they are worth having. Having observed that the second tier of boxes was

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filled by decent persons, I thought myself fortu nate in having got one there, and believed I could fill it easily; but I have been laughed at for my ignorance. These boxes, I have been told, are not bad company,-but are not good company. Fashionable people do not go to them;-citizens and tradesmen, with their wives ;-and a lady may find herself by the side of her mantua-maker. This is like Sancho in his government, when every dish he wanted to taste disappeared under the wand of the doctor. Going to the play is not a habit with anybody here; it is in fact unfashionable: but London is so large, and the theatres so few, that they are always full. Paris has twenty-three theatres; London four or five, and these shut up part of the year. The hour of dining is precisely that of the play, which is another considerable obstacle. We have only found means of going twice to Covent-Garden, and once to the Lyceum. The plays we saw are all modern: The Free Knights, Fly by Night, Speed the Plough, The Maniac, and Hit or Miss. I shall give some account of these plays, that my foreign readers may know something of the English theatre.

Fly by Night. General Bastion is living at his house in the country, with his daughter and a sister, who rules the family. The General, who has lost his sight in the wars thirty years ago, spends his time in fighting his battles over again; the sister,

*The following note has been furnished to me respecting Fly by Night-This play is a translation of a French play of Picart, called The Conteur, or The Two Posts, except that the Comte de Grenouille is there an Englishman; an original, it is true, but respectable. The public in France would.not receive favourably a play where the English character was made contemptible.

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leg,-that

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in reading the newspapers and watching her niece, whom she intends to marry to a man of her own choice, who is expected that very evening, while the niece loves another. An officer with a wooden leg is announced, under the name of Colonel Redoubt, a principal personage in the old stories of the General, who speaks frequently of a Colonel Redoubt, who had lost a leg in the same engagement where he had lost his eyes. Colonel Redoubt is of course received like an old friend, and soon finds means to let Miss Bastion know that he has not a wooden leg, that he is young,-and her lover in disguise. They agree (in a song,) that they love, that they must fly,-and that there will be a post-chaise at a certain hour at the gardendoor. In the evening the General begins telling his old stories by the fire-side ;-the sister and the whole family fall asleep, except the lovers and a trusty servant. The sister, always suspicious, holds in her sleep her niece's hand; this hand is very adroitly disengaged, and the hand of a clownish servant, fast asleep as well as his mistress, substituted, having been for that purpose transported in his chair near her. Next a great bunch of keys hanging from her side is seized upon, and they disappear. The blind General all this while has been narrating, and continues, after the flight of the lovers, to tell his stories to an audience fast asleep. This is a coup-de-théâtre. Astonished at last at the silence of his friend the Colonel, whom he has called to witness some memorable circumstances, he urges him repeatedly, but all in vain, to speak, and confirm what he has said. This scene is interrupted at last by the lover chosen by the aunt, who comes in without being announced, astonished to find every door

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open, and everybody asleep ;-the aunt, suddenly waking, introduces her niece, whose hand she thinks she holds, to the young gentleman, but the hand is that of the clownish footman, whom she draws after her. Surprise-discovery-rage-and general confusion;-quick post horses-and a pursuit!

In the mean time, change of scene;-an inn, of which the landlord and landlady are new married people, who (by way of episode,) begin to quarrel already. An out-rider comes in drunk, orders a supper, and bespeaks horses for his master, a French lord and his lady. Soon after a postchaise draws up; these are the runaway lovers, who are mistaken for the French lord and lady. Their servant, who perceives the mistake, takes advantage of it to secure the bespoken horses, the only ones in the stable, and, to do it the better, speaks broken English; and, like a true Monsieur, puts, after supper, a remaining chicken in his pocket, which, being a shabby thing, is, of course, supposed to be quite French, and makes the house laugh. * These travellers are no sooner gone than the true French lord and lady arrive,-no horses, no supper, long explanation in broken English; blunders and ridiculous qui pro quos. This same French lord is Monsieur le Comte de Grenouille;

* I am told that I have misunderstood the laugh of the house, and the intention of the writer; and that, moreover, if the complaints of those who object to odious or ridiculous characters being drawn from their country were attended to, it would lead to the total exclusion of such characters, and that none would remain for the stage but perfect characters, and as perfectly dull. I have only to say, that it is peculiarly unfortunate for foreigners that none but those odious or ridiculous characters should ever happen to fall to their share on the British stage.

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and in order to estimate rightly the wit of the name, the reader must know that the little amphibious animal called here frog, is thought to be a favourite dish in France, a sort of national dainty; therefore Grenouille is here a neat allegory, and serves as armes parlantes to Monsieur le Count.

I have in my time eaten frogs!-I own it boldly, and might do it again, properly dressed with a white sauce, like a fricassee of chickens, of which frogs have the whiteness and delicacy; but after the candour of this confession, I have a right to be believed when I assert, that not one in a hundred of the inhabitants of France ever tasted frogs, and that most of them are ignorant that they were ever

eaten.

To return to Monsieur le Count de Grenouille ; he is flying from London, where he believes he has run a lover of his wife's through the body. In the middle of the conversation, or rather altercation, between the Count and landlady, a third post-chaise arrives with the old General Bastion, pursuing his daughter, with his intended son-in-law, Mr Skipton. The Count and Countess, much alarmed, withdraw hastily to the next room, from whence they overhear with great terror something about pursuit, and the name of Skipton, which is the very name of his wife's lover whom he thinks he has killed; and that, consequently, the old General must be Monsieur Skipton le père, in full pursuit of him the murderer of his son: and it is here necessary to explain, that young Skipton having slipped, in fighting in the dark, and fallen, was the cause of the Count's belief that he was killed. The hostess takes it into her head that the Count and Countess are the fugitive lovers, and only pretend to be French as a disguise, and