What vexes me beyond every thing else, is, that I had been often telling my aunt and her daughters of the intimate footing I was on with Lady and what a violent friendship we had for each other; and so, from envy, perhaps, they used to nick-name me the Countess, and Lady Leonora. Now that they have got this story of the mantua-maker and the playhouse, (for I was so angry I could not conceal it,) I am ashamed to hear the name of a lady of quality mentioned, even if it be only in a book from the circulating library. Do write a paper, Sir, against pride and haughtiness, and people forgetting their country friends and acquaintance, and you will very much oblige Yours, &c.

ELIZABETH HOMESPUN.

P. S. My uncle's partner, the young gentleman I mentioned above, takes my part when my cousins joke upon intima

cies with great folks; I think he is a much genteeler and better bred man than I took him for at first.

No. 54. SATURDAY, July 31, 1779.

AMONG the letters of my correspondents,

I have been favoured with several containing observations on the conduct and success of my paper. Of these, some recommend subjects of criticism as of a kind that has been extremely popular in similar periodical publications, and on which, according to them, I have dwelt too little. Others complain, that the critical papers I have published were written in a style and manner too abstruse and technical for the bulk of my readers; and desire me to remember, that, in a performance addressed to the world, only the language of the world should be used.

I was last night in a company where a piece of conversation-criticism took place, which, as the speakers were well-bred per

sons of both sexes, was necessarily of the familiar kind. As an endeavour, therefore, to please both the above-mentioned correspondents, I shall set down, as nearly as I can recollect, the discourse of the company. It turned on the tragedy of Zara, at the representation of which all of them had been present a few evenings ago.

"It is remarkable," said Mr

"what an æra of improvement in the French drama may be marked from the writings of M. de Voltaire. The cold and tedious declamation of the former French tragedians he had taste enough to see was not the language of passion, and genius enough to execute his pieces in a different manner. He retained the eloquence of Corneille, and the tenderness of Racine; but he never suffered the first to swell into bombast, nor the other to sink into languor. He accompanied them with the force and energy of our Shakespeare,

whom he had the boldness to follow ; "and the meanness to decry," said the lady of the house." He has been unjust to Shakespeare, I confess," replied Sir H, (who had been a considerable time abroad, and has brought home somewhat more than the language and dress of our neighbours,) " yet I think I have observed our partiality for that exalted poet carry us as unreasonable lengths on the other side.-When we ascribe to Shakespeare innumerable beauties, we do him but justice; but, when we will not allow that he has faults, we give him a degree of praise to which no writer is entitled, and which he, of all men, expected the least. It was impossible that, writing in the situation he did, he should have escaped inaccuracies; suffice it to say, they always arose from the exuberance of fancy, not the sterility of dulness."

"There is much truth in what you say," "but Voltaire was

answered Mr

;