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thrilling note of horror with which Mrs Yates benumbs an audience; but there is a melting tremble in her voice, which, in tender passages, is inimitably beautiful and affecting. Were I a poet, I should prefer her speaking of my lines to that of any actress I ever heard."

"She owes, I believe," said our Frenchman, "much of her present excellence to her study of the French stage. I mean not to detract from her merit: I certainly allow her more, when I say, that her excellence is, in great part, of her own acquirement, than some of her ill-judging admirers, who ascribe it all to nature. Our actors, indeed, are rarely sensible how much study and application is due to their profession; people may be spouters without culture; but laborious education alone can make perfect actors. Feeling, and the imitative sympathy of passion, are, undoubtedly, derived from nature; but art alone

can bestow that grace, that refined expression, without which feeling will often be awkward, and passion ridiculous."

TO THE AUTHOR OF THE MIRROR.

SIR,

Edinburgh, July 23, 1779.

I AM confined, by the occupations of a laborious employment, to a constant residence in town. During the summer and autumn, however, I sometimes can afford a day, which I wish to spend in a jaunt to the country. I lived in the country, Sir, in my earlier days; and whenever I hear a wood, a meadow, or the banks of a river mentioned, I always think of peace, of happiness, and innocence.

This season I have had a friend in town, who being an idle man, is a great maker of parties. Among others, he contrives to get people together of a Saturday or a Sunday, to go and dine in the country, which he says, in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, affords some of the most beau

tiful and romantic scenes he ever saw. Last Saturday I was asked to join in one of his parties of this sort; to which, being a lover of rural scenes, as I have mentioned before, I readily consented.

My friend had the ordering of every thing on our expedition. The carriages he had bespoke did not arrive at the place of meeting till near an hour after the time appointed; and, when they did come, we had another hour to wait for our conductor, who having sat up at a town-party till five that morning, was not willing to be disturbed till mid-day.

We arrived at the place of our destination betwixt two and three. I immediately proposed a walk, to enjoy the beauty of the fields, and the purity of the air; but my proposal was overruled, from the consideration of the near approach of dinner; some of the company likewise observing, that the evening was the properest time for walking in this hot weather.

Meantime, a cup was called for, which, in the same hot weather, was pronounced vastly pleasant, and my friend declared was more refreshing to him than the purest air under heaven.

Dinner was soon after brought in, which consisted of a profusion of meat, ill drest, and served up in a slovenly stile. This, however, was a country-dinner, and people were not to be nice in the country. So we sat, enjoying the pleasures of the country, amidst the steams of greasy broth, rusty ham, and stinking mutton: our ears delighted with the jingle of bells, and the hallooing of guests in the staircase, which were very ineffectually answered by the bustle of an awkward waiter, and a fat hoyden of a chambermaid.

When the table-cloth was removed, our conductor, who said he found himself much the better for his dinner, called for the landlord, and desired him to

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