be exceedingly tempted to fall into some allegorical slumbers. After this declaration, I know not why I may not actually do it; since I see people, in a hundred other instances, seem to imagine that censuring any thing violently, is amply sufficient to excuse their being guilty of it.

Suppose me then composed in my easy chair, after having long meditated on that old and threadbare comparison of human life to a play. To this my imagination furnishes abundance of scenery; and the train of my thoughts goes on just as well, after my eyes are closed, as it did before.

As I have yet but a very inconsiderable part in the performance, I have leisure enough to stand between the scenes, and to amuse myself with various speculations. Fortunately for me, I am placed near a person who can give me sufficient information of the whole matter; since, indeed, this venerable person is no other than the originally intended directress of the theatre, Wisdom by name but being of a temper above entering into all the little disputes of the actors, she has suffered her place to be usurped by a multitude of pretenders, who mix the vilest of farces, and the absurdest of tragedies with the noblest drama in the world.

These destructive interlopers were busily instructing all the actors, as they appeared upon the stage; and indeed one might easily see the effects of their teaching. Scarce one in fifty repeated a single line with a natural and unaffected air every feature was distorted by gri

mace, many a good sentiment outrée, by the emphasis with which it was pronounced.

"Would it not put one quite out of patience," said my neighbour, "to see that fellow there so entirely spoil one of the finest passages in the play, by turning it into a mere rant? Is there any bearing that man who, pretending to act the lover, puts on all the airs of a madman? Why, sir, do you think that graceful figure, that sense, and all those advantages you were dressed with, in order to do honour to my company, were given you, only that you might walk about the stage sighing and exclaiming? Pray let me cast an eye on your part.-Look ye, are here any of those soliloquies that you are every moment putting in?-Why, here is not a single word of misery, death, torment." The lover, awaking out of his reverie, pointed to a prompter that stood at a little distance, when Wisdom perceived it to be busy Imagination. She only, with an air of compassion, drew the poor youth to her side of the stage, and begged he would keep out of the hearing of so bad a director.

The next we happened to attend to was a young woman, of a most amiable figure, who stood pretty near us; but the good nature in her countenance was mixed with a kind of haughty disdain, whenever she turned towards Imagination, that did not absolutely please me. I remarked upon it to my friend, and we jointly observed her stealing leisure from her part to look over the whole scheme of the drama. "That actress," says she, " has a most charming genius, but she too has a travers in it. Because she has

seen some love scenes in the play ridiculously acted, and heard them censured by those whose judgments she respects, and especially because she is very justly displeased with all the bombast stuff Imagination puts into them: she will, against her senses, believe there is scarce a single line about it in the whole drama: and there you may see her striking out for spurious passages that have warmed the noblest hearts with generous sentiments, and gained a just applause from Socrates and Plato themselves, two of the finest actors I ever had. This is, however, an error on the right side. Happy for you, young actress, if you never fall into a worse! She may indeed miss saying an agreeable thing, but she will never say an absurd one.

"Look yonder, and you will see more dangerous and more ridiculous mistakes. That group of young actors, just entering on the stage, who cannot possibly have beheld more than half a scene, pretend already, in a decisive way, to give their judgment of the whole; they do not so much as wait for their cue (which years and discretion ought to give them), but thrust forward into the middle of the action. Some of them, displeased with the decorations of their part of the theatre, are busied in hurrying the tinsel ornaments from the other corners of it, where they were much more becomingly placed. That man yonder, who ought to be acting the part of a hero, is so taken up with adjusting his dress, that he never once seems to think of the green room, where all these robes must soon be laid aside.

"Look yonder, look yonder! This is a pitiable sight indeed. Behold that woman, exquisitely handsome still, though much past the bloom of youth, and formed to shine in any part; but so unhappily attached to that she has just left, that her head is absolutely turned behind her ; so unwilling is she to lose sight of her beloved gaieties.

"In another place you may see persons, who, sensible that the splendid dresses of the theatre are only lent them for a time, disdain, with a sullen ill judged pride, to put them on at all, and so disgrace the parts that were allotted them for their own advantage..

"Alas! what a different prompter has that actor got! He was designed to represent a character of generosity, and, for that purpose, furnished with a large treasure of counters, which it was his business to dispose of in the most graceful manner to those actors engaged in the same scene with him. Instead of this, that old fellow, Interest, who stands at his elbow, has prompted him to put the whole bag into his pocket, as if the counters themselves were of real value; whereas, the moment he sets his foot off the stage, or is hurried down through some of those trap doors that are every moment opening round him, these tinsel pieces are no longer current. To conceal, in some measure, the falseness of this behaviour, he is forced to leave out a hundred fine passages, intended to grace his character, and to occasion unnumbered chasms and inconsistencies, which not only make him hissed, but the very scheme of the drama murmured at.

Yet still he persists; and see! just now, when he ought to be gracefully treading the stage with a superior air, he is stooping down to pick up some more counters that happen to be fallen upon the dirty floor, made dirty on purpose for the disgrace of those who choose to grovel there.

"You can scarcely have an idea," added my instructress," how infinitely the harmony of the whole piece is interrupted by the misuse which these wrong headed actors make of its mere decorations. The part you have to act, child, is a very small one; but, remember, it is infinitely superior to every such attachment. Fix your attention upon its meaning, not its ornaments: let your manner be just and unaffected; your air cheerful and disengaged: never pretend to look beyond the present page: and, above all, trust the great Author of the Drama with his own glorious work; and never think to mend what is above your understanding, by minute criticisms that are below it."

MISS TALBOT.

HAPPINESS:
An Allegory.

JUPITER, when he made man, brought with him from heaven a nymph called Felicia, or Happiness, to be his companion. The better to engage them to each other, he furnished man with those passions and affections which were to feed the mind with perpetual wishes, with a guide, called Reason, to restrain their violence; and to the