"mama" at home, carry us into the recesses of royal privacy pleasantly enough, and almost persuade us that happiness may be no greater stranger there than elsewhere.

We shall now take an abrupt leave of greatness, and descend to some of the lower terraces on the hill of fame.

There are kings who have never been crowned; and such, in his way, was honest Tate Wilkinson-the most morose of managerial monarchs. His person and manner are as familiar to the town by Mr. Mathews's personification of them in his " youthful days," as if they had not passed away. We shall, therefore, add to the interest and curiosity of the picture by connecting it with one or two of his official despatches-and the rather as they refer to the "youthful days" of other persons, about whom the town is, in the present day, still more interested. It will be seen by the following that their is no such thing as mounting the ladder of distinction without treading the lowermost steps of it, however soiled they may be. We here see the most successful actor of his day at the beck and call of a man who now only lives in his personification of him. The address will remind the reader of what Mathews relates,-that Tate scarcely ever called a person twice by the same name.

To Mr. MADDOX, or MATHEWS, Theatre, Carmarthen.

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Hull, Feb. 10, 98. Sir,-As a man in the mountains, and not known on change, added to your express desire of being here, convinces me you have misunderstood my meaning for engaging you in June next,-I shall want a comedian that can strike the audience well, as to say, this will do," and then advance your situation. And as to coming out in a first situation, and the business you wrote for, no such thing can be complied with. Mr. Emery is in full possession of fame and characters-so suit your convenience as to staying away. If you are with me at York, 22d July, or Aug. 18, it will do. Mr. Emery will quit me till the London theatre opens-therefore you can only play occasionally-but you can have full scope until the end of October, and then I can judge of continuance or raising terms, according to your desert and success-for a good comedian only will do if I can get him.

Yours, &c.

TATE WILKINSON.

The following is from the same singular person; and to us it seems to present a no less curious than instructive picture of a half-broken mind in a body on the brink of the grave, but both still struggling on, and labouring in their vocation to the last. What can be more sad, at least, if not pathetic, than the passage about the "907. on Monday night at Leeds?" One would think that any body but a manager of a theatre would have retired from the sight of " July Richards and Octavians," (even though they appeared under the form of Mr. Elliston himself,) and with the little he had saved by his life of labour, have betaken himself to some quiet corner, to "end his part in peace." But no-we are doomed, like hackney-coach horses, to die as we have lived, "with harness on our back:-with this difference against us, that we are willing slaves, and they are compelled ones.

Dear Sir,-J am truly pleased at your success, and think it a feather in the cap of the York Company-but you write to me as if I was in a recoverable state-instead of that, (to write) this is a violent fatigue. I had near 901. monday night at Leeds-but I am not equal to be pleased, or to eat anything. I am worse than Your letter is now before me. I cannot get through it, yet you write to me as if I was as gay as yourself. I want to see no July Richards or Octavians—not

ever.

but you may tell Mr. Elliston if he can come on the 7th Sunday in Trinity I shall be glad to see him. Tell him to write by return. He can play on Monday in London-monday, Aug. 12. I have no strength or time for compliments. Wishing you good health,

P. S. This is a great fatigue and pain to me.
To Mr. MATHEWS.

Yours in great pain,

TATE WILKINSON.

The reader must look at the foot of the following for its merit. The name of Mrs. Abington crossed our path as we were thinking of nothing less, and the words that preceded it seemed as if they would be transcribed. But in truth that name is a spell which might "turn to favour and to prettiness" a greater portion of nothing than is here appended to it. Not that we are at all sure the familiar note of one pretty woman to another should ever be more pregnant of matter than that which we now present.

My lovely Lady,-Have you left me off? I think it long since I had the happiness of seeing either your pretty eyes, or improving from your pretty manners. I am quite unwell, or I should have ventured again to Leicester Square,-but hope you will call in Pall Mall on Your obliged friend,

F. ABINGTON.

As the following letters, of the celebrated author and actor of the Man of the World, have not brevity among their merits, we shall not usher them in by any long preface, but merely observe that Love à la Mode is evidently an object of no little importance in the eyes of its author. Here are two letters, to different persons, and written at five years distance from each other, and they treat of nothing else.

London, July 9th, 1773. Dr. Sir, I this instant recd. your favour of the 16th and am sorry I cannot accept of your invitation. My affairs are so urgent in this part of the world that I am afraid I shall not be able to leave London this summer-not even to pay my respects at Methly. When you come to this town I shall be very glad to see you. You will find me in James-street, Covent Garden, at one Babels, a paper maché warehouse. I wish you would not think I am stricter with you than with any other person respecting Love à la Mode. I assure you I am not. You are the only one I ever permitted to play it. As to those around you who have illegally taken the liberty of treating it as their own, be assured nothing but the want of time to attend to them keeps them from the justice of the law, which they will certainly feel the first week that I can spare from my present avocations.

I am, Sir, &c.

CHARLES MACKLIN.

London, April 28, 1769.

Sir, I have just recd. your's of the 26 inst. and take the first opportunity of answering it. You tell me that my real piece, of Love à la Mode, was never acted at York, Newcastle, &c. and I tell you that I know very well what kind of a farce called Love à la Mode was acted in those places, and how near in expression, fable, and character it was to mine. And I tell you besides, that there was enough of those materials of mine to make the piratical use of them very troublesome, and a very expensive affair to you, to Mr. Baker, and to your whole company. Most men, when they set about invading another man's property or to break a law, think they are so very ingenious and cunning in the manner of doing it as to elude the punishmt. of the law. But a Judge, a Jury, or a Lord Chancellor are generally as ingenious and as cunning as most men. And depend upon it that both you and Mr. Baker, if that is the name of the proprietor of the York theatre, are.

fully within the power of the law from your acting my farce of Love à la Mode, notwithstanding any omissions, alterations, or additions that your design, or cunning, or ignorance of the true text may have caused to be the state of it when you acted it And if this opinion of mine is founded in law, you ought to have apprehensions of consequences-tho' you are pleased to tell me that the apprehension of the consequences from acting Love à la Mode was not the motive for answering my letter. But Sir-to cut this matter very short-I will not consent to your act ing either the real or fictitious Love à la Mode, as it may respect mine, at no time, nor upon any account whatever. Whenever I hear that you have done it after this letter, the next post, or as soon as legal forms will permit, you, Mr. Baker, and your whole company, shall hear from the law, without any farther notice; and then you know we shall soon learn the consequences, whether we apprehend them or not. You inform me that the first act of the piece in question was published in a magazine about two or three years since. I know it, and so do the publishers I believe by this time, to their smart-for they have learned the consequences of such piracy from the law: and as they tell me now, though they were as stout as you when I first applied to them about it, that they shall eyer hereafter apprehend such consequences. I assure you it has cost them some hundreds already, and unless I make it up with them it will cost them many more. I tell you this as an instance that the pirating a man's work is not so trifling an affair (if properly prosecuted) as most men imagine. Mr. Foot at present is out of town. As soon as I see him I shall inform him of your postscript concerning him.

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I am, Sir, your humble servt.
CHARLES MACKLIN.

Our next specimen shall be "characteristic" at least, if nothing else. It is from the most sentimental of single gentlemen. We wonder any one could venture to be a poet in the days of Mr. Pratt,—so impossible was it to escape the ardour of his admiration-which always, on each new publication, gave rise to the enclosed." Then he was the most amiable of enthusiasts, who never would let modest merit rest in its "retired spot called Belgrave Place, Pimlico," but insisted on finding a patron for it in the person of a Sir John Carr! Mr. Pratt, "the amiable and admired author of Sympathy"-as he used justly enough to call himself whenever he caused the country newspapers to inflict premature death upon him in order that he might have the satisfaction of correcting the ingenious error under his own hand the week after— was also the author of a multiplicity of other meritorious works, none of which the modern reader ever heard of, seeing that it is at least a dozen years since they were in fashion. When they were in fashion, however, none was ever a greater pet than their author among snug coteries and literary ladies;" and those who aim at, and deserve too, a much higher reputation than ever he dreamt of, might yet have envied that of" The Hermit." The reader will find all his good qualities displayed in the following letter: and as for bad ones, he had none. In fact he was the most harmless of sentimental egotists.

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Oct. 30, 1813.

My Dear Sir John,-I am anxious to be assured that health is restored to the interesting partner of your bosom; the Hermit's benediction ever attends her. Having no progress to report in matters of business, I will hope to amuse you by engaging you in a little literary commission. Do you know the personal character and situation of Montgomery?-a poet whose "World before the Flood" I have recently read with such very high delight that my admiration of his talents gave rise to the enclosed. If you find that he is (what I am persuaded he must

be) a very amiable man, though probably in humble condition, pray obtain his direction, and if you think my applause worth his acceptance, pray forward the enclosed to him in a frank. If you happen not to have seen the Poem it commends, you and lady Carr will feel obliged to me for leading you to the pleasure, which Í am confident his poetry will afford you. It is published by Longman and Co.

Before I quit the subject of Fine Arts, let me ask you if you are acquainted with my friend Caroline Watson, the admirable engraver? She lives in a retired spot, called Belgrave Place, Pimlico-the street hardly containing more than a single house. I wish you would call on her in my name, as I think you will have great pleasure in surveying her drawings; and I wish you to patronise an engraving that she has lately finished from a sweet Holy Family of Raphael.

A Love for the fine arts is one of the best lenetives to sooth and cheer us under the vexatious chances of life. May they long afford you enjoyments unmixed with vexations-So prays Your ever sincere and affectionate friend,

THE HERMIT.

My Eyes (thank Heaven) are considerably recovered; but I am crippled by severe Rheumatism, in the Hip. Its pain, however, is not severe; unless I use the injured limb unmercifully.—My spirits are as cheerful as ever.

Adio!

The following is from the blue-est of spinsters. It has not much to recommend it; but as the public received its writer with favour under the portentous form of six posthumous volumes in octavo, they will not object to a dozen lines in addition.

Litchfield, Nov. 17, 1807.

Sir, I cannot help thinking that the time has long passed away in which a publication of the sort you meditate can be likely to interest the public. Twentyseven years are gone since it paid all the commiseration, respect, and attention of which its light and veering nature is capable, to the fate and to the virtues of the gallant and unfortunate André. To me he was dear as a brother, and I shall ever affectionately cherish his memory; but the general mind has not the constancy of personal friendship. Yet should you persist in attempting to rake up, in the hope of rekindling, the extinguished embers of public interest and pity, and continue to think my monody may encrease your chance of success by appearing in your work, you have my free consent to insert it. I cannot be repulsive to the request of a friend of the Mallet family. I am, Sir, Your Obt. St.

ANNA SEWARD.

We shall close our specimens for this month with one of Robert Burns's prose extravaganzas. Considering the extreme delicacy of taste displayed in Burn's poetry, and its total want of any thing farfetched and overstrained, his familiar letters present a singular anomaly; which, however, we must content ourselves with illustrating, without staying to discuss.

Dumfries, Dec. 1795.

Inclosed is the "address"-such as it is; and may it be a prologue to an overflowing house! If all the town put together have half the ardour, for your success and welfare, of my individual wishes, my prayer will most certainly be granted. Were I a man of gallantry and fashion, strutting and fluttering in the foreground of the picture of life, making this speech to a lovely young girl might be construed to be one of the doings of all-powerful Love. But you will be surprised, my dear Madam, when I tell you that it is not Love, nor even Friendship-but sheer avarice. In all my justlings and jumblings, windings and turnings, in life, disgusted at every corner, as a man of the least taste and sense must be, with vice, folly, arrogance, impertinence, nonsense, and stupidity, my soul has ever, involuntarily

and instinctively, selected as it were for herself a few whose regard, whose esteem, with a miser's avarice, she wished to appropriate and preserve. It is truly from this cause, ma chere Mademoiselle, that any, the least, service I can be of to you gives me most real pleasure. God knows, I am a powerless individual; and when I thought on my friends, many a heartache it has given me! But if Miss Fontenelle will accept this honest compliment to her personal charms, amiable manners, and gentle heart, from a man too proud to flatter, though too poor to have his compliments of any consequence; it will sincerely oblige her anxious friend and most devoted humble servant, ROBERT BUrns.

TOKENS OF THE TIMES.

MANNERS, Sentiments, feelings-sentiments, feelings, manners, are the never ending cant of the day. The very "soul is sick" of the pertinacity with which these misused words are dinned in the ear from all classes. From the noble to the plebeian, thousands give way to the infection without remarking the inconsistencies which a false application of the terms forces on the notice of such as coolly reflect or perhaps without understanding or caring to understand their true meaning it is enough that the terms have become the "mode" in certain societies, and that a great portion of every-day society passes them currently. This is a full and sufficient reason for justifying much more extravagant errors, than calling things by wrong names, nicknaming God's creatures, or conventionally twisting the truth into a lie! At the present rate we must soon bid farewell to the established meaning of words. Religion is become a current term for hypocrisy ; feeling is to be understood as a sympathy with knavery and crime, and is to be used for what we once called pity; peculation from fine feeling, is, in robbers of the public chest, substituted for felony; sentiment is a puling affectation of opinions gathered from Leadenhall novels and the bas bleus; manners are an intermixture of the puppyism of the Brummel school, the prizefighters' blackguardism, and the post-boys' insolence. The race of Chesterfield gentlemen is nearly extinct or grey with age-the race that in a beggar's garb was instantly recognized for its inherent good manners. But the terms manners, sentiments, and feelings, have been perverted in other ways: scenes, where the low and profligate alone formerly felt a sympathetic pleasure, are now haunted by persons of unimpeachable morals, as far as common honesty is concerned, and with superfine coats on their backs. In past times we should have wondered ́at these things, but how the modern diffusion of intellect and knowledge has not produced a wider effect here, is a problem that can be solved no other way than by ascribing it to the reaction of the money-getting spirit upon our social system-that spirit which, in the sphere of petty accumulation, infallibly renders the mind callous and deceitful. Characters and conduct are become changed in proportion to that moral laxity which is generated by an admiration of wealth, the Dagon of England-the more favoured devotees of which are exonerated from virtuous obligation, and looked upon with unmingled awe and undisguised respect and admiration. Can truth in its severe beauty-can high and chivalric sentiments, generous feelings, and pure manners harmonize with sordid imbecility-with minds that, were they in Heaven, would have their thoughts bent downward,