situated. "Fifteen years ago," said he to me, as I alighted at the gate of his shrubbery, “I was taken up in Piccadilly and set down here. There was no house and no garden; nothing but a bare field."

One service this eccentric divine has certainly rendered to the Church. He has built the very neatest, most commodious, and most appropriate rectory that I ever saw. All its decorations are in a peculiarly clerical style, grave, simple, and Gothic. The bed-chambers are excellent, and excellently fitted up; the sitting-rooms handsome; and the grounds sufficiently pretty. Tindal and Parke (not the judge, of course), two of the best lawyers, best scholars, and best men in England, were there. We passed an extremely pleasant evening, and had a very good dinner, and many amusing anecdotes. After breakfast the next morning I walked to church with Sydney Smith. The edifice is not at all in keeping with the rectory. It is a miserable little hovel with a wooden belfry. It was, however, well filled, and with decent people, who seemed to take very much to their pastor. I understand that he is a very respectable apothecary; and most liberal of his skill, his medi

cine, his soup, and his wine, among the sick. He preached a very queer sermon-the former half too familiar and the latter half too florid, but not without some ingenuity of thought and expression.

Sydney Smith brought me to York on Monday morning in time for the stage-coach which runs to Skipton. We parted with many assurances of good-will. I have really taken a great liking to him. He is full of wit, humor, and shrewdness. He is not one of those show talkers who reserve all their good things for special occasions. It seems to be his greatest luxury to keep his wife and daughter laughing two or three hours every day. His notions of law, government, and trade are surprisingly clear and just. His misfortune is to have chosen a profession at once above him and below him. Zeal would have made him a prodigy; formality and bigotry would have made him a bishop; but he could neither rise to the duties of his order, nor stoop to its degradations.

MISS HANNAH MORE TO

ADELPHI, 1776.

I imagine my last was not so ambiguous but that you saw well enough I stayed in town to see

Hamlet, and I will venture to say that it was such an entertainment as will probably never again be exhibited to an admiring world.

In every part he* filled the whole soul of the spectator, and transcended the most finished idea of the poet. The requisites for Hamlet are not only various but opposed. In him they are all united, and, as it were, concentrated. One thing I must particularly remark, that, whether in the stimulation of madness, in the sinkings of despair, in the familiarity of friendship, in the whirlwind of passion, or in the meltings of tenderness, he never once forgot he was a prince; and in every variety of situation and transition of feeling, you discovered the highest polish of fine breeding and courtly

manners.

Hamlet experiences the conflict of many passions and affections, but filial love ever takes the lead; that is the great point from which he sets out, and to which he returns; the others are all contingent and subordinate to it, and are cherished or renounced, as they promote or obstruct the operation of this leading principle. Had you seen with what exquisite art and skill

* Garrick.

Garrick maintained the subserviency of the less to the greater interests, you would agree with me, of what importance to the perfection of acting is that consummate good-sense which always pervades every part of his perform

ances.

To the most eloquent expression of the eye, to the hand-writing of the passions on his features, to a sensibility which tears to pieces the hearts of his auditors, to powers so unparalleled, he adds a judgment of the most exquisite accuracy, the fruit of long experience and close observation, by which he preserves every gradation and transition of the passions, keeping all under the control of a just dependence and natural consistency. So naturally, indeed, do the ideas of the poet seem to mix with his own, that he seemed himself to be engaged in a succession of affecting situations, not giving utterance to a speech, but to the instantaneous expression of his feelings, delivered in the most affecting tones of voice, and with gestures that belong only to nature. It was a fiction as delightful as fancy, and as touching as truth. A few nights before, I saw him in "Abel Drugger"; and had I not seen him in both, I should

have thought it as possible for Milton to have written "Hudibras," and Butler "Paradise Lost," as for one man to have played “ Hamlet" and "Drugger" with such excellence. I found myself, not only in the best place, but with the best company, in the house, for I sat next the orchestra, in which were a number of my acquaintance (and those no vulgar names), Edmund and Richard Burke, Dr. Warton, and Sheridan. . . .

JAMES BEATTIE TO MISS MARGARET VALENTINE.

EDINBURGH, May 28, 1784.

The election of Scotch Peers; the meeting of Parliament; the state of parties; the old and new ministry; Pitt and Fox; the General Assembly; all these things are now forgotten; and nothing here is spoke of or thought of but Mrs. Siddons. I have seen this wonderful person, not only on the stage, but in private company; for I passed two days with her at the Earl of Buchan's. Her powers in tragedy are beyond comparison great. I thought my old friend Garrick fell little or nothing short of theatrical perfection; and I have seen him in his prime, and in his highest characters; but Garrick never affected me half so much as Mrs. Siddons has