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from my page, and I therefore dismiss the subject. As to the perfection of the voices of the men singers, the means of attaining it are not less barbarous, than the object is puerile, for what can be finer than the finest female voices?

There were interludes of pantomime, unintelligible as usual, but rich in decorations, scenery, and all the auxiliary means adapted to give currency to these insipid exhibitions. Many children were introduced upon the stage; they, as well as their older companions, danced with great spirit and activity; but the stage seems a miserable school in which to form the minds of children to useful knowledge or pure and virtuous principles and habits.

The performances were over, a little before one in the morning, and I hastened home, gratified at having seen

the

opera, because it is one of the shows of London, but, on every other account, fatigued and disgusted.

It would be inconceivable to me, how people can spend night after night there, from year to year, did I not know the force of habit, and the possibility of acquiring a taste for any thing to which the mind is directed by motives sufficiently powerful.

No. XXX.-LONDON.

Anecdotes-Specimens of female manners from low and high life -Sentiments of an American lady-Royal Academy-The life Academy-Living figures-Astley's Amphitheatre-A sanguinary pantomime-Naval exploit-tricks to make sport.

ANECDOTES.

July 17.-I was, yesterday, passing through a narrow lane, leading into Oxford road, when I saw a very athletic woman dragging by the collar, a man much stouter than herself, and, with very appropriate eloquence, upbraiding him for attempting to go off without paying for some cherries, which it seems, he had bought of this modern Amazon. The poor fellow looked very much abashed, as she brought him back to her wheel barrow, greatly to the diversion of the populace; and truly, when you consider the disgrace of being dragged in this manner through the streets, and the still greater disgrace of using force against a woman, it must be acknowledged that this was an embarrassing situation, and afforded to the advocates of Miss Wolstonecraft a triumphant example of the practical enforcement of the rights of women, and indeed she might well talk about the rights of women, in a country where such is the general robustness of constitution, that the sex seem very competent to defend them by that argument which is the last resort in all controversies.

As I was walking through Hyde Park the other day, I saw two ladies in a phaton, without any gentleman, and one of the ladies was driving. It is true there were two servants on horseback, not far behind, who were ready to

succour them in case of disaster. Our female charioteer had the very equestrian air; she was dressed in a close suit of broad cloth, with a small beaver hat, and she cracked the whip, and humoured the reins so well, that one would think that she had been taking lessons from a master. Driving is, at present, quite fashionable among the ladies of England, and sometimes it is done where the good man sits peaceably by the lady's side-a passenger only. In our country where in villages, it is really a matter of convenience, and sometimes of necessity, that a lady should be able occasionally to drive a chaise, this kin of skill is useful, but in London it is equally unnecessary and unbecoming.

From solitary instances, derived from the two extremes of low and fashionable life, it would not be fair to infer that the female character in England is, in this age, tinged with masculine manners; and if, in walking the streets of London, one does not meet with so many of those timid retiring faces, and of those soft features, which are so frequent with us, he ought perhaps to impute it rather to the immense size of the place, and the familiarity which the eye soon acquires with ten thousand strange faces, and the unblushing indifference with which it learns to gaze upon them, than to any improper boldness of mind, or native insensibility of features. Besides, the great capital of a great country never affords a fair exhibition of national character, and no one who sees London alone and forms his opinions solely on that scale, can possibly make a correct estimate of England.

I shall not hazard any opinion of my own on a subject with which I am not sufficiently acquainted, but I may, without impropriety, mention the sentiments of a respect

able American lady, who has been, for many years, an inhabitant of England, and has seen much of English society. She remarked to me that there was much more freedom in the manners of the English ladies, particularly in their treatment of gentlemen, than with us, and that they conversed with them (in a serious style) without any consciousness of impropriety, on subjects, which it was scarcely possible to introduce in similar American circles. In these respects she thought the English manners superior to ours, that her own country women carried the oint of delicacy even to prudery, (this was her language,) and that a greater degree of freedom would render them more interesting, and promote the social intercourse of the sexes, without at all impairing the dignity of her own. There is much more freedom here in the manner in which ladies treat gentlemen; ladies here almost universally walk arm in arm with gentlemen, in the day time, through the streets; they move with equal vigor and speed; they chat with them very familiarly, as they walk, and if they meet a male friend, in the street, they do not hesitate to stop and stand awhile to talk with him.

Returning home, from the city, to-day, I found on my table a letter on which I recognised your well known hand. I need not say that it was most welcome, nor was it less so for being written jointly by yourself and H———. This is the first line which I have received from any of my family friends since I left home, a period of nearly four months; by its date however it seems to have been long on the way. I trust it is only the earnest of repeated epistolary favours.

ROYAL ACADEMY.

July 18.-An accidental acquaintance with a young man who is a student at the Royal Academy, in Somerset House has procured me an introduction there. I ought to do Mr. Medland the justice to say, that his politeness was gratuitous, and I shall recollect the circumstance with pleasure as another honourable instance in favour of the liberality of English manners.

Mr. West succeeds Sir Joshua Reynolds as the President of this institution, which I had, this evening, the pleasure of visiting, and of seeing the students at their work. We went first into the antique academy. This apartment is filled with casts of ancient statues and of busts, selected from among the most celebrated productions of antiquity that have reached modern times. Among them are the Apollo of Belvidere, the Venus de Medicis, the fighting and dying gladiator, Mars, the boxers and the Farnesian Hercules. From these figures the students are employed in drawing, in order to the attainment of the most correct ideas of symmetry of proportion, and force and beauty of muscular expression. Indeed, it is very wonderful that mere unorganized matter can be made to assume such a degree of apparent life and intelligence.

The young men are superintended by an overseer, who is always some celebrated artist. This evening it was no other than Fuseli himself, a man not less celebrated for his uncommon attainments in his art, than for his having been one of the most favoured intimates of the great champion of female rights, in whose memoirs, written by another of her admirers,* who had not the wit or decency to * Godwin.

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