man who had long been very intimate with her mamma, and recommended himself to Miss Harriet by a stature of six foot, and a shoulder-knot. "I am, SIR, "Your humble servant," &c. No. 23. THURSDAY, JULY 4, 1754. -Qui modò scurra Aut si quid hac re tritius videbatur, Idem inficeto est inficetior rure. CATULL. The Fool of Pantomime, who ne'er spake word, I HAVE lately received several letters from my cousin Village, concerning the entertainments of the country. He tells me, that they have concerts every evening in that part of the month in which the almanack promises it will be moon-light. In one little town in particular, all the polite company of the place assemble every Sunday evening, after church, at the Three Compasses, which is kept by the clerk, to regale themselves with cakes and fine home-brewed, in an arbour at the end of his cabbage-garden; to which they have given the genteel denomination of Little Ranelagh. I shall this day present my reader with his last letter; and only take notice of the grand difference between the summer amusements in town and country. In London, while we are almost smothered in smoke and dust, gardens are open every evening to refresh us with the pure air of the country; while those, who have the finest walks and most beautiful prospects eternally before them, shut themselves up in theatres and ball-rooms, lock fair day-light out, and make themselves an artificial London.' DEAR COUSIN, "WHEREVER the town goes, those who live by the town naturally follow. The facetious and entertaining gentry, who during the winter amused the world within the bills of mortality, are now dispersed into different parts of the country. We have had most of them here already. The Colossus, the Dwarf, the Female Sampson, made some stay with us. We went for a week together to see Mr. Powell eat red-hot tobacco-pipes, and swallow fire and brimstone. The Hermaphrodite was obliged to leave the town on a scandalous report, that a lady used frequently to visit him in private. Mr. Church for some time charmed us with concertos and sonatas on the Jews-harp; and at our last ball we footed it to our usual melody of the tabor and pipe, accompanied with the cymbal and wooden spoons. "I will not tire you with a particular detail of all our entertainments, but confine myself at present to those of the stage. About the middle of last month there came among us one of those gentlemen, who are famous for the cure of every distemper, and especially those pronounced incurable by the faculty. The vulgar call him a mountebank;-but when I considered his impassioned speeches, and the extempore stage from which he uttered them, I was apt to compare him to Thespis and his cart. Again, when I beheld the Doctor dealing out his drugs, and at the same time saw his merry-andrew play over his tricks, it put me in mind of a tragi-comedy; where the pathetic and the ludicrous are so intimately connected, and the whole piece is so merry and so sad, that the audience is at a loss whether they shall laugh or cry. "After the doctor had been here some time, there came down two or three emissaries from a strolling company, in order, according to the players' phrase, to take the town; but the Mayor being a strict Presbyterian, absolutely refused to license their exhibitions. The players, you must know, finding this a good town, had taken a lease last summer of an old synagogue deserted by the Jews; and were therefore much alarmed at this disap.. pointment: but when they were in the utmost despair, the ladies of the place joined in a petition to Mrs. Mayoress, who prevailed on her husband to wink at their performances. The company immediately opened their synagogue-theatre with the Merchant of Venice: and finding the Doctor's zany a droll fellow, they decoyed him into their service; and he has since performed the part of the Mock Doctor with universal applause. Upon his revolt, the Doctor himself found it absolutely necessary to enter into the company; and having a talent for tragedy, has performed with great success the Apothecary in Romeo and Juliet. "The performers at our rustic theatre are far beyond those paltry strollers, who run about the country, and exhibit in a barn or a cow-house; for, as their bills declare, they are a company of comedians from the Theatres Royal: and I assure you, they are as much applauded by our country critics, as any of your capital actors. The shops of our tradesmen have been almost deserted, and a crowd of weavers and hardware-men have elbowed each other two hours before the opening of the doors, when the bills have informed us, in enormous red letters, that the part of George Barnwell was to be performed by Mr. at the particular desire of several ladies of distinction. It is true, indeed, that our principal actors have most of them had their education in Covent-Garden or Drury-Lane; but they have been employed in the business of the drama in a degree but just above a scene-shifter. A heroine, to whom your managers in town, in envy to her rising merit, scarce allotted the humble part of a confidante, now blubbers out Andromache or Belvidera; the attendants on a monarch strut monarchs themselves, mutes find their voices, and message-bearers rise into heroes. The humour of our best comedian consists in shrugs and grimaces; he jokes in a wry mouth, and repartees in a grin: in short, he practises on Congreve and Vanbrugh all those distortions, that gained him so much applause from the galleries, in the drubs which he was condemned to undergo in pantomimes. I was vastly diverted at seeing a fellow in the character of Sir Harry Wildair, whose chief action was a continual pressing together of the thumb and fore-finger; which, had he lifted them to his nose, I should have thought he designed as an imitation of taking snuff: but I could easily account for the cause of this singular gesture, when I discovered, that Sir Harry was no less a person than the dexterous Mr. Clippit the candle-snuffer. "You would laugh to see, how strangely the parts of a play are cast. They played Cato; and their Marcia was such an old woman, that when Juba came on with his- Hail! charming maid !' -the fellow could not help laughing. Another night I was surprised to hear an eager lover talk of rushing into his mistress's arms, rioting on the nectar of her lips, and desiring, in the tragedy rapture, to hug her thus, and thus for ever,' though he always took care to stand at a most ceremonious distance; but I was afterwards very much diverted at the cause of this extraordinary respect, when I was told that the lady laboured under the misfortune of an ulcer in her leg, which occasioned such a disagreeable stench, that the performers were obliged to keep her at arm's length. The entertainment was Lethe: and the part of the Frenchman was performed by a South Briton; who, as he could not pronounce a word of the French language, supplied its place by gabbling in his native Welsh. "The decorations, or, in the theatrical dialect, the property of our company, are as extraordinary as the performers. Othello raves about a checked handkerchief; the Ghost in Hamlet stalks in a postilion's leathern-jacket for a coat of mail; and, in a new pantomime of their own, Cupid enters with a fiddle-case slung over his shoulders for a quiver. The apothecary of the town is free of the house, for lending them a pestle and mortar to serve as the bell in Venice Preserved; and a barber-surgeon has the same privilege, for furnishing them with basons of blood to besmear the daggers in Macbeth. Macbeth himself carries a rolling-pin in his hand for a truncheon; and, as the breaking of glasses would be very expensive, he dashes down a pewter pint pot at the sight of Banquo's ghost. "A fray happened here the other night, which was no small diversion to the audience. It seems, there had been a great contest between two of these mimic heroes, who was the fittest to play Richard the Third. One of them was reckoned to have the better person, as he was very round-shouldered, |