Unless you, Sir, or fome one of your correfpondents, fhall point out a better expedient, I am determined, as a laft attempt to restore to its original luftre my waning fame, to give a grand fête in the ftyle of the twelfth century. My Lord has an old Caftle in Wales, which will anfwer admirably well as the fcene. I fhall purchase the colours of thẹ Knight's Marshal and other disbanded volunteer corps*, and thus furnish out "a bannered hall."-From the wardrobe and armoury of the theatres, I fhall procure dreffes, decorations, arms, and accoutrements. I hope to be able to prevail upon the Laureat to be the bard, and that learned antiquary, the author to the Index to the Appendix to the Supplemental Apology, fhall fuperintend the whole in the capacity of fteward. But would not the effect be greatly heightened, were the tempeft to be heard howling amid the tottering towers? I can at least produce the appearance of winter. Two or three hundred people fhall be employed to ftrip the trees bare of every leaf, and when every thing about the Caftle has been made defolate, the park and gardens fhall be ftrewed with chalk, quick-lime, or fome fubftance refembling fnow. Now fee the Knights cafed in fteel, and attended by their fquires, approaching by the dreary avenue; and hear them afking the dwarf upon the battlements, if here lives the lady Evelina? I am tranfported at the thought. Grant me two months of cold wet weather, and I will forgive thee, oh Fortune! the whole of thy paft cruelty. August 23. E. B. * See page 62. REMARKS I REMARKS ON THE FOREGOING LAMENT ATION. [From the Morning Chronicle.] MR. EDITOR, READ, with confiderable regret, in your paper a few days ago, the complaint of a female, a woman of fashion too, and a giver of routs, intimating how frequently the had been difappointed in establishing her fame, and diftinguifhing her entertaintments by fomething peculiarly eccentric, wild, or unfeasonable. It is much to be lamented that our ladies of ton fhould fail in objects apparently of fuch easy acquifition, and that, where abfurdity is natural, it fhould not at the fame time be various. That there is a dulnefs in mediocrity, a fameness in reasonable defires, and a commonnefs in indulging the mere wants of fociety, may be believed; but that invention fhould be exhaufted, when it is confined by no laws, and that follies fhould be uniform when common fenfe is excluded, may be allowed to excite our furprife, and, under the exifting circumstances of this cafe, our pity. Men, Mr. Editor, are unreafonable beings, proud of a fuperiority which they are defirous to perpetuate at the expenfe of the fair fex. Not long ago our females fought fame in the walks of literature, and fome obtained what they fought. A clamour was inftantly raifed against them, as invading the rights of man. Hiftory, philofophy, politics, poetry, and the drama, were menaced by authors in ftraw bonnets and muflin gowns. The legidature itfelf was not without its alarms. Such a revolution in genius might end in petticoat government. The bishops took fire: they forefaw piety in pattens. The lawyers trembled left they fhould be out-talked, and the feat of juftice occupied by old women! But in time the alarm fubfided, and the ladies VOL. V. น of of fashion at least, meditated to raise their reputation by other means. To effect this, required a combination of talents which do not generally meet; and, although we have not often feen the good arifing from alliances of difcordant materials, we have lived to behold the common cause of routs, of breakfafts, and of fuppers, ably fupported by the carpenter, the lamp-lighter, and the gardener. The queftion is no longer about the fuperiority of genius, but the fpacious dimenfions of a fuite of rooms; and no lady values herfelf for any productions but thofe of the hot-houfe. On fuch her fame depends, and her reputation refts. And is that ambition unreafonable which is bounded by the priority of peaches and the precocity of pines; which derives its luftre from a feftoon of lamps, and its triumphs from the rattling of coaches, the found of a knocker, and the disturbance of a neighbourhood? Who would envy the excellence that centres in a plate of peas, or a pottle of cherries? Surely we men have no right to interrupt a carcer of glory which centres in a fathionable confufion of the feafons, exciting perfpiration in winter, and giving a party of friends the appearance of a mob, with all its inconveniencies and dangers. To heighten the feene, befides artificial flowers and the pleasant union of Floreal and Frimaire, even peace officers are hired to keep order, and give an idea of artificial pickpockets mixing in the crowd. I have been, indeed, fomewhat afraid, left when the virtues of the mind, and the accomplishments of education, are all facrificed to the vegetable fyftem, there may be danger of introducing an emulation of the more vulgar caft, and more befitting the ambition of Covent-garden market. I will allow the eclat that naturally arifes from early peaches and melons, but there may be dan-ger in contending for a priority of cabbages and carrots, becaufe, early or late, thefe are things that give a bourgeoife bourgeoife appearance to a table, and have been known to decorate a city feast, even at a very unfeafonable time. More, I think, depends on the temperature of the rooms and here people of fashion naturally place their chief excellence. A lady who can get up the thermometer to eighty degrees when the reft of the world is content with fifty, is entitled to a great share of refpect, which however will be heightened by the addition of frequent fwoonings and fainting-fits. It is impoffible, indeed, to doubt the reputation of any route which gives us Thermidor in Nivofe, and introduces Fructidor when other people are content with the tardy profpects of Germinal. Befides, therefore, the productions of the hot-houfe, it will always be neceffary to introduce the degree of heat that forced them, and the more uncomfortable this is, it will make the better figure in a newspaper detail, where, after all, the final decifion must be made, and the fize of the cherries, and the number of the company, afcertain the comparative merit of the giver. To me it appears that the hiftorians of routs have lately fallen into an uniformity of ftyle which will foon level all diftinction. It marks nothing, to hear of the fame company, the fame vegetables, and the fame lamps. There must be a difference; and whoever has ftudied either botany or lamp-lighting, must be aware that these are important diftinctions. If all feftoons were equally variegated; all chandeliers equally brilliant; if fruits were always uncommonly large, and geraniums equally 'odoriferous, one might as well let in the fun-beams, and wait for the natural growth of our delicacies. Befides, I fufpect that there has of late been a contrivance to make all porters' lifts of the fame fize; the fame Lords, the fame Ladies, the fame Sirs, the fame Mifters, the fame Miftrees, and the fame Miles; names to be fure which we have feldom heard of before, but which if obfcure, can be more eafily varied, especially as the Court Calendar is at hand. The confufion of hours is ftill a refource which ladies may employ to diftinguish their entertainments; and this has been very happily done by joining two days in one, breakfasting at the clofe of the first day, and fupping at the commencement of the next. Dinner, fomehow, has been entirely excluded, which may, no doubt, give a tonih appearance to things; but there is fome rifk that it may be thought to be borrowed from the practice of the vulgar, many thousands of whom have been habituated to go without dinner; although I do not find that they pride themfelves upon it. If thefe hints, Mr. Editor, can be ferviceable, either as apologetic or promotive of female notoriety, I fhall probably take the liberty to fend you a fupplement, in which I fhall endeavour to prove that it is poffible to reverse the order of nature, and revolutionize the manners of fociety in a more genteel and dafhing manner than has ever yet been practifed. But this difcovery would be thrown away at prefent, as our people of fashion are in the country, and obliged to breathe the fame air with the reft of the world. Sept. 9. I am, Sir, yours, &c. -SUGGESTIONS TOWARDS IMPROVING THE WIT AND ELOQUENCE OF NEWSPAPERS. SIR, [From the Oracle and Daily Advertiser.] HAVING, after long experience as a bookfeller, news-writer, and fecond-rate politician, retired to pass the evening of my life in a fnug villa in Hertfordshire, I find it ftill neceffary, from the force of old habits, to have both a morning and an evening paper fent me regularly from town. Difguft with a morning paper |