Amateur dramatic and operatic performances were a frequent amusement at Mr. Harris's house in Salisbury. Miss Gertrude, the elder daughter, was an adept in such performances, and, moreover, retained this taste throughout the whole of her long life. This lady afterwards became the wife of Mr. Robinson, younger son of Lord Grantham. She lived, in the London world, to the age of eighty-five, preserving to the last her faculties and cheerful character. She used to give private theatricals at her house, in which Lord de Grey, Mr. F. Robinson, Hugh Elliott, and Canning were the chief actors--Canning writing the prologues and epilogues, which are still extant. In the letters we find frequent allusions to the performances in Mr. Harris's family residence; but we shall content ourselves with mentioning one of them, which aroused the satirical ire of some provincial Juvenal, whose poetic outburst serves to show the great, indeed too great, change between the notions on such subjects then and now. Mrs. Harris, in a letter to her son, thus alludes to a rehearsal of the piece, which a few days afterwards was performed, as usual, to an audience of the townsfolk and the visitors at the house:-- 'I have but little to send from hence; we are so totally taken up with our own theatrical business that nothing else is thought of. The ladies acted last night in their dresses to all their servants, and a most crowded house they had. Although I was not admitted to the performance, I saw all the ladies. Their dresses are fine and elegant. Miss Townshend makes an excellent Spanish ambassador, a fine figure and richly dressed; she had a prodigious long sword, and not being accustomed to wear one, she contrived, as she walked, to run it up through a scene, and damaged it greatly. Louisa has taken a sword you left her [here?], and manages it right well. She is very fine in a purple Spanish dress, all the buttons Irish diamonds, a handsome button and loop to her hat, and your King of Spain's picture hanging from her neck. The Queen, Miss Hussey, was dressed in blue and silver, with a number of diamonds; Miss Wyndham, who is Elvira, in white, trimmed with pearls; Gertrude, the Princess, in a black Spanish dress, trimmed with red and silver, and a great quantity of diamonds; it becomes her much. 'Lord Pembroke [the tenth Earl] sent a note to your father, which was as follows:--"I can snuff candles, I can scrape on the violoncello; if either of these sciences will entitle me to a place in your theatre, I will perform gratis. P.S. My wife says she can thrum the harpsichord or viol-de-gamba." 'We have sent them and the Amesbury House tickets for Saturday. Everybody is making interest to get in. The ladies mean to perform five times, so I hope everybody will see it.'