Private theatricals in France became a sort of institution. They not only formed a part, often a very magnificent part, of the noble mansions of princes, dukes, marquesses, _et tout ça_, but the theatre was the most exquisite and luxurious portion of the residences of the most celebrated and prodigal actresses. Mademoiselle Guimard, to surpass her contemporaries, possessed two; one in her magnificent house in the Chaussée d’Antin, the other in her villa at Pantin. The one in Paris was such a scene of taste, splendour, extravagance, and scandal, that private boxes, so private that nobody could be seen behind the gilded gratings, were invented for the use and enjoyment of very great ladies. These, wishing to be witnesses of what was being acted on and before the stage, without being supposed to be present themselves, were admitted by a private door, and after seeing all they came to see, and much more, perhaps, than they expected, these high and virtuous dames, wrapped their goodly lace mantles about them, glided down the private staircase to their carriages, and thought La Guimard was the most amiable hussey on or off the stage. Voltaire’s private theatre, at Monrepos, near Lausanne, has been for ever attached to history by the dignified pen of Gibbon. The great historian’s chief gratification, when he lived at Lausanne, was in hearing Voltaire in the Frenchman’s own tragedies on his own stage. The ‘ladies and gentlemen’ of the company were not geniuses, for Gibbon says of them in his ‘Life,’ that ‘some of them were not destitute of talents.’ The theatre is described as ‘decent.’ The costumes were ‘provided at the expense of the actors,’ and we may guess how the stage was stringently managed, when we learn that ‘the author directed the rehearsals with the zeal and attention of paternal love.’ In his own tragedies, Voltaire represented Lusignan, Alvarez, Benassur, Euphemon, &c. ‘His declamation,’ says Gibbon, ‘was fashioned to the pomp and cadence of the old stage; and he expressed the enthusiasm of poetry rather than the feelings of nature.’ This sing-song style, by which diversified dramas, stilted rather than heroic, horribly dull rather than elevated and stirring, had an effect on Gibbon such as we should never have expected in him, or in any Englishman, we may say on any created being with common sense, in any part of the civilised world. His taste for the French theatre became fortified, and he tells us, ‘that taste has perhaps abated my idolatry for the gigantic genius of Shakespeare, which is inculcated in our infancy as the first duty of Englishmen.’ This is wonderful to read, and almost impossible to believe. We may give more credit to the assertion that ‘the wit and philosophy of Voltaire, his table and theatre, refined in a visible degree the manners of Lausanne.’ It is worthy of note that a tragedy of Voltaire’s is now rarely, if ever, acted. We question if one of