observations upon this interesting subject, he saw an instance of what Russell had told him of the ease with which Lady Julia might be guided by a man of sense and strength of mind. The tragedy of “The Fair Penitent,” Calista by Miss Bateman, was represented with vast applause to a brilliant audience at the Glistonbury theatre. The same play was to be reacted a week afterwards to a fresh audience--it was proposed that Vivian should play Lothario, and that Lady Julia should play Calista: Miss Bateman saw no objection to this proposal: Lord Glistonbury might, perhaps, have had the parental prudence to object to his daughter’s appearing in public at her age, in such a character, before a mixed audience: but, unfortunately, Lady Glistonbury bursting from her silence at this critical moment, said so much, and in such a prosing and puritanical manner, not only against her daughter’s acting in this play, and in these circumstances, but against all _stage plays_, playwrights, actors, and actresses whatsoever, denouncing and anathematizing them all indiscriminately; that immediately Lord Glistonbury laughed--Miss Bateman took fire--and it became a trial of power between the contending parties. Lady Julia, who had but lately escaped from the irksomeness of her mother’s injudicious and minute control, dreaded, above all things, to be again subjected to her and Miss Strictland; therefore, without considering the real propriety or impropriety of the point in question, without examining whether Miss Bateman was right or wrong in the licence she had granted, Lady Julia supported her opinion warmly; and, with all her eloquence, at once asserted her own liberty, and defended the cause of the theatre in general. She had heard Mr. Russell once speak of the utility of a well-regulated public stage; of the influence of good theatric representations in forming the taste and rousing the soul to virtue: he had shown her Marmontel’s celebrated letter to Rousseau on this subject; consequently, she thought she knew what his opinion must be on the present occasion: therefore she spoke with more than her usual confidence and enthusiasm. Her eloquence and her abilities transported her father and most of her auditors, Vivian among the rest, with astonishment and admiration: she enjoyed, at this moment, what the French call _un grand succès_; but, in the midst of the buzz of applause, Vivian observed that her eye turned anxiously upon Russell, who stood silent, and with a disapproving countenance. “I am sure your friend, Mr. Russell, is displeased at this instant--and with me.--I must know why.--Let us ask him.--Do bring him here.”