Alfred felt anxious to hear the chief justice farther on this subject, but the conversation was dragged back to Mademoiselle Clairon. The lady by whom she was first mentioned declared she thought that all Mademoiselle Clairon’s studying must have made her a very unnatural actress. The chief justice quoted the answer which Mademoiselle Clairon gave, when she was reproached with having too much art.--“_De l’art! et que voudroit-on done que j’eusse? Etois-je Andromaque? Etois-je Phédre?_” Alfred observed that those who complained of an actress’s having too much art should rather complain of her having too little--of her not having art enough to conceal her art. The chief justice honoured Alfred by a nod and a smile. The lady, however, protested against this doctrine, and concluded by confessing that she always did and always should prefer nature to art. From this commonplace confession, the chief justice, by a playful cross-examination, presently made it apparent that we do not always know what we mean by art and what by nature; that the ideas are so mixed in civilized society, and the words so inaccurately used, both in common conversation, and in the writings of philosophers, that no metaphysical prism can separate or reduce them to their primary meaning. Next he touched upon the distinction between art and artifice. The conversation branched out into remarks on grace and affectation, and thence to the different theories of beauty and taste, with all which he _played_ with a master’s hand. A man accustomed to speak to numbers perceives immediately when his auditors seize his ideas, and knows instantly, by the assent and expression of the eye, to whom they are new or to whom they are familiar. The chief justice discovered that Alfred Percy had superior knowledge, literature, and talents, even before he spoke, by his manner of listening. The conversation presently passed from _l’air noble_ to _le style noble_, and to the French laws of criticism, which prohibit the descending to allusions to arts and manufactures. This subject he discussed deeply, yet rapidly observed how taste is influenced by different governments and manners--remarked how the strong line of demarcation formerly kept in France between the nobility and the citizens had influenced taste in writing and in eloquence, and how our more _popular_ government not only admitted allusions to the occupations of the lower classes, but required them. Our orators at elections, and in parliament, must speak so as to come home to the feelings and vocabulary of constituents. Examples from Burke and others, the chief justice said, might be brought in support of this opinion.