Affectation, as defined by Johnson, is "an artificial show, an elaborate appearance, a false pretence,"--"affected, studied with overmuch care, or with hypocritical appearance." The terms of this definition are so revolting, that the justice of its ascription to any individual, however felt, can scarcely be expected to be acknowledged by such, because it too deeply wounds self-love, its natural parent. Studiously disguised from ourselves, it is vainly believed to be so from others. Let us compare the utmost advantages to be derived from its adoption, with its peril and its loss. Do we really hope to improve by it, those qualities, moral, intellectual or physical, with which the bounty of nature has distinctively gifted us? Or do we hope by "an artificial show, an elaborate appearance, a false pretence," to obtain credit with others for attributes which do not belong to us? and with the deceitful appearance of which, (_provided_ it deceive,) we shall be basely content; thus falsely laboring for the attainment of a vain shadow, when the same labor honestly bestowed, would give us the real substance of all we ought to desire, viz: that solid improvement of the heart and mind, around which ever play, as their natural consequences, the most captivating of all graces--_simplicity and truth_. Viewed simply as matter of taste, can any thing short of its vilest corruption, its lowest degradation, induce a preference for a clumsy counterfeit, a hand-maiden, who impudently usurping the place of her mistress, presumes to play high life below stairs, over her noble mistress, arrayed in her simple majesty? What monstrous perversion can prompt us to turn the latter out of doors, and hug to our bosoms so vile an intruder? With what bribes does she corrupt the loyalty of her fair advocates? With what store of "quips and quirks, and wreathed smiles?" with what rich caskets of bright gems, counterfeit or stolen; with what rare graces, unmatched by those even of her injured and abused mistress, which she boldly pronounces _fade and obsolete_? Alas! how often do such meretricious lures prove resistless to the infatuated fair one! Behold her arrayed in all the paraphernalia of the despicable traitress,--henceforth sole promptress of the drama in which she proposes to act a conspicuous part, and which she vainly flatters herself to act with that last degree of art which conceals it. Not reflecting that the whole history of dramatic art affords few such adepts, she aspires at her very first debut, to surpass even a Siddons. Discarding nature, and not sufficiently wedded to art,--what becomes of her witchery? Her smiles are grimaces--her laughter discord--her movements ridiculous antics. Her tones speak to any thing but the heart;--all is foreign to nature,--whose modesty she outrages and oversteps. She is mocked and hissed by all the world with whom she would cordially unite, were the actress other than her