Scrapes wealth, o'er each departing penny grieves, Counts cent per cent, and smiles, or vainly frets, But from the Drama let me not digress, Quærit, et inventis miser abstinet, ac timet uti; We hate the carnage while we see the trick, And Lewis' self, with all his sprites, would quake We loathe the action which exceeds belief: Digna geri, promes in scenam; multaque tolles Aut humana palam coquat exta nefarius Atreus ; (1)" Irene had to speak two lines with the bowstring round her neck; but the audience cried out Murder!' and she was obliged to go off the stage alive."— Boswell's Johnson. [These two lines were afterwards struck out, and Irene was carried off, to be put to death behind the scenes. "This shows," says Mr. Malone, "how ready modern audiences are to condemn, in a new play, what they have frequently endured very quietly in an old one. Rowe has made Moneses, in Tamerlane, die by the bowstring without offence." Davies assures us, in his Life of Garrick, that the strangling Irene, contrary to Horace's rule, coram populo, was suggested by Garrick. See Croker's Boswell, vol. i. p. 172. — E.] (2) In the postscript to the "Castle Spectre," Mr. Lewis tells us, that though blacks were unknown in England at the period of his action, yet Above all things, Dan Poet, if you can, On whores, spies, singers wisely shipp'd away. 66 It scorns amusements which are not of price. Why this, and more, he suffers can ye guess? Because it costs him dear, and makes him dress! he has made the anachronism to set off the scene: and if he could have produced the effect "by making his heroine blue,-I quote him-" blue he would have made her! " (1) [In 1706, Dennis, the critic, wrote an "Essay on the Operas after the Italian manner, which are about to be established on the English Stage; " in which he endeavours to show, that it is a diversion of more pernicious consequence than the most licentious play that ever appeared upon the stage. - E.] So prosper eunuchs from Etruscan schools; Give us but fiddlers, and they're sure of fools! Ere scenes were play'd by many a reverend clerk(1) (What harm, if David danced before the ark?) (?) In Christmas revels, simple country folks [jokes. Were pleased with morrice-mumm'ry and coarse Improving years, with things no longer known, Produced blithe Punch and merry Madame Joan, Who still frisk on with feats so lewdly low, 'Tis strange Benvolio (3) suffers such a show (4); (1) "The first theatrical representations, entitled Mysteries and Moralities,' were generally enacted at Christmas, by monks (as the only persons who could read), and latterly by the clergy and students of the universities. The dramatis personæ were usually Adam, Pater Cœlestis, Faith, Vice," &c. &c. - See Warton's History of English Poetry. [These, to modern eyes, wild, uncouth, and generally profane performances, were thought to contribute so much to the information and instruction of the people, that one of the popes granted a pardon of one thousand days to every person who resorted peaceably to the plays acted in the Whitsun. week at Chester, beginning with the "Creation," and ending with the "General Judgment." These were performed at the expense of the different trading companies of that city. The" Creation" was performed by the drapers; the "Deluge" by the dyers; Abraham, Melchisedec, and Lot" by the barbers; the "Purification" by the blacksmiths; the "Last Supper" by the bakers; the "Resurrection" by the skinners; and the "Ascension" by the tailors. In Mr. Payne Collier's recent work on English Dramatic Poetry, the reader will find an abstract of the several collections of these mystery-plays, which is not only interesting for the light it throws on the early days of our drama, but instructive and valuable for the curious information it preserves with respect to the strangely debased notions of Scripture history that prevailed, almost universally, before translations of the Bible were in common use. See also the Quarterly Review, vol. xlvi. p. 477. — E.] (2) Here follows, in the original MS. — 66 "Who did what Vestris yet, at least,- cannot, And cut his kingly capers sans culotte."- E.] (3) Benvolio does not bet; but every man who maintains race-horses is a promoter of all the concomitant evils of the turf. Avoiding to bet is a little pharisaical. Is it an exculpation? I think not. I never yet heard a bawd praised for chastity because she herself did not commit fornication. (4) [For Benvolio we have, in the original MS., " Earl Grosvenor;" and for the next couplet Suppressing peer! to whom each vice gives place, Oaths, boxing, begging, -all, save rout and race. Farce follow'd Comedy, and reach'd her prime In ever-laughing Foote's fantastic time: Mad wag! who pardon'd none, nor spared the best, And turn'd some very serious things to jest. Nor church nor state escaped his public sneers, Arms nor the gown, priests, lawyers, volunteers: "Alas, poor Yorick!" now for ever mute! Whoever loves a laugh must sigh for Foote. We smile, perforce, when histrionic scenes Ape the swoln dialogue of kings and queens, When "Chrononhotonthologos must die," And Arthur struts in mimic majesty. Moschus! with whom once more I hope to sit "Suppressing peer! to whom each vice gives place, Save gambling-for his Lordship loves a race." But we cannot trace the exact propriety of the allusions. Lord Grosvenor, now Marquis of Westminster, no doubt distinguished himself by some attack on the Sunday Newspapers, or the like, at the same time that he was known to keep a stud at Newmarket-but why a long note on a subject certainly insignificant, and perhaps mistaken? - E.] (1) In dedicating the fourth canto of "Childe Harold " to his fellow tra veller, Lord Byron describes him as " one to whom he was indebted for the social advantages of an enlightened friendship; one whom he had long known, and accompanied far, whom he had found wakeful over his sickness and kind in his sorrow, glad in his prosperity and firm in his adversity, |