judicious in attempting so arduous a character. Miss O'Neil, who rivalled Mrs Siddons in Mrs Haller, in Mrs Beverley, and even in Belvidera, if we recollect rightly, never attempted to follow her in this great part. Some passages, in the character of Elvira, Miss Edmiston gave with considerable force; but the whole wanted sustained dignity and strength. Kean was of course the Rolla, but, excepting energy, he has not a single qualification for the part: I think the better of him for it. Two nights ago he represented Lear, but without any improvement, where a great deal was wanting. His Othello is his most perfect performance: he appeared in it on the third of this month: there was nothing deficient, nothing too much. However,

"'Tis a folly, though no crime, To say things for the hundredth time,"

like some of our diurnal critics; and even if one were to strike out something new, credit would hardly be given for it. Mr Cooper's Iago was heavy, but not injudicious.

Mr Kean is advertised for Cardinal Wolsey. I wonder he has not more discretion. This sacrifice for variety shews that he is not rising in public estimation.

Covent Garden, under the management of Charles Kemble, has brought out Julius Cæsar with many advantages: it embraces nearly the whole tragic strength of the company. Young plays the part formerly filled by John Kemble, and thereby incurs the inconvenience of a comparison, which, recollecting that Brutus was one of Kemble's noblest representations, could not be in his favour. If Mr Young does not always satisfy, he very rarely offends: his chief deficiency was in the scene where the ghost of Cæsar appears: to read it, one would suppose that nothing very striking could be produced out of it; but Kemble made every thing of it; Young nothing. The latter has a fine bust, and looked the Roman admirably: if he had spoken the Roman as well, there would have been nothing to complain

of.

Macready performed Cassius. He

is a very ambitious actor, and always exerts himself to the utmost: his part was one of passion, and it therefore suited him. He never acted better, or exhibited with more force, the fine contrast Shakespeare intended between the characters of Brutus and Cassius. The quarrel scene was excellently done on both sides: Brutus stood like a rock, and Cassius, like a foaming wave, beat against it without moving it. There is something very affecting in the situation of the two friends, and the audience almost wept for joy at the reconciliation. Charles Kemble's Mark Antony is just what it used to be six or seven years ago: he has every qualification for the part, and none to go much beyond it. He keeps his face like his wig, in too "formal buckle," his eyes and eye-brows forming an immoveable triangle.

:

This revival is the only novelty of any importance at this theatre since Easter its success has been so great, that the Manager has been called upon to make no other exertion. Nevertheless, a new Opera (from the pen of Mr Colman) is in preparation. It is founded on some law of Java, for the author does not seem to agree with Ben Jonson's Lanthorn Leatherhead (Bartholemew Fair, Act V. Scene I.)" that your home-born projects ever prove the best."

Mr H. Twiss is hashing up one of the Scotch novels for Drury Lane: we hope, for his own and Mr Elliston's sake, that his dramatic will have more success than his parliamentary efforts.

SMALL WITS.

THERE was a time when people set about writing verses, much in the same manner as the solution of a problem in mathematics; first of all came the "enunciation," and then the "construction." "Let the twelve months of the year be any given subject, it subject, it is required to stuff them into a corresponding number of lines." The poor Parnassian wight having thus specified the precise" thing to be done," proceeded to work without stop, instinctively scratching, at convenient intervals, the cells of those or

gans which he wished to bestir themselves with the greatest activity; and laboured, days and nights, with intense anxiety, till the task was completed. If he had a mind to give full scope to his powers of description, he allowed himself twenty-four lines; but the one achievement being onehalf more difficult, was exactly onehalf more glorious than the other. It were hopeless, indeed, to attempt the reduction of the hairum-scairum rhapsodists of these our times, to a simple scale of excellence, by means of this sort of arithmetical criticism.

In addition to the regular nicknacks in monostics, distics, and tetrastics, there were various other contrivances equally fantastical, which afforded to the small craft an opportunity of displaying their ingenuity. Such were the verses which began, and terminated with words of one syllable, where, to enhance the "miseriam cogitandi" (which it is impossible to translate), that which ended the one behoved to be the first of the next*-a kind of game at shuttle cock, in which one player stationed on the left, tossed a line across the page to a second, who, passing with the velocity of thought to the same side, hurled another at a third; and thus continued the match, till he who began the sport put a stop to it, by making his appearance on the oppo site list.

In this way the hapless poetaster was forced to hitch and hobble along an avenue, guarded on either side by a row of unrelenting monosyllables, which failed not to bring him effectually to his senses, if his unadvised Fancy manifested any inclination to scamper according to the freedom of her own will.

Even men of the best talents did not disdain to employ themselves upon these miserable monastic puzzles; and the whole herd of dabblers, who are ever ready to imitate the great, and continually find their meagre capacities best qualified to ape their follies, cockled over them with per

• Res Fors

Spes

Mors

fect delight. Blessed was he who possessed the tact of hitting off an epigram, for this was thought the highest point of sublimity which it was possible for genius to reach. A writer who was so fortunate as to light upon a quibble or a pun, doled it stupidly forth with the most pro voking complacency. "Idem aliterIdem aliter." The same monotonous chime was rung ten times over, till it sunk away in total exhaustion. The vocabulary was ransacked for the purpose of beating up "quips, and cranks," and trim conceits. Classical terms were stretched upon the rack, and squeezed, and mangled, and twisted, until they could no longer furnish entertainment to their diabolical tormentors; and then it was that these industrious barbarians, having exhausted the stores of their own language, imagined new. Hence arose the Greekish Dog-Latin of the latter days of Rome, and hence will probably spring up an unsanctified dialect of Franco-Anglian, in future dark ages.

It is the misfortune of second-rate aspirants after fame, that they estimate admiration by the width of gap which their exhibitions succeed in effecting, without regard to the further qualifications of the persons se acted upon. Thus, they set the great staring goggle-eyes and spread lips of the clown, in array against the drowsy lids and alarming yawn of the man of judgment and good taste; and misconstruing dull wonderment into a manifestation of genuine delight, foist themselves into bastard popularity, swelling into as much imaginary importance, at the same time, as a landward bailie, who looks upon himself as only "a little lower" than majesty itself. Though dulness can no longer enscone itself behind the bulwark of pedantic scholarship, and manage to look smart with a few stray patches of knowledge, scraped by mere slavish research, the tribe of dunderheads persevere in imagining

Fors.
Spes.

More.

themselves the most splendid geniuses upon the face of the earth; the world is grown far too wise to take their own assurances for the fact, or to go to war where no honour can be acquired by victory; and they are left to the undisturbed enjoyment of such beatific conceptions, except where a dolt is observed to be more than ordinarily assiduous in poking his fool's pat into notice, when, it may be, he is greeted en passant.

"You take yourself to be amazing clever, And think that not a mortal else can do

By half so well as you do ought what

ever;

And not a mortal else thinks so but you."

The numerical wits have still their representatives in the acrostic builders, who of late introduced an improvement into their style of architecture: this consists in piling their materials in alternate layers, so that the names of both loved and lover praiser and bepraised, shall be discovered in this order. The sonnetteers to the moon, the milky way, the morning star, and the whole host of heaven, are shoots from the same stem; but though designed of the LUNATIC SCHOOL, there is no danger that they be mistaken for inspired madmen.

The modes that be, however, must be complied with in some measure. The Muse has "casten the glamour" of true inspiration over the poets of the present age. Their numbers, gambolling in all the wildness and energy of savage freedom, fall upon the soul with full enthusiastic swell. Like the oak that flings its noble branches abroad to all the winds of heaven, they shoot up hither and thither, bold, strong, and glorying in their strength. The province of the imitator is here easily discernedharsh words and rugged versification, without the atoning grasp of thought --somewhat of muscular vigour, but no soul to direct it. Haply, even this nervous forcing is beyond his pith of brain, and he contents himself with trilling it to the airs of maudlin sentimentalism.

When one high-minded individual has indulged, during his so

litary roamings, in invigorating draughts from the pure well-spring of poesy, thousands of adventurers set out in search of the sacred fount; but, falling in by the way-side with a puddle, whose precincts are poached and champed up by the frequent resort of cattle, they quaff of its troubled streams, and return satisfied with a mouthful of mud. The result is, that feeling themselves incapable of moving by calm, equable grandeur of sentiment, and stately march of verse, they determine to strike by abrupt transition, warp themselves into artificial wrath, and pour forth a torrent of bombastical absurdity. It were well that such poetical bullies were rewarded, not with a branch of palm, but of birch..

The poetling begins with compos➡ ing copies of verses, called " Lines; written," we are considerately informed, " by the author," on receiving kisses, and such delicate little things; on seeing, and hearing, and what not. After conning them over, till the asperities of refractory accents are softened down, and the untoward rhymes tinkle quite pat in his own ear, he purchases a volume with nice silver clasp, and gorgeously-bedizzened back, for the reception of his precious lucubrations ; and having committed them, with a gentlemanly contempt of the economy of space, to some half-dozen leaves at the beginning, he next hands them about for the admiration of his literary, and illiterate friends. The good will of not a few young beauties and blue-stocking sybils is previously secured, by the wise measure of sticking up the letters of their names, as so many starting-posts, from which a like number of longs and shorts halt off in succession. The enlightened old damsels keep up their claims to candour and critical sagacity, by detecting a reasonable abundance of blemishes; but not forgetting to suggest the requisite amendments, the docile scribbler, by the adoption of these, affords them additional proofs of his good taste and discernment.

With such potent auxiliaries in support of his pretensions, his vanity is gratified to the full by the commendations which he hears bestow

ed upon his performances, though there are certain buts and addenda of an equivocal nature, hazarded in his absence. The grave old burghers are dazzled with the elegance of the volume's outside, and the ladylike penmanship within; they laud him as a " pernicious clever fellow;" wish he may be able to make his bread by his wit, and wonder what price his ledger might stand him: the matrons glance to their daughters, and utter significantly the thread-bare warning-" all is not gold that glisters." The fops, jealous of being "cut out," affect to look knowing, and "think the gentleman has copied them from books:" but the half-grown Misses, who are enchanted with the gentle thoughts which groves and loves, smiles and wiles, darts and hearts, and " all that kind of thing," as fashionable phrase has it, inspire, esteem him the mirror of genius and accomplish

ment.

By and by, having accumulated a sufficient stock, he brings out "Poems on several occasions," and with tiptoe eagerness, asks his ac

quaintances on the day of publication if they have seen " IT?" to the great dismay of those who have not been apprized beforehand of the intended debût of their gingling compeer!

Well-he gets a copy interleaved, and, with a praiseworthy perseve rance in well-doing, devotes himself to the task of revision, chopping off redundancies, eking out, polishing, and varnishing over, that posterity may have no cause to bewail his negligence in these respects. He likewise throws out, here and there, hints illustrative of his own pursuits and habits, for the encouragement of future biographers. Death comes; and unceremoniously puts an end to these delicious anticipations; and his works slip quietly into oblivion with their author, their praises being no longer sounded to tickle his ears, the sole object of their ever having been sounded at all. Tombstones are placed above the dust of the great, to tell men where they lie, but a monument must be erected over his grave, that men may be told on itwhat he was.

T.

LONDON.

Mr O'Conner's Chronicles of Eri will make their appearance in May. There will be two editions, both in octavo-one on royal paper, and the other on demy.

A Cambridge Quarterly Review is about to be added to the other numerous Quarterly Journals.

In a few days will be published, in two imperial octavo volumes, Edes Althorpianæ, or an Account of the Mansion at Althorp, the residence of the Right Hon. George John Earl Spencer, K.G. together with a descriptive catalogue of the pictures, and of a portion of the library, in the same mansion; accompanied with twenty-four fine engravings of historical and family portraits, and several views of portions of the house and grounds. By the Rev. T. F. Dibdin, F.R.S. S.A. The second volume will consist of a Supplement to the Bibl. Spenceriana, embellished with a great number of wood-cuts.

Mr Thomas Taylor (the platonist) has translated the eleven books of the Metamorphosis of Apuleius, and also his Treatise De Deo Socratis, and his three books De Habitudine Doctrinarum Platonis; and from the Greek, the Political Pythagoric Fragments preserved by Stobæus: all which will speedily be published.

Mr Alaric Watts's Specimens of the Living Poets, with biographical and critical prefaces, are in considerable forwardness, and he intends, in a Supplemental Volume, to give notices of such poetical writers as have died within the last twenty years.

The third and last part of Mr Gardiner's Oratorio of Judah will appear in May.

William Spence, Esq. is re-publishing his Tracts on Political Economy, viz. 1. Britain, independent of commerce; 2. Agriculture the source of the wealth of Britain; 3. The objections against the Cornbill refuted; 4. Speech on the East India Trade; with prefatory remarks on the causes and cure of our present distresses, as originating from neglect of principles laid down in these works.

The Essay on the Influence of a Moral Life on our Judgment in Matters of Faith, to which the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge and Church Union, in the Diocese of St David's, adjudged its premium for 1821; by the Rev. Samuel Charles Wilks, is in the press.

The Rev. J. W. Bellamy, B.D. is about to publish by subscription, in one handsome quarto volume, with a fine portrait by Mr Scriven, the Poems of the Rev.

VOL. X.

Thos. Cherry, B.D. the late respected Head-master of Merchant-Tailors' School.

Mr Valpy is reprinting his edition of Brotier's Tacitus, in 4 vols. octavo. It combines the advantages of the Paris and Edinburgh editions, with a selection of. notes from all the commentators on Tacitus subsequent to the Edinburgh edition : the Literaria Notitia and Politica, with all the Supplements, are also added; the French passages are translated, and the Roman money turned into English values.

Dr Meyrick has been many years engaged in collecting the scattered notices to be found in our old poets, chroniclers, wills, deeds, and inventories of ancient armour. The work will be published in three volumes, imperial quarto, and contain above one hundred specimens of ancient armour.

A Vindication of the Authenticity of the Narratives contained in the first two Chapters of the Gospels of St Matthew and St Luke, being an investigation of objections urged by the Unitarian editors of the improved version of the New Testament, by a Layman, in one volume, octavo, is in the press.

The Life and Times of Daniel De Foe, with a copious account of his writings, and anecdotes of several of his contemporaries, by Walter Wilson, Esq. is preparing for publication.

Chinzica, a poem, in ten cantos, founded on that part of the history of the Pisan Republic, in which is said to have originated the celebrated triennial festival, called the Battle of the Bridge, will speedily be published, in one volume octavo.

Mr Aspin is preparing the third volume of his Analysis of Universal History for the press; and it is expected to appear in the course of the ensuing autumn.

Letters and Conversations on Public Preaching, including rules for the preparation of sermons, in which the principles of the celebrated Claude are adopted and extended, in numerous examples, from the best authors, are in the press, and nearly ready for publication.

The Vale of Chamouni, a poem, by the author of "Rome," is in the press.

The Rev. B. Andrews, of Trowbridge, is preparing for publication a work, to be entitled, Clavis Græca Biblica, containing a short introduction to the Greek tongue, and a copious Greek Lexicon for the Septuagint, New Testament, and Apocrypha, with the signification of the words given in Latin and English; designed for theological students, who have not had the benefit of a classical educa

4 Q