it it is promising to be more gay, more spi- and Rome; for to us it is of small im- | vanity of human grandeur, the uncerrited, and more witty than the author of the port how the affairs of the church are tainty of human happiness. former piece, and such a promise cannot easily be fulfilled. regulated between the Pope and his The three wretches convicted of treaThe author of the Retour des Maris has Most Christian Majesty. But what con- son were on Friday executed at Derby, treated his subject too seriously: Count cerns us more nearly is a distinct decla- pursuant to their sentence. Ory is no longer the agreeable seducer he ration that the convention which the His Grace the Duke of Wellington has is a lover caught in a trap, who avoids an king signed with the allies in 1815, is returned to his head-quarters in France. affair of honour by a marriage. not only destitute of equity and moderaThe first piece was thought too short, and tion, but impossible to be fulfilled on the the second is complained of as being too part of France. To give effect to this long; which proves how difficult it is to please the public. The piece would, how-plain hint, something is said of the valour ever, be sufficiently attractive, if the author of Frenchmen, and the people who can- When Alexander had conquered the world, would make a few sacrifices, in order to not fulfil their just engagements are pre-India, he heard of Paradise, and determined throw more importance into the comic cha-pared to make sacrifices to augment the to subdue that also. He was told that the racters of old Bertrand, and his wife Dame budget of the war minister, throw the river Nithebel led to it; and immediately Rogonde. The name of M. Ledoux was an-army ranks open to all the old soldiery, nounced after the representation. THEATRE DE L'AMBIGU COMIQUE. First representation of Les Machabees, or La Prise de Jérusalem. About two thousand years ago, a King of Syria took a fancy to convert the whole Hebrew people to the Pagan faith. Finding that he could not convince them by reasoning, he resolved to persuade them by force of arms; he supported his arguments by a powerful army, and arrived, one fine day, in front of the walls of Jerusalem, which he burnt to the ground without hesitation. Having put eighty thousand inhabitants to the sword, for the better illustration of Olym pian Jupiter, he murdered, by the most horrible tortures, seven brothers, who refused to submit to his laws, together with their mother, whose heroism is one of the finest traits in sacred history. and renew the blessings of conscription, The chambers have since their meet- VARIETIES. PARADISE, AN EASTERN TALE. and penetrated into the remotest regions of ordered a fleet to be equipped to carry his troops thither, but previously dispatched a few vessels to procure information. When they had reached the garden of Paradise, his people found the gate shut, and before it an aged keeper of singular appearance, and with manded to open the gate immediately for an extraordinary beard, whom they comtheir master, as he was not far behind them. The hoary keeper smiled, and said he durst not admit him unless he could find means to weigh down a feather, which he herewith sent, when placed in the balance. The week, we learn that the amity between only a light downy feather) could have such By the foreign arrivals during the messenger was astonished, for he could not conceive how a small feather (since it was Spain and Portugal is in no danger of weight, and concluded that the old man was being interrupted; and the latest ac-jeering him. He nevertheless went and counts from India also fully confirm our delivered the message. Alexander directed original statement on adverting to the a balance to be brought, and it soon appearcircumstances of our Eastern Empire,ed that all the wood and stone, and silver This subject has been successfully adapted the cloud of war is already dispelled. and gold, that could be laid on the scale, to the stage, by M. M. Cuvelier et Leopold. There is a rumour of a misunderstanding feather, which made every thing that was was not sufficient to counterpoise this little Their piece is of the marvellous kind. The between Spain and the United States; brought fly quickly up. Alexander, astomisfortunes of the Jewish Niobé have fur- if the latter find it their interest to quar-nished at this magical effect, sent once more nished them with several interesting situations, and the sack of Jerusalem has for-rel, there can be no want of an occasion. to enquire what was the meaning of it. The tunately enabled them to employ the talent Some convocation of German students man gravely answered, that the feather sig of M. Daguerre, a young painter, who has at Wartburg has been performing a sort which were light as down, and yet so heavy nified Alexander's cupidity and ambition, produced a scene to which we might in vain of auto-da-fe on the anniversary of the that nothing could counterbalance them; search for an equal, even at the Opera. The battle of Leipsick: they prayed, walked but he would tell him how that feather might effect of the apotheosis in the fourth act, was in procession, dined, burnt some books, be outweighed. "Let," said he," a handful perfectly magical. took the sacrament, and professed their of earth be laid upon it, and it will at once love of German independence. Know- lose its extraordinary power." Alexander ing nothing of the parties, seeing very perceived the meaning, and was deeply dedifferent details of their conduct, and not Jected. Soon afterwards he died in Babylon, understanding the precise meaning of without having seen Paradise. new-fangled words, we can gather no more from this exhibition, but that these persons are dissatisfied with the existing state of things in Germany, and are advocates of some kind of reform. Several well-arranged combats, and tasteful ballets, formed brilliant accessories to the success of the piece; and we must not omit to mention the music, the composition and arrangement of which does honor to Amedee, Villeneuve, and Fresnoy. DIGEST OF POLITICS AND So entirely does the great calamity which has befallen the nation engross all thoughts, that it almost seems as if the world's politics and news stood still with our feelings. They only absorb them. New Monthly Magazine. DENMARK.-A valuable addition has just rature, by the appearance of the first part of been made to the ancient Scandinavian liteSturlinga Saga edr, Islendinga-saga hin milka ; published by the Icelandic Society established stantial description of the manners and opinions at Copenhagen. This remarkable monument of ancient times gives a faithful and circumof the middle ages, as well as minute and authentic accounts of the civil wars of Iceland, to the latest period of the republic, and the first of the monarchy. melancholy note of preparations for the At home, our journals are filled with the funeral of the Princess Charlotte and her infant, on Wednesday next. Every thing On Wednesday, the 5th, the French indicates that the day will be voluntarily session of the Chambers was opened by observed by the people as one of deep a speech from the throne; in our judg- humiliation and sorrowing. Business will from the pen of OEHLENSCHLAGER, the most Hroar's Saga, an ancient northern romance, ment the most questionable document be suspended, and the places of public eminent dramatic writer of Denmark, is in the which has yet received the sanction of worship be open for the contrite moura-press. During his travels in Germany, last sum the restored monarch. We have little ers whose hearts this awful calamity has regard for the treaties between France stricken as a memorable example of the mere produced a new tragedy, entitled FostJarl was lately performed, part of the audience bröderne) the Confederates). When his Hokon sang the last stanza of a piece composed in his honor by the popular poet Degemann, after which the whole house, boxes, pit, and all, unanimously shouted Long live Oehlenschläger! Ibid. RUSSIA-In the course of last year some schools were founded in the villages of the government of Irkutsk, in each of which from twenty to forty children are received. Many of the Iakuti and Buerati, send their children to these schools to learn the Russian language, and to acquire a knowledge of writing and accounts, that they may be capable of instructing other children. frozen near the shores only, and not all The foreigners residing in Kamtschatka METEOROLOGICAL JOURNAL. November 6-Thursday. Thermometer from 44 to 55. Barometer from 30, 14 to 30, 06. Wind S. E.-A thick fog in the morning, which went off gradually by noon; the rest of the day cloudy. Friday, 7-Thermometer from 48 to 59. Barometer from 29, 95 to 29, 76. Wind S. E. 1.--Morning and noon clear, afternoon and evening cloudy, with rain in the evening. Saturday, 8-Thermometer from 50 to 58. Barometer from 29, 72 to 29, 62. Wind S. b. E. 4.-Cloudy, with a few showers.-Rain fallen,075 of an inch. Sunday, 9-Thermometer from 45 to 53. Barometer from 29, 86 to 30, 06. Wind S. W. 1.-Generally clear till the evening, when it became a very thick fog.Rain fallen,125 of an inch. THE FINE ARTS.- On the 29th ultimo, the King of France laid the foundation-stone for In the peninsula of Kamtschatka, the nathe grand Equestrian Statue of Henry IV., tural small-pox carried off a pretty consider- so long in preparation to be erected on the able number of persons annually: but a Pont-Neuf. On his Majesty's entrance into physician of the name of Malafejew, has atParis, in 1814, a temporary statue of Henry tempted, with the happiest success, to dimi- was placed on the same site, and had a goo0| Monday, 10-Thermometer from 42 to 57. nish this evil. Being in 1814 at Ochotzk, effect: the present is a solid, and, as far as he brought from thence by sea some vario-human foresight can go, intended for a lastHe immediately inoculated ing memorial. The former remained dur-just saw the sun about eleven for a short time. ing the hundred days; and the king, allud- Tuesday, 11-Thermometer from 45 to 54. ing to this, ascribed its "protection to the love of the French people." His Majesty also approved greatly of the inscription on the exergue of a medal struck on the present Wednesday, 12-Thermometer from 38 to 55. lous matter. occasion-" Pietas civium restituit." Barometer from 30, 13 to 30, 19. Wind S. W. and S. 1.-Generally cloudy; Barometer from 29, 94 to 29, 90. Wind S. b. F. 1.-Morning and evening clear, noon and afternoon cloudy, with rain. Barometer from 29, 95 to 29, 78. Edmonton, Middlesex. 500 persons at the Port of St. Peter and St. to his brethren. Last winter, on account of its mildness in the northern parts, may be placed among the number of rare phenomena. Thus at Tobolsk the thermometer was in the month of December never below five degrees, and many days the cold did not exceed two degrees. The oldest people in those parts do not remember to have ever experienced such a winter. The Dniester was already free from ice in February. At Nowosylkow, în the government of Tschernigow, the trees, put forth leaves in March, and the streets and roads were so dry, that the dust rose in clouds. At Archangel the cold was only twice, during the whole winter, more than twenty-seven degrees. There were frequent intervals of thaw, and in the course of April the weather was so mild, that the heat was from twelve to fourteen degrees, and the thermometer was, in the sun, at twenty-five degrees. Lake Ladoga was this winter 3.51. W. JOHN ADAMS. LITERARY INTELLIGENCE. A prospectus has been published by Bettoni, of Padua, of a publication to be entitled, " Vite e Ritratti di Cento nomani illustri." This extraordinary medley of the lives and portraits of great men is to comprise Alexander of Macedon, Alfred, Anacreon, Bacon, Boerhaave, Buffon, Charlemagne, Charles the Fifth, Camoens, Catherine II. (very masculine, no doubt, but now first classed as a great man! by this Italian bull) deric II, Franklin, Harvey, Haydn, Homer, Cervantes, Julius Cæsar, Euler, Euripides, FreHume, Kant, Kepler, Klopstock, Las Casas, Lavoisier, Leibnitz, Linnæus, Maria Theresa, (another of the uomani illustri!) Marlborough, The excavations at Pompeii continue to Milton, Trajan, Turenne, Virgil, Voltaire, furnish the Royal Museum at Naples with Plato, Poussin, and as many more ancient and all kinds of valuable objects. Some build- modern worthies as amount in all to eighty ings have lately been discovered at Pompeii names. Twenty subjects are therefore yet to remarkable for the richness of their archi-seek. The work is to be in five languages, tecture. At Puzzoli some sepulchres have Latin, Italian, French, English, and German. been found, which are stated to be magnificently adorned with sculpture of the finest kind. more durable. The 3d and 4th Nos. of STEPHENS' GREEK THESAURUS are just published. Subscribers who have not yet received their Copies, and who have not acquainted the Proprietors with the medium through which they should be forwarded, are requested to apply for them. A Mosaic Roman pavement, of consider able extent, and in fine preservation, has been discovered in the garden of J. Matthie, Among the German publications lately Esq. of High Wycombe, three feet below the brought under our notice, we may mention as surface. Langley, the historian of the Hun-worthy of notice, Beschreibung, &c. a descripdred of Desborough, mentions a similar dis- tion of a new machine to teach reading, invented covery as having been made in the grounds by P. Z. Poehlmann, Erlang, Palm; and Naof the Earl of Shelburne, in the same vici- turgeschichte, &c.--the Natural History and Anatomy of Amphibious Animals, by Tiedman, nity, about sixty years since. Oppel, and Liboschitz, at Heidelberg and Munich, of which the first books, in folio, have appeared. OR Journal of Belles Lettres, Arts, Politics, &c. NO. XLIV. quarto. SATURDAY, NOV. 22, 1817. PRICE 1s. REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS. The matters discussed in the first four | caricature, a model for Pedagogues when SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES: in-chapters we shall pass over, in the con- compared with the profession as it too cluding the biography of the poet; cri-viction that we could quote nothing not commonly existed in the reigns of Elizaticism on his genius and writings; a already familiar to the public concerning beth and James I. They often joined history of the Manners, Customs, and the birth of Shakspeare, his family, or the occupation of Conjuror to that of Amusements, Superstitions, Poetry, and thography of his name, the house wherein Pedant; and our author has collected elegant Literature of his Age, &c. &c. he was born, his education, his acquire- the following facts, the contemplation of By NATHAN DRAKE, M.Ď. 2 vols. ments, his marriage at the age of 18 to which renders us thankful to Providence Anne Hathaway, and the other points of for the improvement which has taken The name of Shakspeare would in which they treat. Learned controversies, place in the class of our instructors of itself form a rallying sign for all literary and the biographies prefixed to every youth. men, to attract their notice to this work; edition of his plays, have run these sub- The country-schoolmasters, if we trust but Dr. Drake superadds to this source jects to the very lees, and Dr. 'Drake the accounts of Ascham and Peacham, were of interest, an established reputation as a could only do what he has done, repeat in general many degrees below the peda of Shakspeare in ability; tyranny and the best-authenticated accounts from gogue pleasant and clever writer, and we hasten ignorance appear to have been their chief to bring our readers acquainted with his Reed, Aubrey, Malone, Wheeler, Chal-characteristics; to such an extent, indeed, new production. mers, Warton, Lofft, and Nichols. were they deficient in point of necessary Yet we must claim some indulgence in Leaving the individual, the author knowledge, that Peacham (in his Compleat this case; for when we mention that these next proceeds to take a view of Country Gentleman, Edit. of 1634,) speaking of bad solid quartos number between fourteen life during the age of Shakspeare, its and complaint of the whole land; for, for masters, declares "it is a generall plague and fifteen hundred pages, it will readily manners, customs, and rural characters; one discreet and able teacher, you shall inde be conceded, that no industry could festivals and holidays; wakes, fairs, twenty ignorant and carelesse; who (among have enabled us, since their publication weddings, christenings, and burials; di- so many fertile and delicate wits as England within these few days, to give them all the versions, and superstitions; thence re- affordeth) whereas they make one scholler, consideration requisite for a general and verting to the Bard, he details his deer- they marre ten." elaborate review of their whole contents. stealing adventure in Sir Thomas Lucy's Happily for us, however, the author has park, the consequent prosecution, and divided his subject into three parts: his removal to London about the year first, "Shakspeare in Stratford;" second, 1586. Shakspeare in London ;" and third, There is here ample scope for an "Shakspeare in retirement:" with the former of which, occupying half of the first volume, we feel ourselves more competent to grapple than we could have been with the tria juncta in uno. * To the charges of undue severity and de I fective literature, we must add, I am afraid, the infinitely more weighty accusations of frequent immorality and buffoonery. Ludovicus Vives, who wrote just before the age amusing narrative. The habits and occuof Shakspeare, asserts, that "some schoolpations of our rustic forefathers above masters taught Ovid's books of love to their two centuries ago; their mode of life, fa- expounded the vices;" and Peacham, at scholars, and some made expositions and shions, games, and notions of things, the close of the era we are considering, cenearthly and unearthly, cannot fail to in-sures, in the strongest terms, their too comOf Shakspeare in Stratford it does not terest us deeply, if delineated with even mon levity and misconduct : "the diseases appear that much of novelty could be common skill. Dr. Drake has drawn an whereunto some of them are very subject, expected, nor has Dr. Drake attempted excellent picture of them, and displays of the grosse ignorance and insufficiency of are humour and folly (that I may say nothing more than to reconcile the best hypo-in this view the great variety of his readtheses extant, respecting his family and ing, as well as the extreme diligence with contemptible, both in the schoole and many) whereby they become ridiculous and early life. Investigation has long been which he has laboured it into a uniform abroad. Hence it comes to passe, that in exhausted upon the subject, and Inquiries and highly gratifying composition. many places, especially in Italy, of all prohave been inquired into, till Conjecture Among the rural characters, the country fessions, that of pedanteria is held in basest itself must be dumb. This, therefore, is gentleman, the country clergyman, the repute; the school-master almost in every not the portion of the work which de- poor copy-holder, the huswife, the farm-comedy being brought upon the stage to serves the chief attention, from connecting er's heir, the boor, &c. &c., as well as us good sport in that excellent comedy of paralell the Zani or Pantaloun. He made the Poet with the literature of the times, the general manners of the age, make a Pedantius, acted in our Trinity Colledge in nor even with its manners. Still there distinguished figure, as depicted by an- Cambridge, and if 1 be not deceived, in was much of curious information on both cient writers, and more modern anti- Priscianus Vapulans, and many of our Enthese points scattered through many vo- quaries, Holinshed, Massinger, Herrick, glish plays. lumes, some of them scarce, and most of Drayton, Puttenham, Heywood, Jonson, "I knew one, who in winter would ordithem high-priced, which is now collected Earle (Microcosmography), Lodge, Pea-narily, in a cold morning, whip his boys together, and arranged in an agreeable cham, Spelman, Selden, Tusser, Bourne, self a heat. Another beat them for swearover, for no other purpose than to get himand well-digested form in the present Gilpin, Burton, Fuller, Stow, Douce, ing, and all the while he sweares himselfe compilation,--if we may use that term Ritson, Warton, Strutt, Southey, Walter with horrible oathes, he would forgive any uninvidiously, when the mass of matter Scott, and others, not forgetting the ex-fault save that. extracted from other sources is enlivened quisite traits with which Shakspeare him- "I had, I remember, myselfe (neere St. by so much original remark and just ap- self so largely abounds. His Holofernes, Instruction of a Christian Woman, 4to. Ed. preciation. in Love's Labour Lost, is, though a of 1557. We shall, however, quit these rather harshly-drawn characters, for one of greater refreshment, the substantial farmer or yeoman, of whom the following interesting definition is quoted from Harrison. Where honses be reeded (as houses have need) reed: raine. Of the larder of the cotter and the shepherd, and of the hospitality of the farmers, a pretty accurate idea may be acquired from the simple yet beautiful strains of an old pastoral bard of Elizabeth's days, who, describing a nobleman fatigued by the chase, the heat of the weather, and long fasting, adds that he Did house him in a peakish graunge, Wheare, knowne, and welcom'd, as the place And persons might afforde, cushion made of lists, a stoole Were set him on the borde: Half backed with a houpe, The poor old couple wish't their bread Their bacon beefe, their milke and curds Albane's in Hertfordshire, where I was born) more flimsy materials, and here and there a in the morning, and the second at five in a master, who by no entreaty would teach girding to which they fastened their splints, the afternoon. any scholler he had, farther than his father and then covered the whole with thick clay It would appear from the cottage to the had learned before him; as if he had onely to keep out the wind. "Certes this rude palace, good eating was as much cultivated learned but to reade English, the sonne, kind of building," says Harrison, made the in the days of Elizabeth as it has been in though he were with him seven yeares, Spaniards" in queene Maries daies to won-any subsequent period; and the rites of hosshould goe no further; his reason was, they der, but cheeflie when they saw what large pitality, more especially in the country, were would then proove saucy rogues, and con- diet was used in manie of these so homelie observed with a frequency and cordiality troule their fathers: yet these are they that cottages, in so much that one of no small which a further progress in civilization has oftentimes have our hopefull gentry under reputation amongst them said after this rather tended to check than to increase. their charge and tuition, to bring them in manner: These English (quoth he) have science and civility." (Compleat Gentleman, their houses made of sticks and durt, but p. 26, 27.) they fare commonlie so well as the King. Whereby it appeareth that he liked better of our good fare in such coarse cabins, than of their owne thin diet in their prince-like habitations and palaces." The cottages of the peasantry usually consisted of but two rooms on the ground-floor, the outer for the servants, the inner for the master and his This sort of people have a certaine pre- family, and they were thatched with straw heminence, and more estimation than la- or sedge; while the dwelling of the substanbourers and the common sort of artificers, tial farmer was distributed into several and these commonlie live wealthilie, keepe white lime or cement, and was very neatly A rooms above and beneath, was coated with good houses, and travell to get riches. They are also for the most part farmers to gentle-roofed with reed; hence Tusser, speaking of men, or at the leastwise artificers, and with the farm-house, gives the following direcgrazing, frequenting of markets, and keep- tions for repairing and preserving its thatch ing of servants (not idle servants, as the in the month of May: gentlemen doo, but such as get both their owne and part of their masters living) do come to great welth, in somuch that manie of them are able, and doo buie the lands of unthriftie gentlemen, and often setting their sonnes to the schooles, to the Universities, and to the Ins of Court; or otherwise leaving A few years before the era of which we them sufficient lands whereupon they may describing in one of his sermons the ecoare treating, the venerable Hugh Latimer, live without labour, doo make them by those nomy of a farmer in his time, tells us that meanes to become gentlemen: these are his father, who was a yeoman, had no land they that in times past made all France of his own, but only a farm of three or afraid. And albeit they be not called mas-four pounds by the year at the utmost; and ter as gentlemen are, or sir as to knights hereupon he tilled so much as kept half a apperteineth, but onelie John and Thomas, dozen men. &c.: yet have they beene found to have sheep; and my mother milked thirty kine. He had a walk for an hundred doone verie good service: and the kings of He kept his son at school till he went to the England in foughten battels, were woont to University, and maintained him there; he remaine among them (who were their foot-married his daughters with five pounds or men) as the French kings did among their twenty nobles a piece; he kept hospitality horsemen: the Prince thereby shewing with his neighbours, and some alms he gave to the poor; and all this he did out of the After this description of the rank which A plain country fellow is one (says the said farm. the farmer held in society, we shall proceed Bishop) who manures bis ground well, but to state the mode in which he commonly membered, at about a shilling per acre; reason enough to do his business, and net Land let, at this period, it should be re-lets himself lye fallow and untilled. He has lived in the age of Elizabeth; and in doing but in the reign of Elizabeth its value ra- enough to be idle or melancholy. He seems this we have chosen, as usual, to adopt at considerable length the language of our old to have the punishment of Nebuchadnezzar, writers; a practice to which we shall in fuhis tallons none of the shortest, only he eats for his conversation is among beasts, and ture adhere, while detailing the manners, customs, &c. of our ancestors, a practice not grass, because he loves not sallets. His which has indeed peculiar advantages; for Our space forbids us to follow our auhand guides the plough and the plough his the authenticity of the source is at once ap- thor into his extracts on this point, which thoughts, and his ditch and land-mark is parent, the diction possesses a peculiar are, however, curious and entertaining; postulates with his oxen very understandvery mound of his meditations. He excharm from its antique cast, and the expres but we cannot dismiss this part of our ingly, and speaks gee and ree better than sion has a raciness and force of colouring, subject without copying some of the pas- English. His mind is not much distracted which owes its origin to actual inspection, and which, consequently, it is in vain to exsages relative to the diet and hospitality with objects, but if a good fat cow come in pect on such subjects, from modern compo- of this important class. his way, he stands dumb and astonished fix here half an hour's contemplation. His and though his haste be never so great, will habitation is some poor thatched roof, distinguished from his barn by the loopholes that let out smoak, which the rain had long where his chiefe strength did consist.' sition. pidly increased, together with a proportional Contrary to what has taken place in moThe houses or cottages of the farmers were dern times, the hours for meals were later built, in places abounding in wood, in a very with the artificer and the husbandman than substantial manner, with not more than with the higher order of society; the farmer between four, six, or nine inches between and his servants usually sitting down to dinstud and stud; but in the open and cham-ner at one o'clock, and to supper at seven, paine country, they were compelled to use while the gentlemen took the first at eleven Thus diversifying his theme with prose and verse, does Dr. Drake produce his panorama of departed times. In the part we find the descriptions so seductive that of his work more immediately before us, we can hardly tear ourselves from them. The following, which closes the characters illustrative of rural manners in the Shakspearian age, is from the delightful sent to omit it, though this branch of the pen of Bishop Earle, and we cannot consubject is more entertaining in itself, than, strictly speaking, connected with the literature of the era, which is the chief matter for illustration. the I Warner's Albion's England. chap. 42. |