On May-day, in a fairy ring, [spring, (1)
We've seen them round St. Anthon's
Frae grass the cauler dew-draps wring
To weet their een,

And water, clear as crystal spring,
To synd them clean.

A Sunday in

O may they still pursue the way
To look sae feat, sae clean, sae gae !
Then shall their beauties glance like May;
And, like her, be

The goddess of the vocal spray,
The Muse and me.

Edinburgh.-From 'Auld Reekie.'

On Sunday, here, an altered scene
O' men and manners meets our een.
Ane wad maist trow, some people chose
To change their faces wi' their clo'es,
And fain wad gar ilk neibour think
They thirst for guidness as for drink;
But there's an unco dearth o' grace,
That has nae mansion but the face,
And never can obtain a part
In benmost corner o' the heart.
Why should religion mak us sad
If good frae virtue 's to be had?
Na: rather gleefu' turn your face,
Forsake hypocrisy, grimace;
And never hae it understood
You fleg mankind frae being good.

In afternoon, a' brawly buskit,
The joes and lasses lo'e to frisk it
Some tak a great delight to place
The modest bon-grace ower the face;
Though you may see, if so inclined,
The turning o' the leg behind.
Now, Comely-Garden and the Park
Refresh them, after forenoon's wark:
Newhaven, Leith, or Canonmills,
Supply them in their Sunday's gills;
Where writers aften spend their pence,

To stock their heads wi' drink and sense.
While danderin' cits delight to stray,
To Castle-hill or public way.
Where they nae other purpose mean,
Than that fool cause o' being seen,
Let me to Arthur's Seat pursue,
Where bonny pastures meet the view,
And mony a wild-lorn scene accrues,
Befitting Willie Shakspeare's muse.
If Fancy there would join the thrang,
The desert rocks and hills amang,
To echoes we should lilt and play,
And gie to mirth the livelang day.

Or should some cankered biting shower
The day and a' her sweets deflower,
To Holyroodhouse let me stray,
And gie to musing a' the day;
Lamenting what auld Scotland knew,
Bien days for ever frae her view.
O Hamilton, for shame! the Muse
Would pay to thee her couthy vows,
Gin ye wad tent the humble strain,
And gie's our dignity again!
For, oh, wae 's me! the thistle springs
In domicile o' ancient kings,
Without a patriot to regret
Our palace and our ancient state.

DRAMATISTS.

The tragic drama of this period bore the impress of the French school, in which cold correctness or turgid declamation was more rcgarded than the natural delineation of character and the fire of genius. One improvement was the complete separation of tragedy and comedy. Otway and Southerne had marred the effect of some of their most pathetic and impressive dramas, by the introduction of farcical and licentious scenes and characters, but they were the last who committed this incongruity. Public taste had become more critical, aided perhaps by the papers of Addison in the 'Spectator,' and by other essayists, as well as by the more general diffusion of literature and knowledge. Fashion and interest combined to draw forth dramatic talent. A writer for the stage, it has been justly remarked, like the public orator, has the gratification of 'witnessing

1 St. Anthony's Well. a beautiful small spring on Arthur's Seat, near Edinburgh. Thither it was long the practice of young Edinburgh maidens to resort on May-day.

his own triumphs; of seeing in the plaudits, tears, or smiles of delighted spectators, the strongest testimony to his own powers.' The publication of his play may also insure him the fame and profit of authorship. If successful on the stage, the remuneration was then considerable. Authors were generally allowed the profits of three nights' performances; and Goldsmith, we find, thus derived between four and five hundred pounds by She Stoops to Conquer.' The genius of Garrick may also be considered as lending fresh attraction and popularity to the stage. Authors were ambitious of fame as well as profit by the exertions of an actor so well fitted to portray the various passions and emotions of human nature, and who partially succeeded in recalling the English taste to the genius of Shakspeare.

One of the most successful and conspicuous of the tragic dramatists was the author of the Night Thoughts,' who, before he entered the church, produced three tragedies, all having one peculiarity, that they ended in suicide. The Revenge,' still a popular acting play, contains, amidst some rant and hyperbole, passages of strong passion and eloquent declamation. Like Othello, The Revenge' is founded on jealousy, and the principal character, Zanga, is a Moor. The latter, son of the Moorish king Abdallah, is taken prisoner after a conquest by the Spaniards, in which his father fell, and is condemned to servitude by Don Alonzo. In revenge, he sows the seeds of jealousy in the mind of his conqueror, Alonzo, and glories in the ruin of his victim:

Thou seest a prince, whose father thou hast slain,
Whose native country thou hast laid in blood,
Whose sacred person, oh! thou hast profaned,
Whose reign extinguished-what was left to me,
So highly born? No kingdom but revenge;
No treasure but thy torture and thy groans.
If men should ask who brought thee to thy end,
Tell them the Moor, and they will not despise thee.
If cold white mortals censure this great deed,
Warn them they judge not of superior beings,
Souls made of fire, and children of the sun,
With whom revenge is virtue.

·

Dr. Johnson's tragedy of Irene' was performed in 1749, but met with little success, and has never since been revived. It is cold and stately, containing some admirable sentiments and maxims of morality, but destitute of elegance, simplicity, and pathos. At the conclusion of the piece, the heroine was to be strangled upon the stage, after speaking two lines with the bowstring round her neck. The audience cried out Murder! murder! and compelled the actress to go off the stage alive, in defiance of the author. An English audience could not, as one of Johnson's friends remarked, bear to witness a strangling scene on the stage, though a dramatic poet may stab or slay by hundreds. The following passage in Irene' was loudly applauded:

་

To-morrow!
That fatal mistress of the young, the lazy,
The coward and the fool, condemned to lose
A useless life in waiting for to-morrow-
To gaze with longing eyes upon to-morrow,
Till interposing death destroys the prospect!
Strange! that this general frand from day to day
Should fill the world with wretches undetected.
The soldier labouring through a winter's march,
Still sees to-morrow dre sed in robes of triumph;
Still to the lover's long-expecting arms
To-morrow brings the visionary bride.
But thou, too old to bear another cheat,
Learn that the present hour alone is man's.

Five tragedies were produced by Thomson betwixt the year 1729 and the period of his death: these were Sophonisba,'' Agamemnon,' Edward and Eleonora,' Tancred and Sigismunda,' and 'Coriolanus None of them can be considered as worthy of the author of the Seasons: they exhibit the defects of his style without its virtues. He wanted the plastic powers of the dramatist; and though he could declaim forcibly on the moral virtues, and against corrup tion and oppression, he could not draw characters or invent scenes to lead captive the feelings and imagination.

Mallet was the author of three tragedies- Eurydice' (1731), Mustapha' (1739), and Elvira' (1763). Mustapha,' as a party play, directed against Walpole, was successful, and had a run of fourteen nights. Besides these, Mallet was associated with Thomson in the composition of 'Alfred,' a mask, acted at Cliefden before the Prince of Wales in 1740. Another mask, 'Britannia,' was produced by Mallet in 1755.

Glover, the author of 'Leonidas, produced in 1754 a tragedy, 'Boadicea,' which was brought on the stage by Garrick, but without success. In this play, Davies, the biographer of Garrick, relates that Glover' preserved a custom of the Druids, who enjoined the persons who drank their poison to turn their faces towards the wind, in order to facilitate the operation of the potion!'

Two tragedies of a similar kind, but more animated in expression, were produced-Gustavus Vasa,' by Henry Brooke, author of The Fool of Quality,' a popular novel; and Barbarossa,' by Dr. Brown, an able miscellaneous writer. The acting of Garrick mainly contributed to the success of the latter, which had a great run. The sentiment at the conclusion of 'Barbarossa' is finely expressed:

Heaven but tries our virtue by affliction,

And oft the cloud which wraps the present hour
Serves but to brighten all our future days.

Aaron Hill translated some of Voltaire's tragedies with frigid accuracy, and they were performed with success. In 1753, The Gamester,' an affecting domestic tragedy, was produced. Though wanting the merit of ornamented poetical language and blank verse,

E L. v. iv.-8

the vivid picture drawn by the author-Edward Moore-of the evils of gambling, ending in despair and suicide, and the dramatic art evinced in the characters and incidents, drew loud applause. The Gamester' is still a popular play.

Of a more intellectual and scholar-like cast were the two dramas of Mason, Elfrida' and 'Caractacus.' They were brought on the stage by Colman-which Southey considers to have been a bold experiment in those days of sickly tragedy-and were well received. They are now known as dramatic poems, not as acting plays. The most natural an affecting of all the tragic productions of the day was the 'Douglas' of Home, founded on the old ballad of Gil Morrice,' which Percy has preserved in his 'Reliques.' 'Douglas' was rejected by Garrick, and was first performed in Edinburgh in 1756. Next year Lord Bute procured its representation at Covent Garden, where it drew tears and applause as copiously as in Elinburgh. The plot of this drama is pathetic and interesting. The dialogue is sometimes flat and prosaic, but other parts are written with the liquid softness and moral beauty of Heywood or Dekker. Thus, on the wars of England and Scotland, we have these fine lines:

Gallant in strife, and noble in their ire,
The battle is their pastime. They go forth
Gay in the morning, as to summer sport:
When evening comes, the glory of the morn,
The youthful warrior, is a clod of clay.

Maternal affection is well depicted under novel and striking circumstances the accidental discovery of a lost child-My beautiful! my brave and Henry Mackenzie, the Man of Feeling, considered that the chief scene between Lady Randolph and Old Norval, in which the preservation and existence of Douglas are described, had no equal in modern, and scarcely a superior in the ancient drama. Douglas himself, the young hero, enthusiastic, romantic, desirous of honour, careless of life, and every other advantage when glory lay in the balance,' is beautifully drawn, and formed the school-boy model of most of the Scottish youth 'sixty years since.' As a specimen of the style and diction of Home, we subjoin part of the discovery scene. Lord Randolph is attacked by four men, and rescued by young Douglas. An old man is found in the woods and is taken up as one of the assassins, some rich jewels being also in his possession.

Discovery of her Son by Lady Randolph.
PRISONER--LADY RANDOLPH, ANNA, her maid.

LADY RANDOLPH. Account for these; thine own they cannot be:
For these, I say: be steadfast to the truth;

Detected falsehood is most certain death.

[Anna removes the servants and returns.

PRISONER. Alas! I am sore beset; let never man,
For sake of lucre, sin against his son!
Eternal justice is in this most just !

I, guiltless now, must former guilt reveal.

LADY R. O Anna, hear!-Once more I charge thee speak The truth direct; for these to me foretell

And certify a part of thy narration;

With which, if the remainder tallies not,

An instant and a dreadful death abides thee.

PRIS. Then, thus adjured, I'll speak to you as just

As if you were the minister of heaven,

Sent down to search the secret sins of men.
Some eighteen years ago, I rented land

Of brave Sir Malcolm, then Balarmo's lord;
But falling to decay, his servants seized

All that I had, and then turned me and mine-
Four helpless infants and their weeping mother-
Out to the mercy of the winter winds.

A little hovel by the river's side

Received us: there hard labour, and the skill
In fishing, which was formerly my sport,
Supported life. Whilst thus we poorly lived,
One stormy night, as I remember well,
The wind and rain beat hard upon our roof;
Red came the river down, and loud and oft
The angry spirit of the water shrieked.

At the dead hour of night was heard the cry
Of one in jeopardy. rose, and ran
To where the circling eddy of a pool,
Beneath the ford, used oft to bring within

My reach whatever floating thing the stream

Had caught. The voice was ceased; the person lost:

But looking sad and earnest on the waters,

By the moon's light I saw, whirled round and round,
A basket; soon I drew it to the bank,

And nestled curious there an infant lay.

LADY R. Was he alive?

PRIS. He was.

LADY R. Inhuman that thou art 1

How couldst thou kill what waves and tempests spared?
PRIS. I was not so inhumaz.

LADY R. Didst thou not?

ANNA. My noble mistress, you are moved too mach: This man has not the aspect of stern murder;

Let him go on, and you, I hope, will hear

Good tidings of your kinsman's long best child.

PRIS. The needy man who has known better days,

One whom distress has spited at the world,

Is he whom tempting fiends would pitch upon

To do such deeds as make the prosperous men

Lift up their hands, and wonder who could do them;
And such a man was I; a man declined,

Who saw no end of black adversity;

Yet, for the wealth of kingdoms, I would not

Have touched that infant with a hand of harm.

LADY R. Ha! dost thou say so? Then perhaps he lives!

PRIS. Not many days ago he was alive.

LADY R. O God of heaven! Did he then die so lately?

PEIS. I did not say he died; I hope he lives.

Not many days ago these eyes beheld

Him, dourishing in youth, and health, and beauty.

LADY R. Where is he NOW?

PRIS. Alas! I know not where.

LADY R. O fate! I fear thee still. Thou riddler, speak

Direct and clear, else I will search thy soul.

ANNA. Permit me, ever honoured! keen impatience,