writers, which has been most insisted "As full of spirit as the month of May, feet? What are we to substitute for what purgative drug" will supply the "At his nod, go to quod." Had we not better wait a season or two, and see if they don't reform, before we fairly deliver them over to the lictors and the forks? What! "kill Claudio?"-not for the world! One would really almost as soon set out, in good earnest, with Jack Cade, to hang all gentlemen. Seriously, however, the charge is a grave one, and if not rebutted, it will be an awkward thing for the culprits. Let us see. The admitted didactic method of the drama, is to read a lesson to mankind, by exhibiting their own vices and follies in the strongest light. The audience are, for the most part, to draw their own inferences. A dramatic character supplies us with a sort of artificial experience, and we profit by it in the same manner that we do from a retrospection of our own conduct. A comic drama is the history of common life, and imperial tragedy is exalted history put into action. We may as well falsify history as the drama. The charm and utility of both In are equally destroyed. the comic characters which have been adverted to, it will not be is strictly adhered to, it being true, denied, that the dramatic method in fact, that men whose conduct is tainted with errors of a similar kind, and to a similar extent, are, under similar circumstances, frequently for a considerable time, prosperous in themselves, and supported, upon the whole, by the favourable estimation of those around them. Nor if a timely reform occurs, do they seldom escape without severe punishment for truth is represented and taught by the their observations: grant that this stage. The character of Charles Surface is said to have been drawn, by character of Charles, and the memoirs the author, from himself. Read the of Sheridan, and the moral inferences Sheridan did not reform-Charles did. from both will be precisely the same. But in the play and in the history, the necessity of reformation is inculcated with equal force, and the value of the character, upon the whole, weighed in balances alike impartial. plays, neither the timely reform nor It has been objected, that, in some the punishment is shewn to occur during the portion of time supposed to be occupied by the action of the piece. This is true of very few plays; but were it true of three times the number, it is quite sufficient, for the exculpation of the stage, to shew, that there is no faulty character exhibited in any one play, without a similar or analogous one being exposed, and rendered obnoxious in some other play; no light sentiment uttered which is not, in the proper place, gravely contradicted. The action of dramatic pieces will not always admit of every character being traced to its legitimate denouement; some are necessarily left unfinished at the close of the story; for with what probability could the destinies of the whole of a long list of dramatis personæ be fulfilled in every case, on a given day? Amongst others, the character of Ranger has been much and unreasonably blamed on this account. Now, Ranger is not the principal character, but a casual instrument in producing the events of the piece. No grave moral is attempted to be drawn from it. He is evidently introduced to aid the gay and cheerful tone which is intended to predominate, being painted as one of those careless beings, whom, though undeserving of deliberate approbation, we allow ourselves to dismiss, with goodnatured forgiveness, especially when they discover friendly intentions, and are untainted with deep depravity or malevolence. Dr Hoadley, the author of the suspicious husband, well knew, that in numberless other comedies, the inflictions which await both the unthinking and the deliberate rake, are amply made known. Can any thing, for instance, be more instructively appalling than the last act of the Inconstant, where young Mirabel gets into the hands of bravoes, and is rescued by the woman whom he had insulted and neglected? In a lighter way, the reckless enterprises of the two friends in the Chances of Beaumont and Fletcher, bring them into the most dangerous and embarrassing scrapes; and, in the Monsieur Thomas of the same poets, the spoiled wild son, and still more delightfully humorous, old, scapegrace of a father, are buffetted and thumped about in such a way, that," were't not for laughing, one might pity them." Of these two characters, it is to be observed, that the admixture of buffoonery completely precludes any danger of example. The more disgusting parts of the rake, are given over to the most cutting ridicule in the "Citizen," in "The Clandestine Marriage," in the comic as well as the tragic part of "Venice Preserved," and much too broadly, in the "Liberham" of Dryden, and " The Humourists" of Shadwell. "The Maid's Tragedy" of Fletcher, is a harrowing display of the consequences of unbridled passion; nor will he who reads Webster's "Vittoria Corombona, or the White Devil" need any other warning against the designs of unprincipled fascination. The other more attractive passions of human nature, however brightly they may corruscate through particular scenes, are, in the long run, developed in all their consequences. Extravagance, however generous, has its antidote in "Honeywood" in the "Good-natured Man," who, from his easy temper as to pecuniary matters, is at last brought to dress the bailiffs in his cast clothes, and pass them off, as well as he can, for friends. Who, that sees this play, does not sweat with vexation and pity, while the incorrigible tipstaff, "Flanigan," pertinaciously persists, at the very time he should not, in venting his vulgarities about the "Parlevow's," and their causing ale to be threepence-halfpenny a pot? Timon of Athens is a graver example. Profane swearing has perhaps been admitted too easily upon the stage. It is, however, necessary in some of its forms, to a perfect picture of the manners of the age-and it may be conceded as some palliation, that most of these ejaculations, however reprehensible, are strictly interjectional, and convey no definite idea, either profane or the contrary. Those which are more than mere interjections, are generally expressive of strong determination, or are used as auxiliary epithets of exaggeration. This vice, too, has been well exposed by the stage; as witness Acres and his ridiculous juratory system, and the awkward attempts of Colonel Epaulette, the English Frenchman in " Fontainbleau," to become an accomplished "goddamme." Avarice is most completely anatomised in Ben Jonson's Volpone," in the "Sir Giles Overreach" of Massinger, and in Bartolus, in the "Spanish Curate" of Beaumont and Fletcher-not to mention 1820.7 On Jeremy Collier and the Opponents of the Drama. the more modern plays of "The Miser" and "The Busy Body." As for Foppery, it is hardly ever exhibited upon the stage but to be laughed at and mortified-nor has even female affectation been more mercifully dealt with. For boasting, or the itch of quarrelling, let the most egregious Hector or Thraso of them all, see Monsieur Parolles, Captain Bobadil, or the Little French Lawyer, without profit, if he can. Moore's "Gamester," is true hellebore to the madness of gambling; and drunkeness and gluttony have their medicine in Sir John Brute; Cacafogo, and Ricardo, in Beaumont and Fletcher's "Coxcomb;" in Lazarillo, in "the Woman Hater," of the same writers; in Justice Greedy, and Major Dumpling. It is a most uncandid objection to wage, that one play may do mischief which another may never have an opportunity to repair. There is no end of this sort of cavilling. If the excellence of theatrical entertainments upon the whole be admitted, the unavoidable defects must be taken together with the merits. What human institution is perfect? A boy may, by possibility, in the course of being taught the classical languages, become acquainted with licentious ideas, the effect of which, the general moral tendency of his studies may fail to counteract, but are we, therefore, to dismiss the classics from our schools and call them poisonous tombs of antiquity, with Jeremy Collier? In controversial literature, a student may imbibe doubts which he may never read long enough to acquire the means of solving, but are we on this account to abjure all controversy? It must be remembered, that if the stage is to be efficient at all, it can only be so by remaining what it is, a picture of actual manners, which our feelings recognise and our experience confirms. Were we to paint things otherwise than they are;-were we to draw no characters but men without vice, and women without weakness; were we to punish frailty as frailty never punished, and stigmatise folly as folly never was stigmatised, who would sit to see such representations? It is "the microcosm man" that interests us, and not" a faultless monster that the world ne'er saw;"-a picture of living manners, and not the inside of a penitentiary. Let it be recollected, was 391 also, that however good and bad may The unqualified warnings of the "Beaux banish beaux; with swordknots, swordknots strive." The acts are garnished with waltzes which are listened to, and overtures which are not-a comic extravaganza is introduced in a sandwich of Bravura and Affettuoso-and we now join in the obstreperous delight of the gods at the "Boy with the carrotty Poll," and now aid a palefaced cornet, or a languishing Miss of quality, in applauding "The Soldier tired," or "The Bewil dered Maid." By such scenes as these, no immediate deep impressions can be made; and it is an abuse of language to talk of the dangers of a theatre, unless the general and gradual effect of dramatic writing could be shewn to be bad, the contrary of which would seem to be evident. The stage has in some points kept pace too closely, for its own interests, with the refinements and fluctuations of the morality of the time. The theatrical taste of the last thirty years, or rather more, has undergone such changes as, assuming them for one era, would be apt to convict it of much inconsistency and caprice. With a passion for tragic characters of the most over-wrought and unnatural atrocity, we have weakened our comedy by a morbid fastidiousness, which is, perhaps, a leading cause of the present striking inferiority, or rather comparative extinction of this species of writing. The Good-natured Man had nearly been damned for being low. Not long after, the exquisite dramatic satire of The Beggar's Opera was made a subject of ridiculous alarm by those elegant critics the Bow-street officers; and is now only tolerated, in spite of all the encomiastic criticisms of a flash critic of our own day, Mr Hazlitt. Had the Suspicious Husband been produced a little later, it is a doubt whether it would have been suffered to keep possession of the stage. There can be no doubt at all, what, at the present day, (when, Heaven be praised, we are not threatened with any such calamities) would be the fate of comedies like Vanburgh's "Provoked Wife," or "Confederacy," Farquhar's "Constant Couple," Cibber's "Careless Husband,' or even Steele's "Funeral". Yet what can be better than the dialogues of Heartfree and Constant, than Dick Amlet and his mother, than Sir Harry Wil dair and Alderman Smuggler, than the affectionate calmness of Lady Easy and the jealousy of Lady Graveairs, or than the hypocrisy of the abandoned Lady Brumpton, or the genteel assurance of Campley, or the humours of Lable the undertaker, or the loves of Trim and Mademoiselle D'Epingle? This last, indeed, is the very mirror of valets. He has all the pert cleverness without the want of principle; and whether he is reviewing his recruits, or disposing them to intercept Lady Sharlot in the coffin, or leading Mademoiselle round the room, or singing Campley's Cheque, given as a song, in burlesque recitativo, trilling "hundred-hundred-hundred," because there are three hundred in contrasted modulations, and quavering "pounds" into more notes than he would receive of the banker-he is altogether delightful. It is owing to the overdone fastidiousness of later times that we have never beheld on the stage that wonderful scene in Othello, in which he falls into a trance. Any man of any pretensions to feeling or taste, would give five guineas to see Mr Kean play this scene. None but he could do justice to it. Who else is capable of pourtraying that awful selfinvestment of Nature "in shadowy passion," whilst the unfortunate victim makes his very disorder an argument for the truth of his "horrible imaginings;" that palpable incursion of sudden madness, which the stamina of the "noble Moor" hardly repel. Yet, because this paroxysm is induced by a single coarse expression of the ruffian Iago, the scene is to be omitted, as if any mind could be impressed by it with sensations other than those of the profoundest terror and pity. The cant of delicacy has done ten times the injury to the drama that sheer downright fanaticism has ever done; and shallow refinement is ten times more hopelessly inaccessible than the prejudices of the narrowest bigotry. This, it may be said, is all in favour of honest Jeremy Collier; even so be it. If the sentiment may "do him grace," he is perfectly welcome to the benefit of it. T. D. THE AYRSHIRE LEGATEES; Or, the Correspondence of the Pringle Family. No II. THERE was a great tea-drinking held in the Kirkgate of Irvine, at the house of Miss Mally Glencairn, to which our intelligent correspondent, Mr M'Gruel, the surgeon of Kilwinning, was invited. At that assemblage of rank, beauty, and fashion, among other delicacies of the season, several new-come-home Clyde Skippers, roaring from Greenock, and Port-Glasgow, were served up-but nothing contributed more to the entertainment of the evening, than a proposal, on the part of Miss Mally, that those present, who had received letters from the Pringles, should read them for the benefit of the company. This was no doubt a preconcerted scheme between her and Miss Isabella Tod, to hear what Mr Andrew Pringle had said to his friend Mr Snodgrass, and likewise what the doctor himself had indited to Mr Micklewham, some rumour having spread of the wonderful escapes and adventures of the family in their journey and voyage to London. For, as Mr M'Gruel, with that peculiar sagacity for which he is so eminently distinguished, justly remarked, "had there not been some prethought of this kind, it was not possible that both the helper and session clerk of Garnock could have been there together, in a party, where it was an understood thing that not only Whist and Catch Honours were to be played, but even obstreperous Birky itself, for the diversion of such of the company as were not used to gambling games." It was in consequence of what took place at this Irvine route, that Mr M'Gruel was led to think of collecting the letters; and those which were read that evening, in addition to what we have already published, constitute the burthen of our present article. LETTER VIII. Miss Rachel Pringle to Miss Isabella Tod. MY DEAR BELL,-It was my heartfelt intention to keep a regular journal of all our proceedings, from the sad day on which I bade a long adieu to my native shades-and I persevered with a constancy becoming our dear and youthful friendship, in writing down every thing that I saw, either rare or beautiful, till the hour of our departure from Leith. In that faithful register of my feelings and reflections as a traveller, I described our embarkation at Greenock, on board the steam-boat, our sailing past PortGlasgow, an insignificant town, with a steeple;-the stupendous rock of Dumbarton Castle,-that Gibraltar of antiquity; our landing at Glasgow, -my astonishment at the magnificence of that opulent metropolis of the muslin manufacturers. My brother's remark, that the punch bowls on the roofs of the infirmary, the museum, and the trade's hall, were emblematic of the universal estimation in which that celebrated mixture is held by all ranks and degrees-learned, commercial, and even medical, of the inhabitants;-our arrival at London. But Edinburgh-my emotion on behold- |