"performers can be entrusted with the charge," we must reflect on how many of our plays the same remark is equally applicable.

The alteration of the comedy of "the Chances," by Villiers, Duke of Buckingham and Garrick, though perhaps necessary for the theatric representation, certainly takes off from the intrinsic merit of the play, however careless the united poets generally are in the catastrophe of their pieces, they seldom deviate from consistency of character; but the Don John of Villiers and of Garrick, is not the Don John of Beaumont and Fletcher.

To the opinion of Mrs. Inchbald that Massinger's comedy, "A New Way to pay Old Debts," though a very admirable play, is not altogether a pleasing one, we cannot implicitly assent; surely it affords an abundant source of amusement; no doubt it has many faults, but the fault attributed to Massinger and many past dramatists (and writers of novels may be added)" of bestowing spirit, life, and every powerful emotion of the soul, upon the wicked, and making all their good people insipid," must be imputed, not to the poet, but to the general feelings of mankind. This it is not the intention of the Reviewer to try to account for here, and still less to vindicate: but undoubtedly Lothario is a more popular character than Altamont, and Lovelace than Sir Charles Grandison. With regard to female characters, we are more just; there virtue always confers dignity, and no vice can bet so elevated as not to excite hatred or contempt : in women. there is no poetic goodness, distinguished from moral good

ness.

In Mrs. Inchbald's remarks on Dryden's All for Love," this passage occurs: "Who can be inattentive to the loves "of Marc Antony? (why not Mark Anthony, if his name "must be Anglicised?) Yet, thus described, their fate in re"presentation seldom draws a tear, or gives rise to one "transport of passion in the breast of the most discerning

"auditor. There is certainly in this short history, compared "with more copious ones, a diminution of Cleopatra's faults;

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yet her character is by no means so graced with virtues, "and dignified by heroism in this drama, as in the tragedy "of Pompée, by the great Corneille." Surely the reason of this is sufficiently obvious. Plays, drawn from Greek and Roman history, have never yet been interesting; and the character of Caesar's Cleopatra, Anthony's Cleopatra, every body's Cleopatra," is too well known to an English audience to have permitted them to endure, at the time when Dryden wrote, the heroic dignity given to her by Corneille, any more than they would now endure to see the part of the Triumvir acted in a tye-wig and a full-dressed coat.

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The remarks on the two celebrated tragedies of Southern, "Isabella" and "Oroonoko," are in general just, but have not much claim to novelty; and where the critic has attempted novelty, she has not always been happy in the attempt: speaking of Isabella's conduct to her creditors, whom she calls "ravening blood-hounds," Mrs. Inchbald says, "A charac"ter only half as amiable as the author meant her to appear, "could not conduct herself towards her creditors, but with "the most profound respect. Indeed was Isabella largely "indebted to any one among these men, and had not the means "of payment-moral argument, perhaps, could prove, she (6 was as much in honour bound to marry him for the value received, as to marry Villeroy." This is indeed " A new way to pay to old debts," but which in a drama would command a large accompaniment of hisses, though perhaps many a widow might be ready to adopt it in real life. It is not impossible that a sheriff's officer may have as much honour as a soldier, a sailor, or even that object of modern dramatic excellence, a blundering Irishman; but though the stage has exhibited sentimental ploughmen and braziers, it has not yet ventured on a sentimental bailiff.

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Mrs. Inchbald gives a very just eulogium on the perform

ance of Oroonoko, by Pope; but it surely deserved notice, that it was also performed by Garrick on the revival of the play, many years ago, when the licentious part of the comic dialogue, as in the present edition, was first suppressed; a circumstance worthy of notice, as he performed it with the greatest success, which was never the case with his Othello; though the same objection as to his figure, and the hiding the discriminating powers of his features, which was one of his excellencies, is applicable to both.

Mrs. Inchbald observes of Zara, that "it is impossible to "read this play without being delighted, or to see it without "being weary:" to the latter part of this assertion, we cordially assent, but not to the former; she also says, that sup-.pose the author of Zara, a religious man, and the play "be"comes instantly a production of the most virtuous tendency." The supposition is impossible, every intelligent reader must see through the whole drama, that the author is adverse to all religion, but especially to that of Christianity.

In the eighth volume, we find the four comedies of Farquhar, which now keep their place on the stage. The pre-. liminary notes to each play are chiefly filled by anecdotes of the poet's life, which would have been better thrown together under one head. Why Mrs. Inchbald should have particularly chosen her remarks on the "Constant Couple," to tell us that "the theatre has peculiar charms for men of letters," is not very clear. She, however, very justly, censures the improbability of two lovers, like Col. Standard and Lady Lurewell, not recollecting each other till the catastrophe. With equal propriety she censures the disguise of Sylvia in the "Recruiting Officer." Such events, however, she truly observes, "were considered as perfectly natural in former "times;" a circumstance that seems perfectly unaccountable, especially as these disguises are more frequent when we go back to those times when female characters were performed by lads. A young man playing the part of a woman, in man's

clothes, must appear very absurd to the spectators, who are generally in the secret; but it must have been worse than absurd, when the lover and his disguised mistress recognize each other at the close of the drama.

It is rather odd, that Mrs. Inchbald should not have noticed, that the plot, and even some of the names in the Inconstant, are taken from Beaumont and Fletcher's "Wild"Goose Chace." And when she says of the Beaux Stratagem, that, "charmed with the spirit of Archer and Aimwell, "the reader may not, perhaps, immediately perceive that "those two fine gentlemen are but arrant impostors;" she might have added, and unfeeling unmannerly brutes. Can any thing be more grossly brutal, than what Aimwell says to his friend in the last scene? "Take the twenty-thousand pounds, or the lady;" except the answer of Archer, who, when Dorinda expresses some indignant surprise at the offer, says, "his lordship knows very well that I'll take the money."

Of the tragedy of Cato, Mrs. Inchbald remarks, that "notwithstanding the merit of this play, it is certain that it "was indebted to the political circumstances of the times for "that enthusiastic applause with which it was received by "the town." The merit of Cato as a play, has been long given up; the Reviewer is bold enough to deny it merit as a poem, which it has been the fashion to give it. Surely there must be a 'radical defect in any work, when the principal character is drawn diametrically opposite to the author's obvious and avowed intention. Addison meant Cato for a zealous republican; but in Utica, he is a despot; he meant him for a stoic, and he flies out into intemperate warmth, because his son interrupts his platonic soliloquy. Pope, in his satire on the poet, gives the true picture of his hero, who certainly

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VOL. II.

Gives his little senate laws,
And sits attentive to his own applause."

H

but in this picture we see no likeness to the republican or the stoic.

As the satiric poet Churchill has chosen to compare Cato with Sir John Brute, it is singular enough that the "Provoked Wife" should immediately follow Cato in this edition. The abominable profligacy and indecency exhibited in almost every scene of this comedy of Vanbrugh, very properly meets with severe reprehension from the fair critic.

Mrs. Inchbald does justice to the merits of that pleasing Comedy, "Love makes a Man," and to the ingenuity of Cibber, who so happily blended in one drama," the Elder Brother," and "the Custom of the Country," of Beaumont and Fletcher. However low it was the fashion of the poets of his time to estimate Cibber, he was generally a popular dramatic writer; for, as Mrs. Inchbald excellently expresses it," While many a judicious critic boasted of knowing what "kind of drama the public ought to like; Cibber was the "lucky dramatist generally to know what they would like, "whether they ought or not." Whatever most refined critics may say of classic dramas written by elegant scholars in the closet, theory as well as experience have shewn, that every dramatic poet who has attained celebrity, has been actually acquainted with the business of the Theatre. The theory is as old as Aristotle; the fact is confirmed by every good dramatist from Æschylus to Sheridan.

Of the "Careless Husband " it was the fashion of the contemporary wits to say it could not have been written by Cibber, on account of its merit. Were I to accede to that opinion, it would be on account of its insipidity. Mrs. Inchbald calls this "an excellent, a moral comedy." Where can be the excellence of a drama, where she herself allows, "there are no violent passions such as are usually depicted on a stage, but merely such as commonly govern mankind ?" In fact the piece is without plot or interest, and merely consists of the common chitchat of persons of rank; and where are we to look