rire, with the Agreeable Surprise of O'Keefe, destined to a farcical immortality. In commencing the winter season of 1781-2 it may be necessary to notice with some care the features of the rival management of the two theatres; as a a mighty change indeed was at hand, which compensated to one of them all the mischiefs of indifference and idleness. Mr. Sheridan, as a dramatic writer, had opened with remarkable brilliancy. There was in The Rivals, properly estimated, enough to announce a genius of infinite humour, as well as delicacy. This comedy seems to have started from his personal feelings: Falkland expresses, I have no doubt, the captious alarms of the author's own passion for Miss Linley; and his memorable duel with Mathews, with all its inveterate animosity, by time admitted the play of fancy, and the strong contrast of Sir Lucius and Acres. The character of Sir Lucius O'Trigger is so happily conceived that one would hardly suppose it could be otherwise than attractive. in any hands; yet when Lee acted it in 1775 he absolutely rendered him ridiculous and disgusting. He, however, was happily succeeded by Clinch, who perhaps gave the tone to all the subsequent impersonations. Some judicious curtailments too came in aid—the 'ineffectual good qualities' of Mrs. Malaprop became quite efficient, and the audience at length rose to the level of the comedy. The Duenna did not oblige them to rise at all; it was calculated to move all ranks with irresistible pleasantry, and situations comic in the highest degree. The author's wit here distinguished him from every existing competitor. Of Isaac Mendoza,, who had quitted Judaism six weeks only, he says:- He stands like a dead wall between church and synagogue, or like the blank leaves between the Old and New Testament.' When Jerome had said of his daughter that she had 'the family face,' Isaac, who has seen the Duenna only, thus pleasantly comments upon the expression, aside : : 'Yes, egad, I should have taken it for a family face, and one that has been in the family some time too.' Father Paul, in the third act, is complimented as looking the very priest of Hymen. He replies, In short, I may be called so; for I deal in repentance and mortification.' To points such as these, in no scanty measure, may properly be added the very best comic song that the stage has yet heard-Don Jerome's 'O the days when I was young.' The mixture of whim and regret in the old voluptuary is quite delightful 'True, at length my vigour 's flown, I have years to bring decay; The School for Scandal and The Critic seemed to prove that his powers of every sort were acquiring still higher excellence as they proceeded in their course; but politics, selfish and vulgar and barren as they are, seized and engrossed this genuine son of the Muses, and all the hints or fragments of the Foresters and Affectation, a thousand bright ideas that had filled his mind, fled with the passing clouds, and left not a rack behind them. In the meantime this brilliant light in his theatre, while it rendered other writers alarmed at either the judgment of Sheridan or his rivalry, had such an effect upon the comedians that they almost resembled Shakespeare's jealousy that mocks the meat it feeds on.' Novelty, however essential to them in their personal attraction, had but little of their respect. Who could write but their great master? He However it became at last sadly certain that his stage could not depend upon Sheridan; and his brother-in-law, Tickell, was tempted to do his best to fill the void. revived The Gentle Shepherd of Allan Ramsay; and although some pains appear to have been taken to restore the genuine Doric, which Theophilus Cibber had translated into his own vulgar tongue, I yet cannot greatly commend the Southern dialect of Drury Lane. The simple beauties of the poem were, however, felt on this occasion, and the lovers of rustic nature were obliged to Mr. Tickell for the restoration of its original language-the pronunciation, and still more the cadence, suffered, as might be expected, from diffidence and badness of ear. Linley, by skilful accom paniments to the Scottish melodies, showed how usefully science may be occupied on the ground of genius. On the 17th of November Jephson's Count of Narbonne was acted for the first time at Covent Garden Theatre. His friend, the Right Honourable Luke Gardiner, honoured him with a prologue, highly philosophical, and of a pure poetical vein. The subject of this play is one of those removed by sacred time's mysterious hand,' and is known to all readers as The Castle of Otranto, written by Horace Walpole, whom Mr. Gardiner gracefully mentions as neglecting in his retirement the wreaths of fame 'And, more than poet, shuns a poet's name.' He bespeaks the favour of the moderns to a Gothic play, on the principle that bids the modern mansion rise not unfrequently with fretted roof' and 'pointed turrets,' in imitation of the temples and the castles of our forefathers. Distance from the subject, he says, is necessary to derive the proper enjoyment from the drama. This position he thus illustrates : 'What odours the Arabian coasts dispense! Which, breath'd too near, o'erpower and pall the sense; Vigour and life ride on the perfum'd gale.' The introduction of the trochee, in the first and third feet of the last line, give indeed expressive vigour and life to the poetical figure, which suggests its mighty original, Milton : 'Sabæan odours from the spicy shore Of Araby the blest; and, many a league, Cheer'd with the grateful smell old Ocean smiles.' The author of the play seems rather to have rejected the peculiar marvellous of the romance than the marvellous altogether; for the address of the Countess to her husband seems to imply events of a nature equally surprising. He destroys their son by a Barbary horse instead of a gigantic helmet; but the language of Hortensia points more immediately to the latter species of interference : 'Spectres glide, Gibbering and pointing as we pass along ; These towers shake round us, though the untroubled air The features of the Gothic romance never bend to modern philosophy without losing much of their picture power, and all their sublimity. It is true that the stage may be unable to exhibit its terrors adequately; but if a catastrophe be mere matter of narration, a credence of the marvellous is never refused to the seeming earnestness and conviction of the relater. As far, too, as the human passions are concerned, the superstitions of a dark age extenuate in a degree the peculiar atrocities to which they sometimes conduct. All the accompaniments should bear the impress of the century in which we lay the action. The modern spectator, for his own enjoyment, will surrender his knowledge to his imagination, and, with the excellent Collins, 'Hold each strange tale devoutly true.' As Jephson is one of the moderns who may pretend to tragic_diction, a few observations upon the language of The Count of Narbonne will be expected. He sometimes transfers a happy combination from Shakespeare sans façon. Thus we have, at page 9 of his play, 'scanted courtesy from King Lear; and, at page 16, the following bold attempt to use the terrific expressions of Gloster's death-bed :— 'Methinks I see him, His ashy hue, his grizzled, bristling hair, (See the 3rd Act of Shakespeare's Second Part of Henry VI.) We sometimes perceive the deep impression of a favourite author looking out unconsciously in a passage of a very different kind. The famous soliloquy of Cato has these expressions : 'The soul secured in her existence What means this heaviness?' So in the two following speeches of Jephson's 1st Act: 'Peasant. Secure in her integrity my soul Count. Away with him-What means this heaviness?' So sure is this doctrine of association to operate upon composition, felt or unfelt. He occasionally is verbose and flimsy— 'With downcast eye and sad dejected mien. Once lighter than the airy wood-nymph's shade.' His highest power, as it excites either awe or sorrow, will be found in the admirable character of Austin. The energy and pathos of Henderson here rendered all rivalry impossible. But the poet had supplied divine materials for the great artist to work up. 'Count. You come commission'd from fair Isabel? Austin. I come commission'd from a greater Power, Austin. And think you to excuse A meditated wrong to excellence, By giving it acknowledgment and praise ?' The wretched Raymond, the victim of destiny, upon whom is entailed blood shed unrighteously, is for the most part an object of either horror or disgust. The cravings of ambition, and the dread of retribution, make him see even the virtues of others invidiously. His comment upon the inflexible honesty of Austin is admirable sarcasm. 'The virtue of our churchmen, like our wives, A front that taunts, a scanning, scornful brow, Raymond hurries at last into satirical invective against the sex, seldom indeed exceeded. The reader will find the passage, which I had rather not quote, because I would not supply arms to the scoffer and the idler. 'The frail and fair make you their oracles,' etc. As an instance of the author's power of painting in language, the Countess Hortensia is thus alluded to: 'And see, the beauteous sorrow moves this way.' But enough as to a writer for whom my respect would |