be exceedingly painful; and I am quite willing to believe with all the varying traditions in the dairy district of Suffolk. Once indeed, in my youthful and undiscerning days, I had the hardihood to endeavour to draw aside the supernatural veil which belief had extended over the catastrophe of the house of Neyland -it was looked upon as an insult to the county-and I lost many a choice and wonderful legend-for the flowing founts of ancient stories instantly dried up-and I lost an annual present of two noble cheeses, which the rich pastures of Coldengame produced. When I had written thus far, I submitted my narrative to a worthy old pastoral proprietor of Suffolk, who was pleased to commend the spirit in which I had united all the circumstances and opinions together. The landmark, he assured me, is still pointed out by the peasantry, stained with blood -no one presumes to touch it-for the spirits of the two Neylands are laid below it-and they would be let loose again on earth, were it removed. He had the charity to assure me, that he thought good old feelings and beliefs, and salutary terrors of evil, and dread of the invisible world, would be cherished and strengthened by the publication of this legendand he bade me hope that the proprietors of the butter and cheese portion of Suffolk would reward my desire to signalize their country by a mark of their respect worthy of my merit, and of their own unrivalled pastoral productions. NALLA. Chiabrera was born in 1552, and died at the age of 85 or 86. I have not sent the original, because every body can refer to it in Mur. II. 466. When waters pass Through springing grass, And flowerets rear Their blossoms near, When in the wave The Zephyrs lave And sands are gay With glittering spray, When we behold A veil of gold And Phæbus' light Is broad and bright, Though Sea and Earth May smile in mirth, Yet Earth and Sea Smile not like thee, N. 0. H. J. one. NOTE TO ELIA, ON THE “ PASSAGE IN THE TEMPEST." Sin.-In reading the last number will, I am sure, to others, when the of the London Magazine, I was inadequacy of words clearly to exmuch struck by the elucidation of a press, and accurately to define our passage in the Tempest, proposed by ideas, is considered. It is evident to you ; more, I confess, by its inge- me, that the very same sentence must muity than its truthfulness, for we frequently be capable of more than all have our different theories on one meaning; especially in poetry or such passages, and self-complacency eloquence, where propriety of lanmakes each think his own the true guage is transgressed by prescrip Will you permit me to offer tion, and whose very essence consists mine to your notice. First, however, in a perpetual abuse of speech. The I will take the liberty of stating my passage in the Tempest is a good inobjections to yours. The beautiful stance of this ambiguity; it will suit application you make, of an historical your hypothesis, as well, perhaps, as fact to the solution of this poetic dif- any other explanation which can be ficulty, is too much of a mere hypo- given of it. Shakspeare might certhesis, calculated more to inveigle tainly have “ come fresh from readthan convince the judgment. At the ing some older narrative of this desame time, it would be presumption, liverance of Algier by a witch," and and I do not take it upon me, to assert might have “ transferred the merit that your hypothesis is absolutely a of the deed to his Sycorax ;” nor are false one. It may give the true solu- his words of so determinate a chation of the passage ; but how are we racter as to render such an hypoto know that it does? The fashion so thesis either impossible in fact, or prevalent among critics of violently improbable. I therefore do not feel den ouncing one commentary or elu- myself warranted in rejecting your cidation, to exalt another, has always sense of the lines, as inadmissible or appeared to me very absurd, and incorrect. But if there is anothe sense, which can be fairly put upon the passage, as convenient to the words as this, and less dependent on hypothetical conjecture of what might have been passing in the author's mind when he wrote it, we are bound by all the laws of just criticism to give it the preference. I am so much the partisan of my own theory, as to think that such a sense is that which I am about to propose. Besides, you will perhaps agree with me, that it is not quite in Shakspeare's manner to afford his readers such brief and ambiguous hints upon historical matters, as this would be, were your sense of the passage adopted; he is always fond of showing his learning, without much respect either to place or occasion, and would most probably have given the history of the Witch of Algiers in full, had her image been in his mind. Does it not also appear somewhat subversive of your theory, that in his work, Ogilby neglects quoting the "older narrative," which you suppose the "dramatist had come fresh from reading," if such narrative ever existed? His obscure authorities are apparently all Flemings or Spaniards, who probably accompanied Charles to Algiers. Here, you see, in this supposition of an older narrative, is a second hypothesis, another air-built castle on the top of the first one. However, without more ado, let me bring forth my own ridiculus mus, and have done. The sense which I always attributed to the passage is this: uno verbo, the Witch Sycorax was pregnant;—and that humanity which teaches us to spare the guilty mother for the sake of her embryo innocent, was imputed by Shakspeare to the Algerines on this occasion. Let us see how the context bears out this explication: Ar. Ay, sir. Pros. This blue-eyed hag was hither brought with child, And here was left by the sailors. Do you not think, Sir, that this text fully substantiates my theory, and that it is no longer necessary to resort to an hypothesis for the elucidation of the passage -for one thing she did, They would not take her life. The "one thing she did" is evi dently what Shakspeare in his Mercalls "the deed of kind;" and this chant of Venice, with great delicacy sense, though by no means obvious, is justly inferrible from the context. I have not been able to discover any Why then should it not be preferred? thing in the rest of the piece inconsistent with the meaning here attributed to these lines; you, perhaps, may be more successful. A friend objected to me, that the law is,-to spare the mother only till the birth of her child, and therefore that the Witch, instead of being exiled at once, would have been kept till she with death for her "manifold miswas delivered, and then punished chiefs." But poets are not expected and legal discrimination,--not to to dispense justice with such nice speak of what might have been the immediate necessity of expelling Sycorax from the Algerine community, either by death or banishment; the former of which was forbidden by the existing circumstances of her situation. Hoping to have made a convert of you, by the above more simple and less conjectural explanation of this obscure passage, and most heartily agreeing with you on the general ineptitude of the notes and commentaries which overwhelm the text of Shakespeare, I remain, Sir, with great respect, THE DRAMA. DRURY LANE THEATRE. from their trance until the curtain Fazio. falls,—when they seem to bustle and Mr. Milman's long poem, with a rub their eyelids, and gape for the serious termination, called Fazio, has Cataract and the cattle. Mrs. Bunn been revived for the sake of intro- has a fine person-a deep monotoducing Mrs. Bunn to London town nous but effective voice—and features again in the part of Bianca. This commanding, though not beautiful: lady is well known as Mr. Maturin's we shall be very much surprised, Miss Somerville ; and we remember however, if she should ever be able her lofty port and solemn melody of 'to do more than act poetry on the voice, as perfectly as if Bertram’s stage. But we, like true judges, must day were come again, and Mrs. Bunn bear a wary eye. had not cut short her engagement The Cataract of the Ganges. and her name—and the public were Mr. Elliston, having for some time again being drammed with the double given “ great note of preparation” proof romance of Bertram, and were at the bottom of his bills, about a deluging their taste with deep potae fortnight ago produced the mighty • tions of Maturin's best ! Afterpiece, which was to bestride the The less Mrs. Bunn has to do, the theatrical world like a Colossus, while better she does it. She acts the pas- the petty theatres were to walk unsive to perfection. There are few der its huge legs, and peep about for tragedies therefore in which she can dishonourable pits. Gad-a-mercy! the find a leading character to represent; subject makes us figurative. We for authors are in the habit of bur- heard whispers (for managers' whisthening their heroines with some mo- pers are as loud as north winds!) tives and cues for passion, and do that this piece was to make all prenot commonly seek to make statues vious melodrames hide their dimiof them. In the present day, to be nished heads! The scenery was to be sure, Mrs. Bunn is more likely to be so magical in its beauty, as to call a suited than if she turns to the Ot- blush up to the cheek of Mr. Grieve : ways, the Rowes, or to the old times the dresses were to make the coronabefore them. Poetry and not action tion splendours seem dull as the tatcharacterizes the tragic drama of the ters at a beggar's supper, and render present age-and description takes immortal “ Banks and assistants !" the place of actual incident. Imo- and the feathers were to be sufficient gene, in Bertram, was a lady of strict to stuff nine-and-forty beds of Ware ! contemplative habits: she talked only Indeed, finally to crown the scene, of the moon and riven hearts—and the horses were, in goodness and in ruined towers—and stood through numbers, to exceed all previous exfive sombre acts the statue of sorrow hibitions trebly! all these wonders and romance. Here Mrs. Bunn was were whispered—and more! But as at home! Her fine form was never we are now, like Mrs. Brulgruddery, disturbed : her inelancholy tones were “only foretelling a thing, after it has never broken: her looks were ever happened,” we shall come at once on the same. She scarcely walked in this side of the first fall of the Cataher sleep. The audience was lulled ract, and describe it as imperfectly into admiration of her; and her fine and confusedly as it really appeared monotony made her fame. In Fazio, to us. she has the same opportunity of look- The rising of the curtain discovering and repeating a long heroic poem; ed to us a field with a sort of bloodand the people in the pit catch and red distance, and men and horses enjoy their three-and-sixpenny dreams stretched about, after a battle we with the most still and charmed de- presume. This occurred about half light. They sit lulled by the lady's past nine. Fine men and women Æolian tones, by the silence of her from this moment have their exits and features, and by the studied music of entrances before splendid scenery unthe poetry, and are not awakened til midnight, when, after a tumult Dec. 1823. 2 T : of guns, trumpets, blunderbusses, drums, and thunder, the green curtain once more descends quietly upon the eyes and ears of men. If, like Jaffier, we were threatened with the tortures, unless we "discovered the plot," we must suffer ourselves to be made a foot taller, and to have our thumbs pulled off like lobsters' claws; for we absolutely know no more about it than we do about Mrs. Donatty, or the author of Waverley. We certainly know that one bright scene succeeded and exceeded another, until our eyes seemed dilated and double gilt, like a couple of Waterloo medals-and we also know that the bridal procession, out of an arch very similar to the one in the Adelphi, was rich enough to shame any eastern mockery! The men were covered with tinsel from top to toe, like their little gingerbread fellowcreatures at Bartholomew fair-and the horses, three or four abreast, drawing a real car with patent axletrees, rolled grandly before the lamps under plumes which made it almost doubtful whether they would tramp or fly. When the stage was full, we only felt anxious to go without the theatre, and see whether the streets were empty of the people. There was one scene very cleverly managed; a cottage was burned as a beacon light in the front of the stage, and shortly this beacon was answered on a promontory far at sea, and the flames reflected over the waves, brightly or faintly as the fire rose or fell. The performers had little to do, except to talk a sort of cockney-Persian, and to carry about three or four square yards of gold robe. Wallack, a kind of dry nurse to the piece, was formal and tame, probably from an anxiety for the welfare of the costly and ricketty bantling entrusted to his care. Miss Povey, Mr. Harley, and Mr. Archer all exerted themselves, and, to use a vulgar phrase," made the best of a bad job." The idea of Harley's character was good, but the author evidently had no power of turning it to account. He played a character called Jack Robinson, who having read himself wild on Robinson Crusoe, had taken a voyage in search of a wreck and a desert island, constantly bewailing fair weather and quiet seas. He is dressed, after the picture, in fur, and carries a gun on each shoulder; and, when a difficulty does occur, he invariably turns to a pocket edition of Defoe, to see how his original acted in a similar emergency. The piece, our readers will gather, is an empty expensive glittering toy, which the manager knows will catch that great foolish blue-bottle, the public. Not an incident-not a word of the dialogue is worth remembering! If there be a joke attempting to be heard the horses applaud it by anticipation-and the ear is filled with nothing but excessive hoof! We say little of the horses yet, because we shall presently have to be at a great cattle show at the Govent Garden piece, and we may as well review both of the cavalry corps at once. We must say the Cataract itself rather disappointed us as a waterfall. It was something like the pouring of a good tea-pot, only flatter; it was, in truth, no broader than a yard of sixpenny ribband, and, though it was real water, if it had run down with a little spirit, we think the mixture would not, in the gallery's eyes, have been amiss. A lady rode up it on horseback, and, no doubt, astonished the salmon in that quarter of the Ganges. Perhaps she was herself half a fish? And, indeed, as the mermaid has been missing for some time from the Turf Coffee House, might not this have been one of her freaks? We ourselves could have walked up the fall in pumps, and not have wetted the upper leathers. The water, indeed, did not come down in a volume-it appeared in the most miserable of sheets. The piece, itself, has since been published in a similar manner. One of the periodical prints put last week a very dull joke (which we made several months ago) into the mouth of Mr. Rogers. It was an allusion to the short-sightedness of the public, and the kindness of the managers in providing a pair of spectacles for its use. thing at best-but, at this time, it is worse from its want of application. The public is known to have a cataract in its eye nightly; and, Mr. Ware, we take it, could do more good, than Mr. C. Kemble and Mr. This is a poor |