We hate the carnage while we see the trick,
And find small sympathy in being sick.
Not on the stage the regicide Macbeth
Appals an audience with a monarch's death;
Το gaze when sable Hubert threats to sear
Young Arthur's eyes, can ours or nature bear?
A haltered heroine (1) Johnson sought to slay –
We saved Irene, but half damn'd the play,
And (Heaven be praised!) our tolerating times
Stint metamorphoses to pantomimes;

And Lewis' self, with all his sprites, would quake
To change Earl Osmond's negro to a snake!
Because, in scenes exciting joy or grief,

We loathe the action which exceeds belief:
And yet, God knows! what may not authors do,
Whose postscripts prate of dyeing "heroines blue?” (2)

Digna geri, promes in scenam; multaque tolles
Ex oculis, quæ mox narret facundia præsens.
Ne pueros coram populo Medea trucidet;
Aut humana palam coquat exta nefarius Atreus;
Aut in avem Progne vertatur, Cadmus in anguem.
Quodcunque ostendis mihi sic, incredulus odi.

Neve minor, neu sit quinto productior actu
Fabula, quæ posci vult, et spectata reponi.
Nec Deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice nodus
Inciderit.

*

(1)" Irene had to speak two lines with the bowstring round her neck; but the audience cried out Murder!' and she was obliged to go off the stage alive."— Boswell's Johnson. [These two lines were afterwards struck out, and Irene was carried off, to be put to death behind the scenes. "This shows," says Mr. Malone, "how ready modern audiences are to condemn, in a new play, what they have frequently endured very quietly in an old one. Rowe has made Moneses, in Tamerlane, die by the bowstring without offence." Davies assures us, in his Life of Garrick, that the strangling Irene, contrary to Horace's rule, coram populo, was suggested by Garrick. See Croker's Boswell, vol. i. p. 172. —E]

(2) In the postscript to the "Castle Spectre," Mr. Lewis tells us, that though blacks were unknown in England at the period of his action, yet

Above all things, Dan Poet, if you can,
Eke out your acts, I pray, with mortal man;
Nor call a ghost, unless some cursed scrape
Must open ten trap-doors for your escape.
Of all the monstrous things I'd fain forbid,
I loathe an opera worse than Dennis did;(1)
Where good and evil persons, right or wrong,
Rage, love, and aught but moralise, in song.
Hail, last memorial of our foreign friends
Which Gaul allows, and still Hesperia lends !
Napoleon's edicts no embargo lay

On whores, spies, singers wisely shipp'd away.
Our giant capital, whose squares are spread
Where rustics earn'd, and now may beg, their bread,
In all iniquity is grown so nice,

It scorns amusements which are not of price.
Hence the pert shopkeeper, whose throbbing ear
Aches with orchestras which he pays to hear,
Whom shame, not sympathy, forbids to snore,
His anguish doubling by his own "encore ;"
Squeezed in "Fop's Alley," jostled by the beaux,
Teased with his hat, and trembling for his toes;
Scarce wrestles through the night, nor tastes of ease
Till the dropp'd curtain gives a glad release:
Why this, and more, he suffers -can ye guess ?
Because it costs him dear, and makes him dress!

he has made the anachronism to set off the scene: and if he could have produced the effect "by making his heroine blue,'-I quote him-" blue he would have made her!"

(1) [In 1706, Dennis, the critic, wrote an "Essay on the Operas after the Italian manner, which are about to be established on the English Stage; " in which he endeavours to show, that it is a diversion of more pernicious consequence than the most licentious play that ever appeared upon the stage. — E.]

So prosper eunuchs from Etruscan schools; Give us but fiddlers, and they're sure of fools! Ere scenes were play'd by many a reverend clerk (1) (What harm, if David danced before the ark?) (2) In Christmas revels, simple country folks [jokes. Were pleased with morrice-mumm'ry and coarse Improving years, with things no longer known, Produced blithe Punch and merry Madame Joan, Who still frisk on with feats so lewdly low, "Tis strange Benvolio (3) suffers such a show (4);

(1) "The first theatrical representations, entitled Mysteries and Moralities,' were generally enacted at Christmas, by monks (as the only persons who could read), and latterly by the clergy and students of the universities. The dramatis personæ were usually Adam, Pater Cœlestis, Faith, Vice," &c. &c. - See Warton's History of English Poetry. [These, to modern eyes, wild, uncouth, and generally profane performances, were thought to contribute so much to the information and instruction of the people, that one of the popes granted a pardon of one thousand days to every person who resorted peaceably to the plays acted in the Whitsunweek at Chester, beginning with the "Creation," and ending with the "General Judgment." These were performed at the expense of the different trading companies of that city. The "Creation " was performed by the drapers; the "Deluge" by the dyers; " Abraham, Melchisedec, and Lot" by the barbers; the "Purification" by the blacksmiths; the "Last Supper" by the bakers; the "Resurrection" by the skinners; and the "Ascension" by the tailors. In Mr. Payne Collier's recent work on English Dramatic Poetry, the reader will find an abstract of the several collections of these mystery-plays, which is not only interesting for the light it throws on the early days of our drama, but instructive and valuable for the curious information it preserves with respect to the strangely debased notions of Scripture history that prevailed, almost universally, before translations of the Bible were in common use. See also the Quarterly Review, vol. xlvi. p. 477. — E.]

(2) Here follows, in the original MS. —

"Who did what Vestris

yet, at least,- cannot,

And cut his kingly capers sans culotte."— - E.]

(3) Benvolio does not bet; but every man who maintains race-horses is a promoter of all the concomitant evils of the turf.

little pharisaical. Is it an exculpation? I think not.

Avoiding to bet is a
I never yet heard

a bawd praised for chastity because she herself did not commit fornication. (4) [For Benvolio we have, in the original MS., " Earl Grosvenor; " and for the next couplet

Suppressing peer! to whom each vice gives place, Oaths, boxing, begging,―all, save rout and race.

Farce follow'd Comedy, and reach'd her prime In ever-laughing Foote's fantastic time: Mad wag! who pardon'd none, nor spared the best, And turn'd some very serious things to jest. Nor church nor state escaped his public sneers, Arms nor the gown, priests, lawyers, volunteers: "Alas, poor Yorick!" now for ever mute! Whoever loves a laugh must sigh for Foote.

We smile, perforce, when histrionic scenes Ape the swoln dialogue of kings and queens, When "Chrononhotonthologos must die,” And Arthur struts in mimic majesty.

Moschus! with whom once more I hope to sit And smile at folly, if we can't at wit; Yes, friend! for thee I'll quit my cynic cell, And bear Swift's motto, " Vive la bagatelle !" Which charm'd our days in each Ægean clime, As oft at home, with revelry and rhyme. (1)

"Suppressing peer! to whom each vice gives place,

Save gambling-for his Lordship loves a race."

But we cannot trace the exact propriety of the allusions. Lord Grosvenor, now Marquis of Westminster, no doubt distinguished himself by some attack on the Sunday Newspapers, or the like, at the same time that he was known to keep a stud at Newmarket - but why a long note on a subject certainly insignificant, and perhaps mistaken? — -E]

(1) In dedicating the fourth canto of "Childe Harold " to his fellow traveller, Lord Byron describes him as "one to whom he was indebted for the social advantages of an enlightened friendship; one whom he had long known, and accompanied far, whom he had found wakeful over his sickness and kind in his sorrow, glad in his prosperity and firm in his adversity,

Then may Euphrosyne, who sped the past,
Soothe thy life's scenes, nor leave thee in the last;
But find in thine, like pagan Plato's bed, (1)
Some merry manuscript of mimes, when dead.

Now to the Drama let us bend our eyes, Where fetter'd by whig Walpole low she lies; (2) Corruption foil'd her, for she fear'd her glance; Decorum left her for an opera dance!

true in counsel and trusty in peril: "-while Mr. Hobhouse, in describing a short tour to Negroponte, in which his noble friend was unable to accompany him, regrets the absence of a companion, "who, to quickness of observation and ingenuity of remark, united that gay good humour which keeps alive the attention under the pressure of fatigue, and softens the aspect of every difficulty and danger."— E.]

(1) Under Plato's pillow a volume of the Mimes of Sophron was found the day he died.- Vide Barthélémi, De Pauw, or Diogenes Laërtius, if agreeable. De Pauw calls it a jest-book. Cumberland, in his Observer,

terms it moral, like the sayings of Publius Syrus.

(2) [The following is a brief sketch of the origin of the Playhouse Bill: In 1735, Sir John Barnard brought in a bill "to restrain the number of houses for playing of interludes, and for the better regulating of common players." The minister, Sir Robert Walpole, conceiving this to be a favourable opportunity of checking the abuse of theatrical representation, proposed to insert a clause to ratify and confirm, if not enlarge, the power of the Lord Chamberlain in licensing plays; and at the same time insinuated, that unless this addition was made the king would not pass it. But Sir John Barnard strongly objected to this clause; contending that the power of that officer was already too great, and had been often wantonly exercised. He therefore withdrew his bill, rather than establish by law a power in a single officer so much under the direction of the Crown. In the course, however, of the session of 1737, an opportunity offered, which Sir Robert did not fail to seize. The manager of Goodman's Fields Theatre having brought to him a farce called "The Golden Rump," which had been proffered for exhibition, the minister paid the profits which might have accrued from the performance, and detained the copy. He then made extracts of the most exceptionable passages, abounding in profaneness, sedition, and blasphemy, read them to the house, and obtained leave to bring in a bill to limit the number of playhouses; to subject all dramatic writings to the inspection of the Lord Chamberlain; and to compel the proprietors to take out a license for every production before it could appear on the stage.-E.]