card all natural affections, proceeds, in a horrible and most unnatural speech, to sum up all his own past crimes, by describing how he has been accustomed to employ his time. "As for myself, I walk abroad a-nights, And kill sick people groaning under walls: Sometimes I go about and poison wells," &c. Instead of omitting this speech altogether in the acted play, Barabas is made (aside) to feign that he has done all this, in order to try Ithamore's disposition. This is a very happy thought; and the answer of Ithamore is not less

So.

Instead of echoing back a boasting confession of the same kind of guilt, as he does in the original, Ithamore, with a low and savage cunning worthy of the character, hints, generally, that he knows and has practised better tricks, to plague mankind, than even those his master has just spoken of, but that none shall know them!" We consider both these as very lucky hits, though not likely to tell, or even be noticed in the representation. We willingly offer the credit of them, wherever it is due.

66

The other chief alterations from the original, are the omission of every thing relating to the poisoning of the nuns, and some change, not much for the better, in the manner of Barabas's death.

We think the play, upon the whole, greatly injured by the alterations, and see no reason for any of them, except those we have particularised above, and they are only adapted to the closet. The performance flags very much during the second and third acts, and is not likely to become a favourite with the public.

The whole weight of the play lies upon Mr Kean. No one has a single line that can be made any thing of in the way of acting. The character of Barabas is, as far as it goes, well enough adapted to display some of Mr Kean's peculiar powers, but not those of the highest or rarest kind. In some parts, however,-and those the very best, he made more of the character than the author has done. There was something very fine and sepulchral in his manner of delivering that admirable speech at the beginning of the second act, where he goes before daylight to seek for Abigail, who is to bring him the concealed remnant of his

treasures.

tales,

And speak of spirits and ghosts that glide by night

About the place where treasure hath been hid; And now methinks that I am one of those: For whilst I live, here lives my soul's sole hope,

And when I die, here shall my spirit walk.”

Also, when Barabas recovers the gold he has concealed, nothing could surpass the absolute delirium of drunken joy with which he gives the speech,- -or rather the string of exclamations in the same scene, beginning "Oh, my girl! my gold!" &c.

Upon the whole, Mr Kean's Barabas was as fine as the character would admit of its being made; but it bore no more comparison to that of Shylock, than the play of the Jew of Malta does to the Merchant of Venice.

We would willingly omit to notice the song that Mr Kean was made to sing, when disguised as the minstrel. This contemptible degradation could never be of his own choosing. He surely knows himself better! If he likes to amuse himself, or his private friends, in this way, in the name of all that's pleasant, let him! But his public fame should not be trifled with for "an old song," much less for a new one.

It

A burlesque interlude, called AмOROSO, KING of LITTLE BRITAIN, was produced at this house on the 21st of April, and with complete success. is an imitation of Bombastes Furioso, which is an imitation of Tom Thumb, which is an imitation of nothing at all. It inculcates the morals of St James's in the phraseology of St Giles's. The author-(author! what will the term be applied to next? But the shoe-blacks of Paris call themselves Marchands de Cirage!) The author of this piece seems to think that vulgarity is fun; which is quite

our own.

-we

There have been two or three other new afterpieces since our last, but we have been prevented from seeing them. We hear they are quite worthless. If, however, on seeing them we should think otherwise, delay shall not be made an excuse for neglect. Mr Elliston has also returned to the stage. If he keeps to his own line,-in which he is at present quite unrivalled,shall congratulate the lovers of hearty happy gaiety on a most delightful reacquisition. Since his absence, a whole constellation of dramatic stars have been blotted out. Stars, too, whose forms and influences we can afford to part with less than any others. That whimsical being, Benedict, and that gay creature of the element," Mercutio, administer "medicine for sick minds, worth all the pharmacopoeia of all the solemn fools who have been admitted to practice since the establishment of the College of Souls' Phy

sicians.

From whence, with cunning art and sly contrivance,

He fairly culled divers Pedigrees,
(Which make, full oft, the son beget the
father,

And next, by dint of transmutation strange,
And give to maiden laidies fruitful issues);
Did coin his musty vellum into gold.-
Anon comes in a gaudy city youth,
Whose father, for oppression and vile cun-
ning,

Lies roaring now in limbo-lake the while;
And after some few words of mystic import,
Of Douglas, Mowbray, Steuart, Hamilton,
Most gravely uttered by the smoke-dried

sage,

He takes in lieu of gold the vellum roll, With arms emblazon'd and Lord Lyon's signet,

And struts away a well born gentleman.†
Observing this, I to myself did say,
An' if a man did need a coat of arms,
Here lives a caitiff that would sell him one.
8.

To the Veiled Conductor of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine.

SIR,

THERE are few things so much affected by the change of manners and circumof evidence. stances, as the quality and the effect

Facts which our fathers were prepared to receive upon very slender and hearsay testimony, we are sometimes disposed to deny positively, even when fortified by all that the laws of evidence can do for them, by the confession of the perpetrator of wickedness, by the evidence of its victims, by the eye-sight and oath of impartial witnesses, and by all which could, in an ordinary case, "make faith," to use a phrase In the present day he would be hooted of the civilians, betwixt man and man. as an idiot, who would believe an old woman guilty of witchcraft, upon evidence, on the tenth part of which a Middlesex jury would find a man guilty of felony; and our ancestors

would have pelted, as a Sadducee and an infidel, any one who, on the twentieth degree of testimony so rejected, would not have condemned the accused to faggots and tarr'd barrels.

To accommodate those who love the golden mean in judgment, or are inclined, with Giles Passamonte's ape, to pronounce the adventures in Montosinos's cave partly true and partly false, Dr Ferriar of Manchester has invented a new mode of judging evidence with respect to those supernatural matters, in which, without impeaching the truth of the narrator, or even the veracity of the eyes to whose evidence he appeals, you may ascribe his supposed facts to the effects of preconceived ideas acting upon faulty or diseased organs.

I have, Sir, unfortunately no means of making myself the head of any new class of believers or infidels upon these mysterious points; for it is evident, that narrations of this marvellous complexion must be either true or false, or partly true, partly fictitious; and each of these classes have already their leaders and patrons. As, however, you, Sir, are yourself a mystical being, and, in the opinion of some, a nonentity, you cannot fail to be interested in examples referring to the mystical, and to that which, being hard of belief, is sometimes rejected as incredible. You are not, perhaps, being yourself a reserved personage, entitled to expect ample communication on the part of your correspondents; yet thus much I am willing to announce to you, as the preface to the present and future correspondence.

My father, Sir Michaelmas Shadow, lived in a glen, into which the sun does not shine above ten times a year, though we have no reason to complain of want of moisture. He was wont to say, that he was descended from the celebrated Simon Shadow, whom the renowned Sir John Falstaff desired to have in his regiment, in respect he was like to be a cool soldier, and refreshing to sit under after a hot day's march. My father abridged his days, by venturing out into the meridian sun (an hour remarkable for cutting short our family) with the purpose of paying his respects to an eclipse, which a rascally almanack-maker falsely announced as being on the point of rendering our globe a visit. I succeeded to him, Sir, in his retired habits, and

his taste for the uncertain, undefined, and mysterious. Warned by my poor father's untimely fate, I never venture into broad day-light; but should you, Sir, leave your bower at sun-rise or sun-set, like your prototype the veiled prophet of Moore, it is possible that you may meet and distinguish your correspondent by his tall slim figure, thin stilts of legs, and disproportioned feet. For I must inform you, in case of a disagreeable surprise, that my appearance reverses that of Michael Scott and the wizzards of old, from whom the devil is said to have stolen the shadow; whereas, in my case, it would seem he had stolen the substance, and left the shade to walk the earth with

out it.

My education and reading have been as fantastic as my person; and from a kindred propensity to those stories which, like the farther end of the bridge in Mirza's vision, are concealed by shadows, clouds, and darkness, they have been turned towards the occult sciences and mystical points of study. My library is furnished with authors who treat of the divining rod of the magical mirror, the weaponsalve, charms, lamens, sigils, christals, pentacles, talismans, and spells. My hereditary mansion, Castle Shadoway, has a tower, from which I can observe the stars (being something of an astrologer, like the valiant Guy Mannering) and a dungeon haunted by the restless ghost of a cooper, whilome confined there till his death by one of my ancestors, for having put two slight hoops on a barrel of March beer, by which the generous liquor was lost. This goblin shall hammer, dub-a-dub, scratch, rustle, and groan with any from the Hermitage Castle to Castle Girnigo, for an hundred pounds down play or pay. Besides this, I pretend to be acquainted with all spirits that walk the earth, swim the wave, or wing the sky; goblins, night-mares, hags, vampires, break-necks, black men and green women, familiars, puckharries, Oberon, and all his moon-light dancers. The wandering Jew, the high-priest of the Rosy-cross, the genius of Socrates, the dæmon of Mascon, the drummer of Tedworth, are all known to me, with their real character, and essence, and true history. Besides these points of occult knowledge, my conversation has lain much among old spinsters and widows, who

pardoned the disproportion between my club-feet and spindle-shanks, and my general resemblance to a skeleton hung in chains, in consideration of my conversational talents as an excellent listener. In this way, my mind, from youth upwards, has become stored with matter deep and perilous to read or narrate, which, with due effect, the hand of the clock should point to twelve, and the candles be in the snuff.

The time now approaches, Sir, that I must expect, in the course of nature, to fade away into that unknown and obscure state in which, as there is no light, there can of course be no shadow. I am unwilling so much current and excellent information should go with me to the darksome bourne. To your veiled and mysterious character, Sir, you are indebted, as I have already hinted, for the preference which I give to your work as the means of recording these marvels. You must not be apprehensive that I will overwhelm you with too many marvels at once, for I am aware, by experience, of the indigestion which arises after having, like Macbeth, "supp'd full with horrors." Farther, you may place absolute reliance upon the statements which I may give concerning my authorities. Trust ing this offer may be acceptable, and that at a time when you are moving heaven and earth for furnishing instruction and amusement to your readers, you will not think the assistance of the inferior regions to be despised, I send you the first article of my treatise, which, with your permission, I entitle

Phantasmagoria.

"Come like shadows-so depart."

No I.

The incident which I am about to narrate, came to your present correspondent through the most appropriate channel for such information, by the narration, namely, of an old woman. I must however add, that though this old lady literally wore the black silk gown, small haunch-hoop, and triple ruffles, which form the apparel most proper to her denomination, yet in sense, spirit, wit, and intelligence, she greatly exceeded various individuals of her own class, who have been known to me, although their backs were

clothed with purple robes or military uniforms, and their heads attired with cocked hats or three-tailed periwigs. I have not, in my own mind, the slightest doubt that she told the tale to me in the precise terms in which she received it from the person principally concerned. Whether it was to be believed in its full extent, as a supernatural visitation, she did not pretend to determine, but she strongly averred her conviction, that the lady to whom the event happened was a woman not easily to be imposed upon by her own imagination, however excited; and that the whole tone of her character, as well as the course of her life, exempted her from the slightest suspicion of an attempt to impose on others. Without farther preface, and without any effort at ornament or decoration, I proceed to my narration, only premising, that though I suppress the name of the lady, out of respect to surviving relations, yet it is well known to me.

A lady, wife to a gentleman of respectable property on the borders of Argyleshire, was, about the middle of the last century, left a widow, with the management of an embarrassed estate and the care of an only son. The young gentleman approached that period of life when it was necessary that he should be sent into the world in some active professional line. The natural inclination of the youth, like most others of that age and country, was to enter into the army, a disposition which his mother saw with anxiety, as all the perils of the military profession were aggravated to her imagination by maternal tenderness, and a sense of her own desolate situation. A circumstance however occurred, which induced her to grant her consent to her son's embracing this course of life with less reluctance than it would otherwise have been given.

A Highland gentleman, named Campbell (we suppress his designation), and nearly related to Mrs was about this time named to the command of one of the independent companies, levied for protecting the peace of the Highlands, and preventing the marauding parties in which the youth of the wilder clans were still occasionally exercised. These companies were called Sidier-dhu, i. e. black soldiers, to distinguish them from the Sidier-roy, or red soldiers,