afford an opportunity of growing all trees capable of bearing our climate. The plan has been drawn out by Mr. Lapidge. We question, however, whether the soil and climate of Cambridgeshire are very favourable to the growth of exotic plants; although the late Dr. Ed. Clarke used to say, that it had more sunshine throughout the year than any other county in England. The account which follows of Trinity College Chapel, is chiefly interesting from the notices of the eminent persons whose monuments are placed within its walls, and the inscriptions, which piety and friendship have dedicated to their memory. Here reposes Daniel Lock, the esteemed friend of Roger Cotes, "Vir, si quis alius, architecturæ, sculpturæ, picturæ, musicæ, omniumque bonarum artium amantissimus." Here also is seen the name of Cotes himself, the first Plumian Professor, the friend of Newton, and the first mathematician of his University. The inscription is from the pen of Bentley. He died at the early age of 34.

"Immatura morte præreptus, pauca quidem ingenii sui pignora reliquit, sed egregia, sed admiranda, ex inaccessis Matheseos penetralibus felici solertia tum primum eruta, post magnum illum Newtonum, societatis hujus spes altera et decus gemellum, cui ad summam Doctrinæ laudem omnes morum virtutumque dotes in cumulum accesserunt, eo spectabiles amabilesque, quod in formoso corpore gratiores venirent."

On the west wall are tablets to the three great critical scholars, R. Bentley, R. Porson, and Peter Paul Dobree. The monumental inscription to the last great scholar (Elmsleium si excipias) of the age, is written by Dr. Kaye, Bishop of Lincoln, and we insert its accurate and well-delineated character with delight.

"M.S.

Viri reverendi PETRI PAULI DOBREE, A.M.
Ex insula Guernsey oriundi,

Collegii hujus S. S. Trinitatis Socii,

Et Græcæ linguæ in hac Academia Professoris Regii.
Vir erat probus, candidus, simplex,
a fastu omni ac fuco alienissimus,
sermone comis, animo æquabilis ac lenis,

ita tamen ut facile commoveretur

si vel Patriæ, vel singulorum jura in discrimen putaret adduci.
Ad has virtutes accesserunt ingenium acutum, judicium sanum,
indefessa pro valetudine industria,

magna Philosophiæ Moralis et Theologiæ,
maxima literarum Latinarum et Græcarum peritia,
tanta in corruptis veterum auctorum locis
detergendis sagacitas, emendandis felicitas,

ut Porsoni, cujus in familiaritate intime erat versatus,
vestigia vix impari gressu sequi videretur.

Immatura morte præreptus est, A.D. 1825, æt. 43.
Soror unica poni curavit."

It is impossible to leave this sacred repository of the mighty dead without casting a glance on the statue of Newton, which was executed in one of Roubiliac's happier hours, and which seems to have inspired the chisel of the sculptor with a dignity and composure that it seldom possessed.*

*"The statue of Newton, when first completed, had the mouth closed. Some friend

It appears that it was presented by Dr. Smith, Master of the College, in the year 1755; the cost is recorded to have been £3,000. The pedestal bears this line in front :

"Qui genus humanum ingenio superavit."

Sir F. Chantrey, * when he visited Cambridge, ordered the iron railing round it to be removed, and a portion of the wall behind to be darkened, so as to throw out the figure into full relief.

The Paper that succeeds on the Ancient Amusements of the University, is written with some research, though not with the accuracy that might have been attained. Among the most ancient were tilts and tournaments, of which old Fuller justly remarks-" That when Mars holds his term, the Muses may even keep their vacation." They were prohibited by Henry the Third, in 1245, and again in 1270. In Edward the Third's time, a statute was promulgated against dancing; after which there is no public notice of academic sports before the reign of Edward the Sixth. He issued a statute enabling the University to put down all schools for sword-fighting, fencing, and dancing; to remove all dice-houses, and to prohibit the scholars from being spectators of or joining in the game of SCUTA. The scholars were also prohibited from walking in the town alone, nor could they go to markets or frequent the law courts without leave from the Vice Chancellor. In Elizabeth's reign, there were fresh prohibitions against cock-fighting, bull and bear baiting, for which amusements there was a ring in the Market Place, as in Stamford and other towns. An enactment in Henry the Eighth's reign prohibited cross-bows, hand-guns, hag-buts, and demihakes, but earnestly enforced the ancient statutes of the realm relating to archery, ordering "that all men, under the age of sixty, except parsons and justices, shall use and exercise shooting in long-bows, and also have bows and arrows continually in their houses." Edicts were issued

in subsequent reigns against any of the prevailing sports, as fencing, loggats, hunting, foot-ball, and even prohibiting bathing, which last singular

and connoisseur having come to the artist's studio to view the work, immediately remarked this as a defect, and expressed his opinion to the artist. Roubiliac went to bed, but could not sleep; he rose early, set to work, and made it what it is at present; and certainly the result of this bold experiment is admirable. The good taste of the artist was not greater than his candour in admitting an error in that stage of his work, or more remarkable than the confidence he possessed in his own skill to correct it!"-Anecdotes, P. vi. p. 204.

* However we may admire the design of Mrs. Nightingale's monument in Westminster Abbey, by Roubiliac, it surely is impossible to be satisfied with much of the execution. The attitude of the husband is far too studied and theatrical; and the skeleton of Death, in its loose robes, looks little better than a loathsome bundle of rags. Thorwaldsen or our Gibson would have represented Death, not in this vulgar manner, but with the beautiful but severe countenance of the angel of destruction-as the eastern poets have pictured Azrael-with an eye that could freeze the life-blood of the heart, and a gesture which should have commanded the soul to quit its beloved tenement on earth. Sir F. Chantrey has now a fine opportunity of rivalling-or shall we say excelling?-all his predecessors, in the proposed monumental statue of Mrs. Siddons, which is designed for the Abbey, the subscription for which is under the management of a very intelligent Committee. We shall not feel satisfied with anything but superior excellence. Let this statue attest the effect which the genius of Phidias was promised to produce upon English Art; and let one steed of mortal birth, be deemed worthy of being ranked with those of celestial breed.

prohibition arose, we are inclined to think, from a praiseworthy anxiety for the morals of youth in a very dissolute age. With regard to the more intellectual and refined amusements of theatrical representation, we find the first record of the performance of mysteries and plays occurs in the year 1350, when William Lenne, and Isabel his wife, expended in the play of "the Sons of Israel," half a mark. From 1544 till the Protectorate, plays were acted annually in the different Colleges, and all ranks of academics took part in the performances. The same custom prevailed at Oxford. The author of this article gives us at p. 99, et seq., a list of academical plays, formed from copies still remaining in the college libraries: but it loses much of its value from its want of dates, and its not being formed in a chronological arrangement. There is reason also to suppose that in some cases the manuscripts are of ordinary plays, not peculiarly connected with the University. This was evidently the character of Middleton's "Game at Chess," of which some extracts are given. That entitled "Jephtha," is probably the play by Henry Chettle, which was acted in 1602, but which in the Biographia Dramatica is stated "to be now lost." At p. 105, Peck's "Desiderata Curiosa" is misquoted with respect to the plays performed before Queen Elizabeth in 1564. The Aulularia of Plautus was performed on the Sunday; a play called "Dido" (certainly not that by Christopher Marlow) on the Monday; and an English play called Ezechias (not as the author has it Erechias) on the Tuesday; but the tragedy of Sophocles, "called Ajax Flagellifer, in Latin," was not performed, the former plays having already "overwatched" the Queen, who, as Winwood says, "was weary at the comedies, they being meanly performed, though she dissembled her uneasiness very artfully." These dramatic performances much scandalized the puritans, who could not bear poetry of any kind, much less dramatic, and probably not the less, from their commencing on a Sunday, in King's College chapel, where a stage was erected at the Queen's expense.*

The plays performed before King James the First, on his visit to Cambridge in 1614-15, were Æmilia, a Latin comedy, by Mr. Cecill, of St. John's; the celebrated Latin comedy of Ignoramus, by George Ruggle, of Clare Hall (and which is the only Latin play of that age which is still read); Albumazar, an English comedy, by Mr. Tomkis, presented by the gentlemen of Trinity College; and a Latin pastoral of the same house, entitled Melanthe,† which was written by Mr. Brookes, mox Doctour. Besides which, "Sicelides," a piscatory, written in English by Phineas Fletcher, author of the Purple Island, and other poems, was in preparation, "provided the King should have tarried another night." Of these several dramas, the writer before us has mentioned only Ignoramus,

* The names of the plays, as given by the author of this paper, (p. 105, seq.) are Ignoramus-Roxana-Scyros-The Game at Chesse-Jephtha-The Valetudinarian, in Latin-Pastor Fido-Synedrium, i. e. Concessus Animalium per me Radulphum Worcelan in 1554-Richard the Third-Hymenæus-Pedantius-Club Law-Pammachius. This last play occasioned a correspondence between Matthew Parker, then Vice-Chancellor, and Godwin, Bishop of Winton, and Chancellor of the University, which exists in MS. cvi. in C. C. C. Library; it is described as "a Tragedie, a parte of which is soe pestiferous as were intollerable ;" and one of the Fellows, Mr. Scot, said "It was throuout poyson."

A copy of the same play, with the names of the actors written over against the characters, is now in the library of the Rev. J. Mitford: it belonged to Mr. Bindley.

of which he says, "It is noticed at length in Wilson's Memorabilia Cantabrigiæ, p. 18," but he ought also to have referred to the elaborate and curious edition of it published by Mr. Sidney Hawkins in 1787, whose annotations are also concisely given in Nichols's Progresses, &c. of King James I. 4to. 1825, vol. iii. p. 49, et seq. In the latter work will also be found all the information that could be collected relating to the other dramatic performances, whose titles we have enumerated.

The author of Melanthe, Fabula Pastoralis, (Cant. 4to. 1615) had previously written another Latin pastoral, of which the title is thus given in the Cambridge Portfolio: "Scyros, in Trinity Library, O. 3, 4, a paper MS. in Latin verse: a list of the dramatis personæ, with the names of the actors, shows how the piece was cast between under-graduates, bachelors, and fellows." The date of the performance of Scyros, was when Charles Prince of Wales, and his brother-in-law Frederick Count Palatine, visited the University in March 1612-13, when "on two distinct nights a comic and pastoral fable, both in Latin, were acted before their highnesses and other spectators, by the students of Trinity College." See King James's Progresses, vol. iii. p. 1087: where also it is added that, "Scyros is in MS. in the library of Emanuel College. The comedy was probably either Clytophon, Pseudomasia (by Mr. Mewe, of Emanuel), or Zelotypus, also MSS. in the same library; and the last of which, says the Biographia Dramatica, has the names of the performers attached to their respective characters." Here the editor of the Portfolio has three new dramatic titles presented to him; and we expect him to pursue the subject, by procuring copies of the several dramatis personæ, which he might publish with brief notes, as Mr. Nichols has set him the example in the case of some of the plays exhibited before King James the First. We add from the same valuable historical work, that in March 1615-16, "The King had a play, at Royston, acted by some of the younger Cantabrigians," which is suggested to have been Labyrinthus, by Mr. Hawkesworth, of which the first published edition was of 1636: and that again his Majesty visited the University, in 1622-3, purposely to witness the performance of Dr. John Hacket's comedy of Loyala, which was subsequently printed in 1648. As we are quitting this subject, we may as well observe, that the latest performance of plays of this nature on record is that before Prince Charles, in 1642. Soon after, the civil wars broke out, and all public diversions were discon-、 tinued. In 1647 it was decreed that all actors in plays, for the time to come, should be publicly whipped, and the spectators fined five shillings.

"In spite, however, of this prohibition, (says our author), theatrical clubs have occasionally existed among the students; and it is only three years since an English play was acted in one of the Halls, with the sanction of the Master of the College and the Chancellor of the University and so late as 1834, a sum of

money was bequeathed to the University by a lady, for promoting the composition and acting of tragedies and comedies by the graduates and undergraduates; but, before any resolution was formed about accepting or rejecting the bequest, it was found that the property left by the testatrix would not supply the means."

The fourth number opens with an account of the foundation of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, and of its Museum of Natural History, which, however, requires no comment from us. These are followed by a

short and not very satisfactory account of the eminent naturalists, Willoughby and Lister, and which are scarcely worth the insertion, unless they had been accompanied by some new information. But the longest and most interesting paper in this number is that called a critique on Gray. GENT. MAG. VOL. XII. 2 G

It opens with a view of Pembroke College,* dignified by the illustrious names of Bradford and Ridley, of Andrews and Spenser, and lastly, of Gray and Mason. To the observations on Gray we now address ourselves, in the casual manner in which they arise. And first to the remark, (p. 143,)

"The well-known lines in which his surviving friend recorded his merits, when in 1778 he erected his monument in Westminster Abbey, attest the melancholy fact that a poet, like the prophet, is not without honour save in his own

country. It required one born beyond

the Tweed to discover

'A Pindar's rapture in the lyre of Gray,' and it required the death, even, of the object of such encomium, to have the same publicly acknowledged."

Now, first, as to Mason's lines, we must express our opinion, that they are far beneath the subject which they have attempted to record.

"No more the Grecian muse unrivalled reigns,

To Britain let the nations homage pay:

She sees a Homer's fire in Milton's strains,
A Pindar's rapture in the lyre of Gray."

In the first place, these lines are not in any way more appropriate to Gray than to Milton, and might be transferred without impropriety to the monument of the latter. Secondly, the expression of "Homer's fire" is neither classical nor correct, as expressive of the calm dignity and varied style of the epic poem. Thirdly, the rapture of Pindar ought not to be compared to the lyre of Gray, but to some corresponding quality in his poetical style. Then, as to the critic's assertion, that it requires one born beyond the Tweed to discern Gray's merits as a poet, and even his death, before Envy would acknowledge them, we beg to contradict it by every authority in our power to advance. Never was a poet more privately esteemed, and publicly honoured, than the author of the Bard. Every man of literature, and of taste, acknowledged his genius: and to his high reputation he owed the situation, which secured competence and ease to the latter days of his solitary and studious life. Even the University in which he resided returned the dislike, which he took no trouble to conceal, only with admiration; and whenever the poet was seen in his walks (which was not frequent) in the public gardens or promenades, he was latterly followed, perhaps by no obtrusive feet, but certainly by no incurious eyes. Walpole boasted of him as his Gray: Warburton publicly and heartily admired and praised him. He had the respect of Hurd; the cordial approbation of Beattie, and Ad. Smith, and Mason, and of every one capable of estimating the merits of his exquisite vein of poetry. The next dictum of our critic is, that "perhaps the truest judgment ever past upon Gray's works was by A. Smith, in his Treatise on the Theory of the Moral Sentiments:-'Gray joins to the sublimity of Milton the elegance and harmony

* In the hall is a bust of William Pitt, with the following inscription.