scholar of the old school; a man of wit and pleasantry in conversation, a diverting mimic, an excellent actor, an admirable dramatic critic, and one of the best comic writers of his age. His works (always excepting his 'Birth-day Odes,') instead of being a caput mortuum of literature, had a great deal of the spirit, with a little too much of the froth. His 'Nonjuror' was taken from Moliere's 'Tartuffe,' and has been altered to the 'Hypocrite.' [This latter is a lively but very provoking comedy, and it is provoking from the nature of the subject. If such things are, it is provoking; or if they are not, that we should be made to believe them. In the 'Tartuffe,' the glaring improbability of the plot, the absurdity of a man's imposing on the credulity of another against the evidence of his senses, and without any proof of the sincerity of a religious charlatan but his own professions, is carried off by long formal speeches and pompous casuistry. We find our patience tired out, and our understandings perplexed, as if we were sitting in a court of law. Tartuffe is a plausible, fair-spoken, long-winded knave, who, if he could not be supposed to convince, might be supposed to confound his auditors. In the 'Hypocrite' of Bickerstaff, the insidious, fawning, sophistical, accomplished French Abbé, is modernized into a low-lived, canting, impudent Methodist preacher. Dr. Cantwell is a sturdy beggar, and nothing more; he is not an impostor, but a bully. There is not in anything he says or does the least reason why Sir John Lambert should admit him into his family and friendship, suffer him to make love to his wife and daughter, disinherit his son in his favour, and obstinately refuse to listen to any insinuation or proof offered against the virtue and piety of his treacherous inmate. It might be said, that in the manners of the old French regime there was something to account for the blind ascendancy acquired by the priest over his benefactor, who might have submitted to be enthralled, robbed, cheated, and insulted, as a tacit proof of his religion and loyalty. The inquisitorial power exercised by the church was then so great, that a man who refused to be priest-ridden, might very soon be suspected of designs against the state. Such, at least, is the best account we can give of the sameness of Moliere's 'Organ.' But in this country nothing of the kind could happen. A fellow like Dr. Cantwell could only have got admittance into the kitchen of Sir John Lambert, or to the ear of old Lady Lambert. The animal magnetism of such spiritual guides is, with us, directed against the weaker nerves of our female devotees. In the original, we admire the talents of the principal character; in the translation, we only wonder at the incredible weakness of his dupes. In short, the fault of the piece is that the author has attempted to amalgamate two contradictory characters, by engrafting our vulgar Methodist on the courtly French impostor; and this defect could not be remedied in the execution, however spirited or forcible. Mawworm is quite a local and rational character, and admirably fitted into the piece.] 'Love's Last Shift' appears to have been the author's favourite; and he received the compliments of Sir John Vanbrugh and old Mr. Southern upon it-the latter said to him :-" Young man, your play is a good one; and it will succeed, if you do not spoil it by your acting." His plays did not always take equally. It is ludicrous to hear him complaining of the ill success of one of them, 'Love in a Riddle,' a pastoral comedy, "of a nice morality" and well spoken sentiments, which he wrote in opposition to the 'Beggars' Opera,' at the time when its worthless and vulgar rival was carrying everything triumphantly before it. Cibber brings this, with much pathetic naïveté, as an instance of the lamentable want of taste in the town!

The 'Suspicious Husband' by Hoadley, the 'Jealous Wife' by Colman, and the 'Clandestine Marriage' by Colman and Garrick, are excellent plays of the middle style of comedy, which are formed rather by judgment and selection than by any original vein of genius; and have all the parts of a good comedy in degree, without having any one prominent, or to ex

The character of Ranger, in the 'Suspicious Husband,' is only a variation of those of Farquhar, of the same class as his Sir Harry Wildair and others, without equal spirit. The 'Jealous Wife' herself is, however, a dramatic chef-d'œuvre, and worthy of being acted as often, and better than it is. [Colman, the elder, was the translator of Terence: and the 'Jealous Wife' is a classical play. The plot is regular, the characters well supported, and the moral the best in the world. The dialogue has more sense than wit. The ludicrous arises from the skilful developement of the characters, and the absurdities they commit in their own persons, rather than from the smart reflections which are made upon them by others. Thus nothing can be more ridiculous or more instructive than the scenes of which Mrs. Oakly is the heroine, yet they are all serious and unconscious: she exposes herself to our contempt and ridicule by the part she acts, by the airs she gives herself, and her fantastic behaviour in the situations in which she is placed. In other words, the character is pure comedy, not satire. Congreve's comedies for the most part are satires, in which, from an exuberance of wit, the different speakers play off their sharp-pointed raillery on one another's foibles, real or supposed. The best and most genuine kind of comedy, because the most dramatic, is that of character or humour, in which the persons introduced upon the stage are left to betray their own folly by their words and actions. The progressive winding up of the story of the present comedy is excellently managed. The jealousy and hysteric violence of Mrs. Oakly increase every moment, as the pretext for them becomes more and more frivolous. The attention is kept alive by our doubts about Oakly's wavering (but in the end triumphant) firmness; and the arch insinuations and well-concerted home-thrusts of the Major heighten the comic interest of the scene. There is only one circumstance on which this veteran bachelor's freedom of speech might have thrown a little more light, namely, that the married lady's jealousy is in truth only a pretence for the exercise of her domineering spirit in general; so that we are left at last in some uncertainty as to the turn which this humour may take, and as to the future repose of her husband, though the affair of Miss Russet is satisfactorily cleared up. The under-plot of the two lovers is very ingeniously fitted into the principal one, and is not without interest in itself. Charles Oakly is a spirited, well-meaning, thoughtless young fellow, and Harriet Russet is an amiable romantic girl, in that very common, but always romantic situation-in love. Her persecution from the addresses of Lord Trinket and Sir Harry Beagle fans the gentle flame which had been kindled just a year before in her breast, produces the ad

ventures and cross-purposes of the plot, and at last reconciles her to, and throws her into the arms of her lover, in spite of her resentment for his misconduct and apparent want of delicacy. The figure which Lord Trinket and Lady Freelove make in the piece is as odious and contemptible as it is possible for people in that class of life (and for no others) to make. The insolence, the meanness, the affectation, the hollowness, the want of humanity, sincerity, principle, and delicacy, are such as can only be found where artificial rank and station in society supersede not merely a regard to propriety of conduct, but the necessity even of an attention to appearances. The morality of the stage has (we are ready to hope) told in that direction as well as others, has, in some measure, suppressed the suffocating pretensions and flaunting affectation of vice and folly in "persons of honour," and, as it were, humanized rank and title. The pictures drawn of the finished depravity of such characters in high life, in the old comedies and novels, can hardly have been thrown away upon the persons themselves, any more than upon the world at large. Little Terence O'Cutler, the delicious protegé of Lord Trinket and Lady Freelove, is a fit instrument for them to use, and follows in the train of such principals as naturally and assuredly as their shadow. Sir Harry Beagle is a coarse, but striking character of a thorough-bred fox-hunting country squire. He has but one idea in his head, but one sentiment in his heart and that is his stud. This idea haunts his imagination, tinges or imbues every other object, and accounts for his whole phraseology, appearance, costume, and conduct. Sir Harry's ruling passion is varied very ingeniously, and often turned to a very ludicrous account. There is a necessary monotony in the humour, which arises from a want of more than one idea, but the obviousness of the jest almost makes up, for the recurrence of it; if the means of exciting mirth are mechanical, the effect is sure; and to say that a hearty laugh is cheaply purchased, is not a serious objection against it When an author is terribly conscious of plagiarism, he seldom confesses it; when the obligation does not press his conscience, he sometimes does. Colman, in the advertisement to the first edition of the 'Jealous Wife,' apologises for the freedom which he

has used in borrowing from 'Tom Jones.' In reading this modest excuse, though we had seen the play several times, we could not imagine what part of the plot was taken from Fielding. We did not suspect that Miss Russet was Sophia Western, and that old Russet and Sir Harry Beagle between them somehow represented Squire Western and young Blifil. But so it is! The outline of the plot and some of the characters are certainly the same, but the filling up destroys the likeness. There is all in the novel that there is in the play, but there is so much in the novel that is not in the play, that the total impression is quite different, and loses even an appearance of resemblance. In the same manner, though a profile or a shade of a face is exactly the same as the original, we with difficulty recognize it from the absence of so many other particulars. Colman might have kept his own secret, and no one would have been the wiser for it.]

The 'Clandestine Marriage' is nearly without a fault; and has some lighter theatrical graces, which I suspect Garrick threw into it. Canton is, I should think, his, though this classification of him among the ornamental parts of the play may seem whimsical. Garrick's genius does not appear to have been equal to the construction of a solid drama; but he could retouch and embellish with great gaiety and knowledge of the technicalities of his art. Garrick not only produced joint-pieces and after-pieces, but often set off the plays of his friends and contemporaries with the garnish, the sauce piquant, of prologues and epilogues, at which he had an admirable knack. -The elder Colman's translation of 'Terence, I may here add, has always been considered, by good judges, as an equal proof of the author's knowledge of the Latin language, and taste in his own.

Bickerstaff's plays and comic operas are continually acted; they come under the class of mediocrity, generally speaking. Their popularity seems to be chiefly owing to the unaffected ease and want of pretension with which they are written, with a certain humorous naïveté in the lower characters, and an exquisite adaptation of the music to the songs. His 'Love in a Village' is one of the most delightful comic operas on the stage. It is truly pastoral; and the sense of music hovers over the very