From Shakespear.

Lord. For your honor, my lord.
Slie. Who I, am I a lord? what fine
parell have I got?

Lord. More richer far your honour hath

to weare,

From the Old Play.

Sly. I am Christophero Sly; call not ap-me- -honour, nor lordship: I never drank sack in my life; and if you give me any conserves, give me conserves of beef: Ne'er ask me what rament I'll wear; for I have no more doublets than backs; no more stockings than legs; and no more shoes than feet; nay, sometimes, more feet than shoes, or such shoes as my toes look through the overleather.

And if it please you I will fetch them straight. Wil. And if your honour please to ride abroad,

Ile fetch your lustie steedes more swift of
pace

Then winged Pegasus in all his pride,
That ran so swiftlie over Persian plaines.

Lord. Heaven cease this idle humour in
your honour!

O, that a mighty man, of such descent,
Of such possessions, and so foul esteem,
Should be infused with so high a spirit!

Sly. What, would you make me mad? Am not I Christopher Sly, old Sly's son of Burton-heath; by birth a pedlar, by education a card-maker, by transmutation a bearherd, and now by present profession a tinker? Ask Marian Hacket, the fat alewife of Wincot, if she know me not: if she say I am not fourteen pence on the score for sheer ale, score me up for the lyingest knave in Christendom. What, I am not bestraught: Here's

mourn.

1 Serv. O, this it is that makes your lady [vants droop. 2 Serv. O, this it is that makes your ser'Lord. Hence comes it that your kindred

shun your house,

As beaten hence by your strange lunacy.
O, noble lord, bethink thee of thy birth;
Call home thy ancient thoughts from banish-

ment,

And banish hence these abject lowly dreams:
Look how thy servants do attend on thee,
Each in his office ready at thy beck.
Will 't thou have musick? hark! Apollo plays,
[Musick.

And twenty caged nightingales do sing;
Or wilt thou sleep? we 'll have thee to a couch,
Softer and sweeter than the lustful bed
On purpose trimm'd up for Semiramis.
Say, thou wilt walk; we will bestrew the
ground:

Or wilt thou ride? thy horses shall be trapp'd,
Their harness studded all with gold and pearl.
Dost thou love hawking? thou hast hawks

will soar

Above the morning lark: Or thou wilt hunt? Thy hounds shall make the welkin answer them,

And fetch shrill echoes from the hollow earth.
1 Serv. Say, thou wilt course; thy grey
hounds are as swift

As breathed stags, ay, flecter than the roe.
2 Serv. Dost thou love pictures? we will
fetch thee straight

Adonis, painted by a running brook:
And Cytherea all in sedges hid; [breath,
Which seem to move and wanton with her
Even as the waving sedges play with wind.
'Lord. We'll show thee Io, as she was a
maid;

And how she was beguiled and surpris'd,
As lively painted as the deed was done.

3 Serv. Or Daphne, roaming through a
thorny wood;

And weele flowt the plaiers out of their

From the Old Play.

Vol. ii., pp. 108-115.

From Shakespear.

'Enter a Servant.

Serv. Your honour's players, hearing your
amendment,

Are come to play a pleasant comedy,
For so your doctors hold it very meet; [blood,
Seeing too much sadness hath congeal'd your
And melancholy is the nurse of frenzy, [play,
Therefore, they thought it good you hear a
And frame your mind to mirth and merriment,
Which bars a thousand harms, and lengthens
life.

Sly. Marry I will; let them play it: Is
not a commonty a Christmas gambol, or a
tumbling trick?
[ing stuff.
Page. No, my good lord; it is more pleas-
Sly. What, household stuff?

Page. It is a kind of history.

Sly. Well we 'll see 't; Come, madam

wife, sit by my side, and let the world slip

we shall ne'er be younger. [They sit down."

But we have said enough on the subject of Shakespear's 'poverty of invention.' We are afraid that what our author says on his moral character is far better founded. We wish it were equally easy to dispose of that charge. Even here, however, there is a resolute fault-finding spirit, a tone of depreciation,— which contrasts strangely with the comparative forbearance with which equal or greater vices are elsewhere visited. It really looks as though the writer had a personal pique against Shake

spear.

We have already expressed our surprise that, in a work of so limited a nature, so many insignificant names should have been admitted; since, to do justice to the eminently literary and scientific men of Great Britain on the same scale, would require scarcely less than a hundred volumes. We must add, that there are other names by no means obscure, (some of them on the contrary, of infamous notoriety,) of which we more than doubt. the propriety of making any mention here. If, indeed, the work were professedly a minute history of our dramatic literature, some reference to them, though very short, might be necessary. But in such a work why should the selection go so low as Colley Cibber, Thomas Shadwell, and Sir John Vanburgh? Indeed we may say of most of the dramatists of that most infamous era in which these men flourished, that their intellectual pretensions are by no means great enough to entitle them to a niche in a temple so small, and amidst names so much greater than their own. When we couple their intellectual inferiority with the brutality and grossness of their productions,-when we reflect that, though they have some wit, it is in a very, very small proportion to their licentiousness and obscenity, it is to us astonishing that it should be thought necessary to give up nearly a whole volume of

such a series to names so little worthy of being remembered. But we do not wish to enlarge upon this subject. We do not wish to remove the mould which time is gathering above their rotting and putrefying carcases, or to revive the memory of a literary period which is the opprobrium of our nation, and even a disgrace to human nature itself. Sure we are, that, with a very few exceptions, the literary merits of the dramatic productions of this era are of the very scantiest kind; that in this point of view there are no other productions in our literature which have so few redeeming qualities; that, take away from them whatsoever appeals to a gross and sensual nature, and nine-tenths of all that is left is the most insipid and vapid common-place; and lastly, that not more than half a dozen of them have half such claims to be applauded and remembered, as they have to be cursed and forgotten.

While we admit that the author or authors of these lives of the dramatists of the period in question generally speak nearly with the proper degree of indignation, of their profligacy and bestiality, there every now and then occurs a sentence or a paragraph ridiculously inconsistent with it. Sometimes their vices are dealt with too tenderly; too much allowance is made on the score of the general profligacy of the times. This, after all, is no apology whatever for the unblushing avowal, systematic exhibition, and impudent defence of infamous immoralities. Gross vice generally seeks some concealment. In the reign of Charles II. it threw off this last vestige of decency, its utmost effrontery and impudence were reserved for the stage. If the dramatic writers followed in the train of a corrupt court and profligate people, there can be no doubt also that they fed, diffused, and pandered to the general dissoluteness.-Now and then the moderation of phrase in the third volume, the 'namby-pambiness' with which the excesses of the stage are spoken of, is absolutely ludicrous. The stage,' says our author, after having been so 'long suppressed, received its freedom with perhaps too much 'exultation; and it is not to be denied that it gradually assumed 'the bold airs of a chartered libertine.' We must confess, too, that our standard of dramatic purity is much stricter than our author's. Speaking of Colley Cibber, he observes, 'It is scarcely possible to contemplate any state of the stage too refined to per'mit the comedies on which his fame as a dramatic writer must 'chiefly depend, namely, The Careless Husband, and The Journey to London, to afford gratification to an audience.' To say nothing of the latter play, which was only partly Cibber's, we should have thought that there was at least one scene in the former, besides many detached expressions and allusions, which could not be read without exciting disgust in any well-constituted mind. But perhaps it is impossible to be long or much conversant with this species of literature, without getting so familiarized with the habitual tone of immorality, as to feel, at least for the time, the

moral sensibilities in some degree blunted; and thus the critic calls that pure which he would never dream of calling so absolutely, but only by comparison or contrast with what is so much more abominable; just as a very dingy white will appear almost like the snow-drift beside a dirty brown. We must also protest against the propriety of some of the anecdotes introduced into this volume. If it be said that it is impossible to write the biography of such persons without including some such details, inasmuch as they form the very tissue of their lives, this is a very good reason for not writing such lives at all.

Though we utterly condemn the plan of these volumes, or rather complain of their having no plan at all; though we think the selection very injudicious; though we think there are great faults in the management and disposition of the materials; though these faults are not even compensated by any beauty or elegance of style; they contain, as we have already said, much curious matter, and show in many parts a laudable degree of research. From these more amusing parts of the volumes, we shall present our readers with a few extracts.

One of the best portions of the first volume is that which contains the life of Heywood, including the history of the rise and progress of the early drama. Like the other digressions already referred to, it is out of all proportion to the work; but it is in itself very interesting, and indicates very considerable reading.

That the progress of human improvement is slow, is a truth which, because it is trite, we do not sufficiently regard. In France,and probably the case was exactly parallel in our own country,-a full century elapsed before even a stage was devised for the convenience alike of the actors and spectators. And even when a rude scaffold was introduced, there was no diversity of scene, no exits and entrances; the actors intended to figure in any given piece appeared at its very commencement, and did not leave it until the conclusion. That this was the case even in the middle of the sixteenth century, is expressly asserted by the elder Scaliger :- At present in France plays are so represented, that every thing takes place in sight of the spectators: the whole apparatus consists of some high seats arranged in order. The actors during the whole representation never leave the stage: the moment they cease to speak, they are to be considered as absent. In truth, it is very ridiculous that the spectators should perceive a performer listening, and that performer supposed not to hear what another speaks of him in his very presence; that he should be supposed to be absent, while every body's eyes are fixed on him. The great object of the dramatic poet is to keep the minds of the spectators in suspense and expectation; but here there can be nothing new; and the attention is more likely to be satiated than excited.' Whatever was the rudeness of the English stage prior to the fifteenth century, at that time we certainly find a more artificial expedient. Then there was a change of scene, inasmuch as there were often two, sometimes three