its arrival. When it was near, I perceived there was a servant on horseback, close behind it, with holsters before him. The great Godwin observes, in the person of his hero, Caleb Williams, that the chief quality of the human mind is energy; a quality very conspicuously displayed by the equalizers of property with whom he lived in the forest. Energy, Mr. Editor, I possessed, as I believe you will allow on hearing the whole recital. Coming up to the chaise, I found it contained my uncle. What is an uncle, or what even would a father be to a disciple of the new philosophy? I ordered the postilion to stop. The servant riding up, I made him cease to exist. A bullet from my pistol prepared him for being resolved into the general mass of matter. I demanded my uncle's money, aud presenting my other pistol to his head, I declared he also should be speedily resolved into the mass, unless he yielded me what he had, and I wanted. He gave me his purse, watch, and rings, with many lamentations, not, he said, for his loss, but my profligacy; for so he called my energy, thus successfully exerted in contributing to the equalization of property. I rode off, and to deceive pursuers, took a cross way, from which I soon returned to the direct road; arrived at Yarmouth, sold the horse I had hired at the Inn, took a passage for Hamburgh, and thence departed to this land of true philosophy; where I find the inhabitants, in general, as far advanced as myself in the practical application of the philosopher's rules of political justice.

You see, Mr. Editor, what a mind well tutored will effect. You may, in my history, see the benefits accruing to a disciple from being educated under a man totally free from the pernicious influence of learning, and from the absurdity of religious belief. To prepare a youth for the new philosophy, let him not be sent to Eton, Westminster, Harrow, or the Charter-House; for there the masters have learning but send him to a private academy of the Dissenting and Deistical tribe: there the masters seldom have learning, and consequently cannot fortify the mind against ours, the true philosophy, If you like my stile of writing, I shall send you a farther account of my philosophical pursuits, which will, I dare say, be much more important in a country where I am so powerfully stimulated by emula

tion.

Paris, Feb. 17, 1799.

TIMOTHY NEWLIGHT.

We shall leave this letter to the judgment of our readers, with a single remark; that the connection between disaffected and ignorant preceptors and such pupils as Mr. Newlight here describes himself, is extremely natural and obvious. The cause is adequate to the effects.

THE

MIRROR OF THESPIS.

E

PIC poetry, the drama, and painting, are, according to Aristotle, the three methods of exhibiting human nature. The second, which possesses many advantages over the other two, has been defined to be a poem, containing some certain action drawn from real life, whose end is to instruct and amuse mankind; and, than which there are few subjects of more importance in the literary annals of a country; for, independent of national attachment having rendered the drama a chief criterion of public taste, it possesses this superiority over every other effort of the mind, that in two distinct spheres its powers and impressions influence our conduct; for, while the works of the philosopher, the historian, the critic, and theologist, are confined to the limits of perusal; on the stage, as well as in the closet, is the dramatist consulted and eagerly sought after; as combining the pleasing with the useful parts of science. Again, another superior claim to eminence which the drama possesses, consists in its informing the mind more by example than by precept, a superiority thus happily defined by two great sages of antiquity: Homines,' says Seneca, amplius oculis quam auribus credunt: longum iter est per præcepta, breve et efficax per exempla. In the public shews,' said Solon, I caused to be represented the fatal consequences of public disunion, and of all the vices prejudicial to society. By this means, multitudes of men assembled in the same place were induced to spend whole hours in hearing lessons of sublime morality. They would have been disgusted with dry precepts and cold maxims, and there was no way to instruct, unite, and correct them but under pretence of amusing them."

That a subject, then, so deservedly popular and interesting, ought to be duly understood and conducted by its professors, is as evident

as our modern dereliction from it is disgraceful and extraordinary ; for, that the British Drama has been in all respects of late years rapidly on the decline, no one who is at all acquainted with its real beauties, can hesitate to acknowledge. We are aware that, to the increased size of our theatres, (which greatly tends to transfer all judgment from the ear to the eye), to the frivolity of the times, to our love of novelty, be it what it will, and to the too prevailing habit of undervaluing whatever our ancestors approved, may be ascribed a great portion of this falling-off: still we do not hesitate to affirm, that it has, in a much greater degree, arisen from the ignorance, incapacity, and false taste of many among those who have in our time assumed the arduous task of writing for the stage.

Tragedy, instead of holding up to view the manly, bold, heroic virtues, contrasted with the horrors of degeneracy and vice, has sunk into a vehicle of tame sentiment and elegiac coldness; while Comedy, relinquishing its claim to wit, manners, and character, deigns to borrow from farce its broad humour; from pantomime, buffoonery; from shew-booths, grimace:-in short,

'We see great Faustus lay the Ghost of Wit,

Exulting Folly hail the joyful day,

And Pantomime and Song confirm her sway.'

It seems to be totally forgotten that the drama is a science, and that the heart and not the eye should be principally consulted. Our modern dramatists, therefore, neglecting thus at once the dignity and beauty of their profession, give an unbridled loose to the imagination; human nature is displayed only in her excrescences; and plot, probability, and moral, are deserted, to make room for substitutes very unworthy even of the transitory applause with which they meet.

But a new and more dangerous perversion of the stage has recently crept in, principally through the medium of German translations, not unaided too by some few of our own writers. Under the specious mask of a generous philanthropy, the seeds are attempted to be sown of a new and hideous theory, miscalled Philosophy, which, born with the French Revolution, threatens, as one of its consequences, to overthrow every established Religion and Government of the world, and to sever every link of that extensive chain which has hitherto connected man to man, and individuals to society. In making this allusion, we are actuated by a wish of warning, not of alarming our readers; of awakening, not of enflaming their judg

ments; and we shall, therefore, leave the propriety of these our cautionary fears, to stand or fall by the test of those proofs we shall feel it our duty hereafter to produce.

Few general principles are more difficult to form than public taste, while none is more easily perverted, especially so far as it depends upon the drama. We enter the theatre, for the most part unconscious of any duty we have to perform. Even the first representation of a new play does not call to the minds of many that they are sitting in judgment, not only for themselves, but for posterity, who will read and be influenced by the performance they are about to decide upon, in proportion to the praise or censure it then receives. In this case, instead of pleading that the Drama's laws the Drama's Patrons give,' the vigilance of the poet should be redoubled. Instead of taking advantage of the inattention, the ignorance, the false taste, or fantastic humour of his audience, he should consider and diligently cultivate the strict rules and principles of dramatic structure; he should compare his own with works of eminent predecessors; and if he finds himself incapable of pursuing the path they followed, he should at least have diffidence, honour, and self-denial enough not to vitiate and mislead. But we fear it were in vain to expect to see the Stage reform itself. Criticism presents a more impartial tribunal; and surely it becomes those who profess to examine and record the progress of this among the other features of national character, to discuss, with freedom and with candour, a subject so extensively important, and endeavour to restore to the Stage that simplicity, purity, and grandeur, in possession of which it is so eminently calculated to form the taste, the manners, the morals, and general principles of the age. Though we cannot flatter ourselves that we possess resources adequate to accomplish so desirable an end, yet we cannot refrain from contributing our endeavours towards its furtherance. To this end we shall, in this and each succeeding number of our work, present the public with a COURSE OF CRITICISM, in which we shall endeavour, by a comparative estimate, to weigh the merits and faults of those plays which used to be, and those that are favourites of a British audience. Our plan, independent of a Critical Register of all new Plays, will, of course, embrace a general and individual critique on the works of Shakspeare, Otwav, Rowe, Vanburgh, Beaumont and Fletcher, Farquhar, Centlivre, and all those writers whose excellencies time cannot diminish.

We shall close this general view of the subject with one assurance; that, however boldly our opinions may appear to be expressed, we

shall be far from offering them as dictatorial: on the contrary, desirous only of displaying truth, and of reclaiming public taste to a pure standard, we court discussion, and shall therefore freely record sentiments worthy of general notice, whether coinciding with or differing from our own.

We shall commence our plan with the following

REMARKS

ON

ROMEO AND JULIET

THOUGH it may seem to partake of that partiality which is generally considered the bane of criticism, that, whenever we speak of Shakspeare, praise hangs, as it were, spontaneously upon the lips; yet admiration of his powers is a theme so grateful to every mind possessing the smallest discrimination in works of taste and genius, that though the critic partakes of this general approbation, it does not therefore follow that he is incapacitated from judging with candour of his author's errors as well as beauties. Moralists tell us, that to point out and correct faults is one of the principal offices of friendship, and that not from a mere principle of attachment, but because its intimacy must afford the compleatest knowledge of them; and we may, from the same causes, infer, that literary admiration imposes a like duty. Love is to enthusiasm what friendship is to admiration: the lover is as blind to the blemishes of his mistress as the enthusiast to those of his author; while the friend and the admirer take the sober and unbiassed path of truth, and, avoiding ideal perfection, shew us how real excellence might exist. those who assert that the admirer and the critic are characters which cannot he combined, build their conclusion upon an hypothesis still more erroneous, which is, that the critic's sole business is to condemn. This is a deplorable error indeed! The gardener and the critic have very similar tasks to execute; and if to call the flowers and richest produce of his ground be with the former a superior object to that of cleansing it from weeds, so does the business of the latter consist as much, if not more, in directing his reader's attention to an author's excellencies, as in warning him against his errors, and proposing means for their remedy. As long, therefore, as a man's admiration be free from enthusiasm he may be just as a critic.

But

The tragedy of Romeo and Juliet is one of those few plays which