to be the characteristic of Orlando, yet his inconftancy is more unjustifiable than that of any mad lover we ever remember in romance or tragedy. Bafenefs is fo averfe from his nature, that, ftruck with horror at his own perfidy, he confefles and repents his crime; and yet, immediately after that repentance, attempts the murder of the friend, whofe forgiveness he has just implored. It is in vain to plead the inftigation of Bertrand. Bertrand is a mere stage villain. His artifices only prevail, because it is convenient for the Author that they fhould do fo; and Orlando and Rivers are unnaturally blind, merely because it would mar the plot, if they were to fee like other people.

After the affecting fcene between Orlando, Rivers, and Emmelina, towards the conclufion of the fourth Act, it is improbable, nay almoft impoffible in nature, that the circumftances of the Fifth fhould enfue; and we think it will appear, by the following foliloquy, that it is but a poor, fhallow, theatrical artifice, by which thofe circumftances, improbable as they seem, are produced:

Bertrand. How's this? my fortune fails me, both alive!

I thought by stirring Rivers to this quarrel,

There was at least an equal chance against him.
I work, invifible, and like the tempter,

My agency is feen in its effects.

Well, honeft Bertrand! now for Julia's letter.

This fond epistle of a love fick maid,

[Takes out a letter.

I've worn to give, but DID NOT SWEAR TO WHOM.
Give it my love, faid the, my dearest lord:

Rivers fhe meant; there's no addrefs-THAT'S LUCKY!
Then where's the harm? Orlando is a lord,

As well as Rivers, loves her too as well.

| Breaks open the letter. I must admire your ftile-your pardon, fair one.

[Runs ever it.

Do I not tread in air, and walk on stars ?
There's not a word but fits Orlando's cafe
As well as Rivers' ;-tender to excefs-
No name 'twill do; his faith in me is boundless;
Then, as the brave are ftill, he's unfufpecting,
And credulous beyond a woman's weakness.

[Going out he fpies the dagger.
Orlando's dagger-ha! 'tis greatly thought.
This may do noble service; such a scheme!
My genius ca'ches fire! the bright idea

Is form'd at once, and fit for glorious action.

Phrenzy, properly introduced, and ably pourtrayed, is a forcible engine of tragedy. Madnefs is not ill pictured in the ravings of Emmelina; yet they have but little effect on the

reader,

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reader, because her phrenzy and death are too evidently introduced as a ftage trick, not neceffarily flowing from the circumftances of the fable, and too fuddenly produced to be natural. In a word, the whole of the fifth Act is, in our opinion, indefenfible.

Our remarks may perhaps appear to be fevere; but they are delivered with a warmth of friendly reprehenfion, not with the leaft fpirit of acrimony. We deliver our cenfures, in this inftance, with more freedom, becaufe we really think the fair Writer bleft with genius, which the permits, from hafte and careleffness, to run to wafte. Ladies who write for the ftage, as well as many gentlemen, do not fufficiently confider the arduoufnefs of the task:

To write a play! why 'tis a bold pretence

To learning, knowledge, genius, wit, and fenfe!

Not to take leave of our Authorefs without fhewing her claim to fuch" a bold pretence," we shall submit to our Readers the beginning of the fourth Act, which we efteem to be one of the happieft paffages in the play:

Emmelina. How many ways there are of being wretched!

Guil.

The avenues to happiness how few!

When will this bufy, fluttering heart be fill?

When will it ceafe to feel, and beat no more?
Ev'n now it shudders with a dire prefage
Of fomething terrible it fears to know.
Ent'ring, I faw my venerable father,

In earnest conference with the Count Orlando:
Shame and confufion fill'd Orlando's eye,
While ftern refentment fir'd my father's cheek.
And look, he comes, with terror on his brow!.
He fees me, he beholds his child, and now
The terror of his look is loft in love,

In fond, paternal love.

Enter GUILDFOR D.

Come to my arms,

And there conceal, that fweet, that afking eye,
Left it fhou'd read what I wou'd hide for ever,

Wou'd hide from all, but most wou'd hide from thee,
Thy father's grief, his fhame, his rage, his tears.
Em. Tears! heaven and earth! behold my father weeps!
Guild. He who has drawn this forrow from my eyes,

Em.

Shall pay me back again in tears of blood.

'Tis for thy fake, my child.

Guild.

For me, for me?

Hear, heaven, and judge; hear, heaven, and punish me!
If any crime of mine-

Thou art all innocence,

Just what a parent's fondeft with wou'd frame;
No fault of thine e'er ftain'd thy father's cheek,
For if I blush'd it was to hear thy virtues,

And

Em..

And think that thou waft mine; and if I wept
It was from joy and gratitude to heaven,

That made me father of a child like thee..
Orlando!

Guild.

What of him?

I cannot tell thee;

An honeft fhame, a virtuous pride forbids.
Speak.

Em.
Guild.

Canft thou not guess and fpare thy father?
Em. Perhaps perhaps I can and yet I will not:
Tell me the worst while I have fenfe to hear.
Thou wilt not fpeak-nay never turn away;
Doft thou not know that fear is worfe than grief?
There may be bounds to grief, fear knows no bounds;
"In grief we know the worst of what we feel,
"But who can tell the end of what we fear ?"
Grief mourns fome forrow paft, and therefore known,
But fear runs wild with horrible conjecture.

Guild. Then hear the worst, and arm thy foul to bear it.
He has he has-Orlando has refufed thee.

EMMELINA. (After a long paufe.)

'Tis well-'tis very well-'tis as it should be.
Guild. Oh, there's an eloquence in that mute woe,
Which mocks all language. Speak, relieve thy heart,
Thy bursting heart; thy father cannot bear it.
Am I a man? no more of this, fond eyes!
I am grown weaker than a chidden infant,
While not a figh efcapes to tell thy pain.
Em. See, I am calm; I do not shed a tear;
The warrior weeps, the woman is a hero!
GUILDFORD. (Embraces her.)
My glorious child! now thou art mine indeed }
Forgive me, if I thought thee fond and weak,
I have a Roman matron for my daughter,
And not a feeble girl. And yet I fear,
For oh! I know thy tenderness of soul,
1 fear this filent anguish but portends
Some dread convulfion fatal to thy peace.

Em. I will not fhame thy blood; and yet, my father,
Methinks thy daughter fhou'd not be refus'd?
Refus'd? It has a barth, ungrateful found;
Thou shoud't have found a fofter term; refus'd?
And have I then been held fo cheap? Refus'd?
Been treated like the light ones of my fex,
Held up to fale ? been offer'd, and refus'd?

Guild. Long have I known thy love, I thought it mutual;
To fpare thy blushes met the Count-

Em.

No more:

I am content to know I am rejected;
But fave my pride the mortifying tale,
Spare me particulars of how, and when,
And do not parcel out thy daughter's fhame,

No

Guild.

Em.

No flowers of rhetoric, no arts of fpeech
Can change the fact-Orlando has refus'd me.
He fhall repent this outrage.

Think no more on't:

I'll teach thee how to bear it; I'll grow proud,
As gentle fpirits ftill are apt to do

When cruel flight, or killing scorn falls on them.
Come virgin dignity, come female pride,

Guild.

Em.

Come wounded modefty, come flighted love,

Come fcorn, come confcious worth, come black despair!
Support me, arm me, fill me with my wrongs!
Suftain this feeble fpirit!-But for thee,

But for thy fake, my dear, fond, injur'd father,
I think I could have borne it.

Thou hast a brother;

He fhall affert thy caufe.

Firft ftrike me dead!

No, in the wild distraction of my spirit,
This mad, conflicting tumult of my foul,

[Kneels.

Hear my fond pleading-fave me from that curfe;
Thus I adjure thee by the dearest ties,
Which link fociety; by the fweet names
Of Parent and of Child; by all the joys

Thefe tender claims have yielded, I adjure thee
Breathe not this fatal fecret to my brother;
Oh tell him not his fifter was refus'd,
That were confummate woe, full, perfect ruin!
I cannot fpeak the reft, but thou can'ft guess it,
And tremble to become a childless father.

Before the tragedy are printed a poetical prologue written by the fair Authoress, and a humorous epilogue by Mr. Sheridan... ART. X. The Canadian Freeholder. Vol. II. Concluded. See Review for September laft, p. 171; where the Title, at length, is recited; and which ought to be reperufed, to affift the recollection of our Readers.

W general principles on which the king's legislative au

E have feen, in the course of this volume, that the

thority over conquered countries is afferted by Lord Mansfield, are either deftructive of the very purpose they were produced to ferve, or fall extremely fhort of the point they were intended to eftablish. When reafon fails, or is filent, recourse must next be had to authority, and to precedents. The teftimony of hiftory is accordingly brought forward by Lord Mansfield, to fhew, that the Crown has, in numerous inftances, actually exercifed this fuppofed authority. His inftances are drawn from Ireland, Wales, Berwick upon Tweed, Gafcony, Calais, New York, Jamaica, Gibraltar, and Minorca. The exertion of a legiflative power, and the exercise of a legislative right, are by no means fynonymous terms. Hiftory may atteft the one,

buc

but fomething more than hiftory ought to prove the other. At the fame time, it must be confeffed, that the practice of past ages is, in general, a fafe rule to guide the judgment of the prefent. It vouches the opinion of men who had access to more information than we can be poffeffed of; and though we do not take their word for the juftness of a conclufion, when the premises are as open to us as they were to them, yet we may reasonably fuppofe, that as they were placed nearer the fountain, they were acquainted with many facts, many evidences of the right, which are now funk in the stream of time, or have been washed away by the length of its courfe. Our Author owns, very candidly, that if the arguments from history in favour of this legislative authority of the Crown, are clear, and pofitive, and uniform,' they muft have great weight; but he is of opinion, that in the prefent cafe, none can be alleged which poffefs thefe qualities, and that thofe mentioned by Lord Mansfield are entitled to very little regard. We fhall not pretend to follow him in this part of his fubject. It would Such of our readers carry us far beyond the limits of our plan.

as are inclined to confult his very accurate hiftorical detail, will find themselves abundantly rewarded by much curious and valuable information. We fhall content ourfelves with giving the recapitulation of the principal heads of his argument, in the words of one of his dialogifts.

With respect to Ireland we obferved, that he argued, from King John's having, by his fole authority, introduced the laws of England into Ireland, that he therefore was the fole legiflator of it; which we agreed to be by no means a just conclufion, there being a manifeft difference between a power in the conquering king to introduce, once for all, immediately after the conqueft, into the conquer ed country the laws of the conquering country, and the regular, permanent, legislative authority by which the laws of the conquered country may, at any time after, be changed at the pleasure of the legiflators, (whoever they are,) not only by introducing into it the laws of the conquering nation, but any other laws whatsoever, and this as often, and in as great a degree, as the legiflators fhall think fit. And we further obferved, that Lord Coke, in the paffage quoted from this report of Calvin's cafe, has expressly declared that the kings of England were not poffeffed of this permanent legislative authority over Ireland, not having a right to alter the laws of England, (when once introduced there by King John,) without confent of parliament; and that Lord Mansfield has adopted this opinion of Lord Coke, though it clashes with the conclufion which he laboured to draw from this cafe of Ireland in favour of the king's fole legislative power in the island of Grenada. And we further obferved that, for fome centuries paft, at least, the laws which have been made for the government of Ireland have been made either with the confent of the parliament of England, or with that of the parliament of Ireland. So that, upon the whole matter, Ireland appears to be a very unfit example, of the exercife of fuch a fole legislative authority in the

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