or Seward, from Oliver Cromwell down to Tom Killigrew. Jests lurk within these two quartos, unprofaned by Joe Millar, notices of old songs which Ritson dreamed not of. Here may the ballad-monger learn that Simon Wadlow, vintner, and keeper of the Devil's Tavern, did on the 22d April, 1661, lead a fine company of soldiers, all young countrymen in white doublets; and who knows but that this might have been either

"Old Sir Simon the king,

Or young Sir Simon the squire ;"

personages who bequeath names to the memorable ditty beloved of Squire Western? The students of political economy will find a curious treat in considering the manner how Pepys was obliged to bundle about his money in specie, removing it from one hiding-place to another during the fire, concealing it at last under ground, and losing a great deal in digging it up again. Then he hit on the plan of lodging it with a goldsmith; and his delight on finding he was to receive L.35 for the use of L.2000 for a quarter of a-year, reminds us of the glee of Crabbe's fisherman on a similar discovery:

"What! five for every hundred will be give
Beside the hundred ?—I begin to live."-

But his golden visions were soon disturbed by a sad conviction not unlike that which lately passed over our own money-market, that bankers were but mortal men, and that they could not pay interest for money and have the full sum at the same time lying by them ready on demand. A run upon Lombard Street in the days of Charles II. is thus described :

"W. Hewer hath been at the banker's and hath got L.500 out of Backwell's hands of his own money; but they are so called upon that they will be all broke, hundreds coming to them for money: and they answer him, 'It is payable at twenty days-when the days are ont we will pay you;' and those that are not so they make tell over their money, and make their bags false on purpose to give cause to retell it, and so spend time."-Vol. ii. p. 67.

Thus truly speaks Chaucer :

"There n'is ne new guise but it hath been old."

But we stop abruptly, or we might find a difficulty in stopping at all, so rich is the work in every species of information concerning the author's century. We compared the Diary to that of Evelyn, but it is as much superior to the latter in variety and general amusement, as it is inferior in its tone of sentiment and feeling; Pepys' very foibles have been infinitely in favour of his making an amusing collection of events; as James Boswell, without many personal peculiarities, could not have written his inimitable life of Johnson.

We ought to mention some curious and valuable letters which occupy the latter part of the second volume. The reader may be amused with comparing the style of Pepys and his sentiments as brushed and dressed, and sent out to meet company, with his more

description. This, however, he must do for himself; we have not leisure to assist him.

The circumstances which induced Mr Pepys to discontinue his diary, we lament as a great loss to posterity. True, the days which succeeded were yet more disastrous than those he commemorated. The Popish plot had not, when he ceased his record, dishonoured our annals;-England had not seen her monarch a pensioner to France, and her nobles and statesmen at home divided into the most desperate factions, which sought vengeance on each other by mutual false accusation and general perjury. Yet considering how much of interest mingled even in that degrading contest, considering how much talent was engaged on both sides, what a treasure would a record of its minute events have been if drawn up by "such a faithful character as Griffith!"

ARTICLE XI.

LIFE OF KEMBLE.-KELLY'S REMINISCENCES.

[From the Quarterly Review, for April, 1826-1. 'Memoirs of the Life of John Philip Kemble, Esq., including a History of the Stage from the time of Garrick to the present period. By JAMES BOADEN, ESQ. Two vols. London. 1825.

2. Reminiscences of Michael Kelly, of the King's Theatre, and Theatre Royal Drury Lane, including a Period of nearly half a Century; with Original Anecdotes of many distinguished Personages, Political, Literary, and Musical. London. 1826. 2 vols.]

THERE are severe moralists who have judged the amusements of the stage inimical to virtue-there are many who conceive its exhibitions to be inconsistent with religious principle: to those this article can give no interest unless perhaps a painful one, and we must even say with old Dan Chaucer,

"Turn o'er the leaf and chuse another tale;

For you shall find enough both great and small,
Of storial thing that toucheth gentillesse,
And eke morality and holiness."

Where the scruples of such dissidents from public opinion are real, we owe them all possible respect; when they are assumed for a disguise in the sight of man, they will not deceive the eye which judgeth both Publican and Pharisee.

For ourselves we will readily allow, that the theatre may be too much frequented, and attention to more serious concerns drown

224

MISCELLANEOUS CRITICISM.

better employed than in witnessing the best and most moral play that ever was acted; but the same may be justly said of every action in our lives, except those of devotion towards God and benevolence towards man. And yet, as six days have been permitted us to think our own thoughts and work our own works, much that is strictly and exclusively secular is rendered indispensable by our wants, and much made venial and sometimes praiseworthy by our tastes and the confirmation of our intellect. De Chore of man

If there be one pleasure exclusive of the objects of actual sensual indulgence, which is more general than another among the human race, it is the relish for personification, which at last is methodized into the dramatic art. The love of the chase may perhaps be as natural to the masculine sex, but when the taste of the females is taken into consideration, the weight of numbers leans to the love of mimic representation in an overwhelming ratio. The very first amusement of children is to get up a scene, to represent to the best of their skill papa and mamma, the coachman and his horses; and even He, formidable with the birchen sceptre, is mimicked in the exercise-ground by the urchins of whom he is the terror in the schoolroom. We do not know if the witty gentleman, to whom we are indebted for a history of monkeys, ever thought of tracing the connexion betwixt us and our cousin the ourang-outang in our mutual love of imitation.

At a more advanced period of life we have mimicry of tone and dialect, and masques, and disguises: then little scenes are preconcerted, which at first prescribe only the business of a plot, leaving the actors to fill up the language extempore from their mother wit: then some one of more fancy is employed to write the dialogue-a stage with scenery is added, and the drama has reached its complete form.

The same taste, which induced us when children to become kings and heroes ourselves on an infantine scale, renders us, when somewhat matured in intellect, passionate admirers of the art in its more refined state. There are few things which those gifted with any degree of imagination recollect with a sense of more anxious and mysterious delight than the first dramatic representation which they have witnessed. Iffland has somewhere described it, and it is painted in stronger colours by the immortal Goethe in "Wilhelm Meister"-yet we cannot refrain from touching on the subject. The unusual form of the house, filled with such groups of crowded spectators, themselves forming an extraordinary spectacle to the eye which has never witnessed it before, yet all intent upon that wide and mystic curtain whose dusky undulations permit us now and then to discern the momentary glitter of some gaudy form the spangles of some sandaled foot which trips lightly within; then

treat sufficient in every other situation, our inexperience mistakes for the very play we came to witness-then the slow rise of the shadowy curtain, disclosing, as if by actual magic, a new land, with woods and mountains and lakes, lighted, it seems to us, by another sun, and inhabited by a race of beings different from ourselves, whose language is poetry, whose dress, demeanour, and sentiments seem something supernatural, and whose whole actions and discourse are calculated not for the ordinary tone of everyday life, but to excite the stronger and more powerful faculties-to melt with sorrow-overpower with terror-astonish with the marvellous—or convulse with irresistible laughter-all these wonders stamp indelible impressions on the memory. Those mixed feelings also, which perplex us between a sense that the scene is but a plaything, and an interest which ever and anon surprises us into a transient belief that that which so strongly affects us cannot be fictitious-those mixed and puzzling feelings, also, are exciting in the highest degree. Then there are the bursts of applause, like distant thunder, and the permission afforded to clap our little hands and add our own scream of delight to a sound so commanding. All this—and much-much more is fresh in our memory, although when we felt these sensations we looked on a stage which Garrick had not yet left. It is now a long while since yet we have not passed many hours of such unmixed delight, and we still remember the sinking lights, the dispersing crowd, with the vain longings, which we felt, that the music would again sound, the magic curtain once more arise, and the enchanting dream recommence ; and the astonishment with which we looked upon the apathy of the elder part of our company, who, having the means, did not spend every evening in the theatre.

When habit has blunted these earliest sensations of pleasure, the theatre continues to be the favourite resort of the youth, and though he recognises no longer the enchanted palace of his childhood, he enjoys the more sober pleasure of becoming acquainted with the higher energies of human passion, the recondite intricacies and complications of human temper and disposition, by seeing them illustrated in the most vivid manner by those whose profession it is to give actual life, form, and substance to the creations of genius. Much may be learned in a well-conducted theatre essential to the profession of the bar, and, with reverence be it spoken, even of the pulpit; and it is well known that Napoleon himself did not disdain to study at that school the external gesture and manner becoming the height to which he had ascended.

Yet such partial advantages are mere trifles considered in comparison with the general effect produced by the stage on national literature and national character. Had there been no drama, Shak

speare would in all likelihood have been but the author of Venus and Adonis and of a few sonnets forgotten among the numerous works of the Elizabethan age, and Otway had been only the compiler of fantastic Pindaric odes.

Stepping beyond her own department, the dramatic muse has lent her aid to her sister of history. What points of our national annals are ever most fresh and glowing in our recollection?-those which unite history with the stage. The story of Macbeth, an ancient king, whose annals of half a dozen lines must otherwise have lurked in the seldom opened black letter of Wintoun or Boece, is as much fixed upon our memory, as if it detailed events which we had ourselves witnessed. Who crosses the blighted heath of Forres without beholding in imagination the stately step of Kemble as he descended on the stage at the head of his victorious army? On Bosworth field the dramatist had engrossed the recollections due to the historian, even so early as Bishop Corbet's time; for when his host, "full of ale and history," pointed out the local position of the two armies, Shakspeare was more in the village chronicler's thoughts than Stowe or Hollingshed.

"Besides what of his knowledge he could say,

He had authentic notice from the play,
Shown chiefly by that one perspicuous thing,
That he mistook a player for a king;

For when he should have said, here Richard died
And called a horse, a horse'-he Burbage cried."

A greater man acknowledged his debt to the dramatist on a similar occasion: " 'In what history did your grace find that incident?" said Burnet to the Duke of Marlborough, on hearing him quote some anecdote concerning the wars of York and Lancaster which was new to the Bishop. "In Shakspeare's plays," answered the Victor of Blenheim," the only history of those times I ever read."

It may be said by the rigid worshipper of unadorned truth, that history is rather defaced than embellished by becoming the subject of fictitious composition. These scruples are founded on prejudice— that mischievous prejudice which will not admit that knowledge can be valuable unless transmitted through the dullest and most disagreeable medium. Many are led to study history from having first read it as mingled with poetic fiction; and the indolent or those much occupied, who have not patience or leisure for studying the chronicle itself, gather from the play a general idea of historical incidents which, but through some such amusing vehicle, they would never have taken the trouble to become acquainted with. And it will scarcely be denied, that a man had better know generally the points of history as told him by Shakspeare, than be ignorant of history entirely.