Mr. Usher is not a consummate Jo- ! Mrs. Downie undertook to play Laseph Surface. He requires that smooth-dy Sneerwell; but with her well-matchness of ceremony and oiliness of tongue, ed confident, Mr. Vigors in Snake, which can "make the worse appear the "came tardy off." better cause," and render "the lie like truth;" he is not the man to "smile and smile and be a villain"; he exhibits well the deformity of vice, but wants the plausibility which makes it appear like virtue. We are fearful Mrs. Stanley's bene. in point of profit; it fully equalled ours fit did not answer her own expectations in point of entertainment. The Revenge (Dr. Young) and Raising We are ready to make allowances the Wind. Wednesday, Feb. 13. for Mr. Poe's deficiency in Sir Charles The character of Dr. Young, as a Surface, in manners, spirit and orthoe-moralist and a poet is too well underThe suddenness with which the stood to require enforcement, too facharacter must have been assumed is avourable to need the labour of panegyinantle, which like charity, covers a multitude of sins. py. We wish Mr. Dykes had been more correct in Sir Oliver Surface. ric. In the play, or dramatic poem of careful to make the unities of action the Revenge, he has been extremely it drags heavily its slow length along, and place complete; but nevertheless, for want of frequency of incident, language of passion, and rapidity of expression. Though the reflections it conveys are noble, poetical and just ; though the imagery is bold and illus Mr. Dickenson has much improved in his deportment in the part of Grabtree since the last year; where formerly we saw buffoonery, we now observe wit. It is intended to be a gentlemanly character, as far as manners make the gentleman; it has heretofore been re-trative, and the characters various, conpresented as a vulgar ignoramus in the midst of an elegant circle of scandalisers. Is it too much to require of Mr. Fox correctness in the words of his parts? So long as he will neither speak the Language, nor enforce the sense of his anthor, we think we are exonerated from affording him approbation. Sir Benjamin Backbite, abstracting these qualities, was tolerably performed. sistent, energetic and distinct, it has never suited the taste, nor gratified the curiosity of mankind. The story of this play is founded, it is supposed, on the Abdelazar of Mrs. Bhen, and Shakespeare's Othello; that is, the character of Zanga, resembles the former, and his means of working on the jealousy of Alonzo, the latter; but Dr. Young has in many respects improved on both. The causes of Zanga's revenge are much stronger than those of lago's ; he says himself, speaking to Alonzo, after having completed his purpose, Mrs. Stanley in Lady Teazle gave additional evidence of her powers in vivacious comedy. In her scene with Sir Peter she evinced the complete power Thou see'st a prince, whose fatherof a young, beautiful wife, over a doting and testy husband: but she did not dis-Whose native country thou hast laid in thou hast slain, cover sufficient pathos in her screen scene with Joseph and her husband. In the epilogue, though it was not without its faults, she gave great effect; especially in those lines relating to herself, where she was feeling, judicious, powerful. blood, Whose sacred person, Oh ! thou hast proWhose reign extinguished, What was faned, left for me So highly born?" We have every day additional reason The probabilities of exciting jealousy, to congratulate Mrs. Shaw, on the more favour Young more than Shakespeare. frequent recurrence of her comic char-Othello is a man "not easily jealous :" acters. She personated Mrs. Candour this evening in a very spirited style; but had she clothed her insinuations, so that they should have possessed in a greater degree the apparent spirit of candour we think she would have much improved the part but Alonzo is of a country famed for ite littleness of mind, and meanness of passion; jealousy is inhaled with its very air. The trifles which "perplex Othello in the extreme," are mere trifles; but with Alonzo, "proofs rise on proofs, and still the last the strongest.” In the Revenge as in Othello, the story is single, and its mark is seen from the beginning; but after the plot is developed, the moral of the Revenge has a decided preference. For Zanga is completely punished, while Iago preserves his self-possessed malignity.Iago says, "What you know, you know From this time I neverwill speak more;" but Zanga expresses himself in these terms, he marked others and tell, with what propriety we know not. In the soliloquy, beginning; Thus it stands, his execution was as astonishing, as his conception was correct. The expression, "You will not wed her then ?" we do not think should be uttered in a tone of mortification, but with ironical acuteness; and his ensuing observation enforces this notion. The by e-play of the part was well conceived, and in most cases very well executed. In the scene of consummation, that is, the last scene of all, as it required, so Mr. F. evinced the greatest power. The words, "I forg'd the letter," were forcibly and accurately expressed. On the whole, if Mr. Fennel should perform his other characters, in comparitively as correct a manner as he performed Zanga, it will not be too much to pronounce, that in Boston we shall have never seen more judicious representations, in vigour of conception, accuracy of deport Mr. Usher in Alonzo, never performed it in a superior manner; he was of tentimes quite strong in apprehension. But in this line he was defective. "The conquest of the world would cost me dear"; "Oh vengeance, I have follow'd thee too far, [fires." And to receive me hell blows all her The first appearance of Mr. Fennel on the Boston boards had not much attracted the public observation; his appearing in the Revenge, which is not a favourite play, and the foulness of the weather we presume prevented the collecting of a numerous audience. We confess our expectations were highly raised, to witness his powers in Zanga; but had they been much high-ment, and general comprehension. er, they had been surpassed. It does not derogate from any other performer to pronounce his Zanga the best which has ever been seen in Boston. With the apprehension of the whole part (the general divisions, as well as the minute ramifications of the character) he seem. He spoke it as if he had conquered the ed perfectly acquainted. His enuncia-world; but the word world should be tion is bad, which is a great detriment to passionate expression; and often the closing words of his sentences were lost in the indistinctness and feebleness of his articulation. His countenance wants a subtlety of expression, and his voice failed in tones of irony. Mr. Fen. nel evinced the two natures of Zanga; the princely when alone, and the servile when, before Alonzo, in the most correct manner. In his conception of the text, he is more completely judicious than any actor we have seen in Boston; and if he ever varies from received opinion, it is for readings at the same time original and bold, reasonable and vigorous. He once or twice committed blunders with the text; as in this line, "You should not hazard death to gain the secret." In this expression, particularly marked in contra-distinction to Africa, from whence he had just returned a conqueror. Mrs. Powell was respectable in Leonora; and gave some passages with effect. For the Emerald. DESULTORY SELECTIONS. AND ORIGINAL REMARKS. MEN of liberal education sometimes speak of merchants and commerce in illiberal terms. The following sentence is from a writer of no racan celebrity. · The real lamp of Aladdin is that on the merchant's desk. All the geniis, white, olive or black, who "But others' groans, shall tell the world people the atmosphere of earth it my death," For life." puts in motion at the antipodes.. It builds palaces in the wilderness and Tho' Myra's check love's native hue discloses, cities in the forest; and collects An old pun has been thus neatly every splendor and every refinement versified : of luxury from the fingers of subservient toil. Kings of the East are slaves of the lamp: the winds blow, and the seas roll only to work the behest of its master. The following parodies with some Thus to be feather'd as an owl, Dress me no longer like a fop, I like her two lips better than her roses. MADOC. An English reviewer speaks of this poem in these flattering terms: "All things considered, we are placing Madoc below the Odyssey and above the Lusiad; and for conceding to the Enead a precedence birth, and assisted by a cosmopolite, founded on elder rather than higher instead of a national language." PREJUDICE. Two Englishmen, who were ex But bring my scratch, whose Tyburn top ploring the distant regions of the Lies snug upon my forehead. THE POETS. East, determined upon visiting the Polygars in the peninsula of India. It was well remarked in one of rable chief of a town: "it is a brown "Do not go there," said the venethe best English magazines, when and bladeless waste, and the people a new collection of British poets of that country are wild and savage; was announced, "that such collec- their covering is the skin of a tyger, tions were not desirable; that to and they banquet upon human flesh; the good writers there should be in the moment that you place your more comment, and of the indiffer-foot upon their frontier, they will ent ones less text; that the great kill and devour you." The wanderpoets ought to be edited with accu-ers became grave, but not disheartracy, labour and learning, and the little ones cut down into anthologies." We are happy to observe that a new edition of Spencer's works has been presented to the public by Mr. Todd, to whom English literature was before indebted for a learned, laborious and accurate edition of Milton, and that the acute Gifford has published a complete edition of the works of the old dramatist Massinger, whose value has not till lately been duly appreciated. ened: they pursued their journey, and when they reached the peninsula, they found the most luxuriant province, smiling in all the prodigal bounty of a beneficent Providence, and a people the most gentle, polished, cultivated, and hospitable. The poet Dermody delineated danger in the following beautiful. colours: High o'er the headlong torrent's foamy fall, Whose waters howl along the rugged steep, On the loose-jutting rock, or mould'ring wall, See where gaunt Danger lays him The lightnings blue his stony pillow! warm; Anon, incumbent o'er the dreary deep, [storm, The fiend enormous strides the lab'ring And mid the thund'rous strife expands his giant form. The following irregular lines dis- With prankish girls in gardens playing, Free from care. Before Aurora's car you amble noon, when Neptune's sea-nymphs Braid their hair. When on the tumbling billlows rolling, To chase the moon-beams up the moun- You prepare ; Or dance with elves on brinks of fountains, As the dress of Pat is pretty nearly A butterfly's light back bestriding, the same from Dublin to Galway, and Queen-bees to honeysuckles guiding, from Fairhead to Bantry, and has con-Or in a swinging hair-bell riding, tinued so for ages, one description will be sufficient, and I shall take it from Spenser in his Review of Ireland: It is a long loose coat, or mantle made of woollen, of stone-colour, which Pat al-At ways wears alike in the nipping winter and the sultry summer, and of which the poet with some bitterness of spirit, thus speaks: "It is a fit house for an outlaw, a meet bed for a rebel, and an apt cloak for a thief: first, the outlaw being for his many crimes and villanies, banished from the towns and houses of honest men, and wandering in waste places far from danger of law, maketh his mantle his house, and under it covereth himself from the wrath of Heaven, from the offence of the earth, and from the sight of man. When it raineth, it is his pent-house; when it bloweth, it is his tent; when it freezeth, it is his tabernacle. In summer he can wear it loose, in winter he can wrap it close at all times he can use it ; never heavy, never cumbersome. Likewise for a rebel it is serviceable; for in this war that he maketh (if at least it deserves the name of war,) when he still fieth from his foe, and lurketh in the thick woods and strait passages, waiting for advantages, it is his bed, yea, and almost his household stuff." The lower order of women are also very fond of a long great coat, with many capes. : PLEASANTRY OF A SLUGGARD, A person who had contracted the bad habit of rising very late, excused himself in the following manner to his friends who upbraided him: "The fact is, every morning before I rise I hear a curious cause pleaded before me, between diligence and sloth. The one advices me to get up and employ myself about some useful business; the other speaks much in praise of a warm bed, and the superiority of rest over toil. In a scrupulous attention to both parties, I find a great deal of my time in the morning is passed in bed." Mirth to share. Now seen with love-lorn lillies weeping, The following remarks from an intelli. gent writer, might very well have been added to the last disertation of the Wanderer, on Conversation-The hours which are consumed in the idle amusement of a card table, or wasted in useless discussion of needless politics, if applied to the improvement of social intercourse, and the increase of polite literature, would add much to the charms of society, increase the civilization and refinement of the age, and make the cir cle of the fire-side worshippers at the temple of refinement. THE HARP AND DICE. Although refinement has of later polished our social intercourse with many graces, yet foreigners have. unanimously censured the inelegance and dullness of our ordinary society. Our women are insipid LITERARY INTELLIGENCE. ways imagined was in existence, and Mr. Boyd's translation of the Triumph of Petrarch, will shortly be pub. and silent, and our men monotonous politicians, or inveterate whistplayers. In the tone of our conversation there is no versatility; in its subject there is no taste. When-original, which the late Lord Orford alever it shall not be deemed pedantry to make the fine arts the objects of our serious conversation; whenever it shall become fashionable to render our colloquial ideas the lan-lished. guage of criticism; and whenever the collusion of splendid minds shall reflect their lustre in domestic circles; a Grecian amenity will adorn our national character, and diffuse its elegance even in a village neighborhood. The Teylerian Society at Haarlem has proposed the following questions, as the subject of a prize essay, to be adjudged on the 8th April, 1807-1. In what does the difference between natur-Whether various publications have not al and revealed religion consist? 2. appeared at different times which tend to obscure this difference, and to cause ity over the religion of nature to be forthe advantages possessed by Christian. gotten? 3. Whether, in proportion as these writings are disseminated, and the two religions assimilated to each other in every point, the most fatal efchristianity, morality, and the happifects may not be expected to result to It was a custom among the ancients, at their entertainments to have a harp carried round the table, and presented to every guest, which if any one refused, out of ignorance or unskilfullness, he was considered as illiterate or ill-bred. Pindar, in one of his odes alludes to this cus-ness of man-The prize is a gold tom: Nor does his skilful hand refuse Acquaintance with the tuneful muse, When round the mirthful board the harp is borne. WEST. P. du Halde, in his history of China, furnishes us with an extract from a Chinese author, who inveighing against such who neglect their studies, adds, "These persons are most at loss at the conclusion of a banquet. The plate and dice go round, that the number of little verses which every one ought to pronounce may be determined by chance. When it comes to their turn they appear quite stupid." There is a singular similarity in both these customs; and were they introduced into our country, might awaken many of our associates from their drowsiness, or occasion some to protest loudly against the use of the poetical dice, and the melodious instruments. medal of 400 florins in value. The essays must be written either in Dutch, Latin, French, or English. A new novel from the pen of Mr Lewis, has lately been issued from a London press. TO CORRESPONDENTS. We must dismiss the "Querist" with a remark from the play. "When good luck comes into the house the best way is to seize fast hold of him and not stop to inquire at what crivice he crept in.” We admire the classical quotations of ALECTO! but why should he wish us to give our reader sa fit of Ennui by the dull detail of private misfortune and the splenetic fancies of ideal grief. Let him turn to his favourite author and read the lines, Numina nulla pramunt; mortali urgemur ab hoste Mortales; totidem nobis animaque ma nusque. R's very elegant "PRESENT" shall appear next week. We regret not receiving it in season for this number. |