intermeddling under pretence that he durst not leave his horses, and so left me to shift for myself; and I was gone so far beyond my knowledge, that I understood not which way I was to go, till by halloing, and being halloed to again, I was directed where to find my company.

We had easy means to have found out who these men were (the principal of them having been in the daytime at the inn, and both quarrelled with the coachman, and threatened to be even with him when he went back); but since they came off no better in their attempt, my father thought it better not to know them, than to oblige himself to a prosecution of them.

At that time, and for a good while after, I had no regret upon my mind for what I had done, and designed to have done, in this case, but went on in a sort of bravery, resolving to kill, if I could, any man that should make the like attempt or put any affront on us; and for that reason seldom went afterwards upon those public services without a loaded pistol in my pocket. But when it pleased the Lord, in His infinite goodness, to call me out of the spirit and ways of the world, and give me the knowledge of His saving truth, whereby the actions of my fore-past life were set in order before me, a sort of horror seized on me, when I considered how near I had been to the staining of my hands with human blood. And whensoever afterwards I went that way, and indeed as often since as the matter has come into my remembrance, my soul has blessed the Lord for my deliverance, and thanksgivings and praises have arisen in my heart (as now at the relating of it, they do) to Him who preserved and withheld me from shedding man's blood. Which is the reason for which I have given this account of that action, that others may be warned by it.

(From The History of Thomas Ellwood, written by himself.)

THOMAS RYMER

[Thomas Rymer (1641-1713), "of Gray's Inn, Esquire," was appointed Historiographer in 1692, and began almost immediately afterwards to work at his great collection of State papers, the Fadera, of which the first volume was published in 1704. His interest in history had been shown in his short essay (1681), A General Draught and Prospect of Government in Europe and Civil Policy, showing the Antiquity, Power, and Decay of Parliaments. His original writings are, however, chiefly poetical and critical; a heroic play, in couplets, Edgar (1677), some miscellaneous poems, and two short critical essays: The Tragedies of the Last Age Considered and Examined by the Practice of the Ancients (1678); and A Short View of Tragedy: its Original Excellency and Corruption, with some Reflections on Shakespeare and other Practitioners for the Stage (1693).]

RYMER'S essays on tragedy are uncompromising assaults on Fletcher and Shakespeare in the interests of commonsense and the rules of good poetry. The constancy and perseverance of the critic are plainly manifest in the relation of the Short View to the essay on the Tragedies of the Last Age published fifteen years earlier. The Short View takes up and analyses the two plays of Shakespeare Othello and Julius Cæsar—which the earlier tract had promised to deal with, and there is no change or relenting in the mode of treatment. In the Short View there is a little more of modern and medieval history, drawn from the antiquarian studies in which Rymer was to make his name. But though he shows some appreciation of medieval poetry, and touches on the "Provencial poets," and gives a version from Jeffry Rudel, and praises Chaucer, he is not led away by any medieval or romantic taste to relax his hatred of extravagance or his adhesion to commonsense. A phrase in the Contents of his Short View explains his poetical standard with great conciseness" Chaucer refined our English. Which in perfection by Waller." A sentence or two in the same work, later, may exemplify the force of "which in perfection by Waller" :

"Shakespeare's genius lay for comedy and humour. In tragedy he appears quite out of his element, his brains are turned, he raves and rambles without any coherence, any spark of reason, or any rule to controul him or set bounds to his phrenzy. His imagination was still running after his masters, the coblers, and parish clerks, and Old Testament stroulers."

Yet it would be unfair to Rymer to make of him nothing but a shocking example. A little grain of imagination leavens all his criticism. His admiration for the Greeks is not pretence; he knows the difference between Euripides and Seneca, and his description of the character of Phædra, as represented by the Greek and by the Latin tragic poet, is sensible. None of his critical writing is hard to read. His plan of a tragedy of The Invincible Armado, on the classical model, to compete with the Persians of Eschylus, will hold its own, though nothing but an outline, against the more romantic tragedy of Tilburina. The plan of the fourth act-the old dames of the Court "alarming our gentlemen with new apprehensions". -is not less pleasant to meditate upon than the inventions of Sheridan's Tragedy Rehearsed. Dennis, in his remarks on Rymer, took this seriously, but Rymer is not quite free from malice in his commendation of his classical play.

W. P. KER.

A TRAGEDY CALLED THE "INVINCIBLE ARMADO"

If we cannot rise to the perfection of intrigue in Sophocles, let us sit down with the honesty and simplicity of the first beginners in tragedy; as, for example, one of the most simple now extant is The Persians by Eschylus.

Some ten years after that Darius had been beaten by the Greeks, Xerxes (his father Darius being dead) brought against them such forces by sea and land the like never known in history. Xerxes went also in person, with all the maison du roy, satrapie, and gendarmery; all were routed. Some forty years afterwards the poet takes hence his subject for a tragedy.

The place is by Darius's tomb in the metropolis of Persia.
The time is the night, an hour or two before daybreak.

First on the stage are seen fifteen persons in robes proper for the satrapa or chief princes in Persia. Suppose they met so early at the tomb, then sacred and ordinarily resorted to by people troubled in mind, on the accounts of dreams, or any thing not boding good. They talk of the state of affairs, of Greece, and of the expedition. After some time take upon them to be the chorus.

The next on the stage comes Atossa, the queen mother of Persia. She could not lie in bed for a dream that troubled her, so in a fit of devotion comes to her husband's tomb; there luckily meets with so many wise men and counsellors to ease her mind by interpreting her dream. This, with the chorus, makes the second act.

After this, their disorder, lamentation, and wailing is such that Darius is disturbed in his tomb, so his ghost appears and belike stays with them till daybreak. Then the chorus concludes the act.

In the fourth act come the messengers with sad tidings, which, with the reflections and troubles thereupon and the chorus, fill out this act.

In the last Xerxes himself arrives, which gives occasion of

condoling, howling, and distraction enough to the end of the tragedy.

One may imagine how a Grecian audience, that loved their country, and gloried in the virtue of their ancestors, would be affected with this representation.

Never appeared on the stage a ghost of greater consequence. The grand monarch Darius, who had been so shamefully beaten by those petty provinces of the united Grecians, could not now lie quiet in his grave for them, but must be raised from the dead again to be witness of his son's disgrace, and of their triumph.

Were a tragedy after this model to be drawn for our stage Greece and Persia are too far from us. The scene must be laid nearer home, as at the Louvre; and instead of Xerxes we might take John, king of France, and the battle of Poictiers. So if the Germans or Spaniards were to compose a play on the battle of Pavia, and King Francis there taken prisoner, the scene should not be laid at Vienna, or at Madrid, but at the Louvre. For there the tragedy would principally operate, and there all the lines most naturally centre.

But perhaps the memorable adventure of the Spaniards in '88 against England, may better resemble that of Xerxes. Suppose then a tragedy called "The Invincible Armado."

The place, then, for the action may be at Madrid, by some tomb or solemn place of resort; or if we prefer a turn in it from good to bad fortune, then some drawing-room in the palace near the king's bed-chamber.

The time to begin, twelve at night.

The scene opening presents fifteen grandees of Spain, with their most solemn beards and accoutrements, met there (suppose) after some ball or other public occasion. They talk of the state of affairs, the greatness of their power, the vastness of their dominions, and prospect to be infallibly, ere long, lords of all. With this prosperity and goodly thoughts transported, they at last form themselves into the chorus, and walk such measures, with music as may become the gravity of such a chorus.

Then enter two or three of the cabinet council, who now have leave to tell the secret, that the preparations and the Invincible Armado was to conquer England. These, with part of the chorus, may communicate all the particulars, the provisions, and the strength by sea and land, the certainty of success, the advantages by that accession, and the many tun of tar-barrels for the heretics.