his assumption of the unfortunate Biron, not among his most happy efforts.

His personification of the sick king, in the second part of King Henry the Fourth, is greatly intitled to praise. There are one or two lines, which he gives beyond all possible description. First, when led to his couch, he says

Set me the crown upon my pillow here.

Here the ambition of his nature is finely exhibited, and his love of that diadem which he is every moment on the eve of quitting for ever. Mr. Kemble, in speaking this line, shows his great knowledge of nature. He is also great in the fifth scene, in giving these words:

Where is the crown?-Who took it from me?

Many other parts of the character are finely portrayed by him, and evince the conception of a great actor.

There are various opinions with respect to his representation of Macbeth; but if considered comparatively, it must, we humbly think, be allowed at present beyond rivalship. There is no one now on the stage who is altogether so great in this difficult character as Mr. Kemble.

His Rolla is another part in which he stands alone; no one can infuse that dignity and feeling into the Peruvian, that he receives in the person of the above gentleman.

His performance of Richard III. is much inferior to Mr. Cooke's delineation of the ambitious Gloster; and we think he shows his judgment in having assigned the character to that excellent performer.

He portrays the miseries of Beverly in the most natural colours, and never fails in this character to interest the feelings of his audience, and obtain an ample share of their applause.

His Othello is a performance replete with scenic beauty: he renders every passage effective, and displays the predominating passions of the character in most masterly tints.

It is not in consequence of Mr. Kemble's having been the original Octavian, that we consider him its most able representative; but on a comparative view of all the supporters of the insane lover, there is no one who as yet has equalled Mr. Kemble's descriptive efforts.

His professional powers are shown to great advantage in Royal John, whose inquietude he delineates in the very first style of scenic excellence.

In comedy, Mr. Kemble is only great in a limited point of view. The light, airy cast of character very ill accords with either the construction of his features, his voice, or deportment. The common-place colloquy of his character in Morton's comedy of Town and Country, he is very defective in the management of; but in the advanced stages of the drama, where his mind is called into reflection, he supports his author with great success. He gives dignity to his pathos, and impresses the morality of his part with very forcible effect.

It is in characters like Penruddock, in the Wheel of Fortune, that this gentleman is most happy, when he treads the stage under the influence of the comic muse. Cumberland wrote the above character with a perfect knowledge of all the peculiar qualities which constitute Mr. Kemble's professional excellencies, and it is almost unnecessary to observe, that his Penruddock cannot be equalled.

Viewing his representation of Lord Townly, in the Provoked Husband, upon the whole, it is but indifferent; but in the admonitory parts of the character he does great justice to his author.

With these reflections on Mr. Kemble's talents, we take leave of him for the present, as the greatest ornament of the British stage.

MISCELLANY.

SIR,

TO THE EDITOR OF THE MIRROR OF TASTE.

Newhaven, Connecticut.

PERCEIVING that you have increased your allowance of miscellaneous matter, and imagining that, though the original foundation of your work was laid in the drama and dramatic poetry, you will not exclude communications which are either amusing or instructive upon any subject, (I need not, as you have done, except politics, since they are now neither instructive nor amusing, for its ways are not ways of pleasantness.) I submit to you some thoughts, which to me appear neither incorrect nor incurious, upon Preaching. For whatever pleasure or profit myself, in the first instance, or you or your readers hereafter, may derive from them, we are all indebted to a French publication, printed at Paris above forty years ago, and which has accidentally fallen into my hands. In any country it would be interesting, but must be more so in this, where we have almost as many preachers as hearers, insomuch that if each was to be distinguished by dress from the laity, as they are in the popish countries, we should have more cowls in New England than they ever had all together in France, Spain and Italy, where all the fat of the land that was left by their kings was gobbled up and devoured by their friars.

The design of the work I speak of, which is entitled "DE LA PREDICATION," is to show, that preaching has contributed very little to the reformation of mankind, and that it is in the power of government alone to produce this happy effect. A proposition so broad and repugnant to our general prepossessions will, in all likelihood, startle you and your readers; as indeed it did me, so much that I only entered the book as an army enters into an enemy's country merely to make war upon it, and refute a so seemingly strange paradox. However as I proceeded, I found that the author was evidently a man of sense and genius, and to all appearance a friend to virtue, and a lover of his species. His manner of writing is lively and agreeable, and some of your readers, at least the more discerning of them, will be convinced of the weight and importance of many things he advances.

He begins with asserting, and alas, it is too true to be controverted, that men, ever since they formed themselves into societies, have been preaching to one another with little or no success. He briefly demonstrates from the history of the old testament, that the preachers both before and after the flood made few converts. And when he comes to the time of our Saviour, he speaks in the following animated and elegant manner.

"It is not for us, worms of the earth, the children of darkness, blind in the book of life, to ask, why the light of the world did not purify the world by the fire of his word; why, after his death, both Jews and Gentiles continued what they were before? We know that he sent his apostles to preach to the nations; we know likewise that the nations, instead of attending to the apostles, put them to death, and that, till the days of Constantine, preaching made but few proselytes."

Here we must carefully distinguish between the conversion of the understanding and that of the heart; the establishment of a new worship, and the establishment of morals and manners. This is an important distinction, and I shall have occasion to return to it, by and by.

"Constantine spread christianity over those extensive countries that were subject to the Roman empire. Clovis introduced it into Gaul, Charlemagne into Germany, Ethelbert into Great Britain, &c.—A fine triumph for the ecclesiastical historians!!-Methinks I hear Gregory of Tours say to me, "Cast your eye over Gaul, and behold in the temples which are rising every where in honour of the true God, those altars, that cross, that sacrifice, those sacraments, those public prayers, those humiliations, those marks of penitence, that hierarchy of pastors to preserve the sacred depositum of the faith."

"I see them; but I see at the same time kings and queens with crosses on their foreheads, and crimes in their hearts. I see a Clovis, with the cross on his face, shedding the blood of five princes, his own relations, in order to invade their little territories."

The author soon after proceeds to observe, that the present manner of preaching is ill calculated to warm the imagination or reach the heart; that the preachers of other religions have been as unsuccessful as those of the true; and that preaching, in every

age and country, has been more successful in recommending evil than good. He then proceeds thus:

"But there have been preachers of another sort, who, without attending to the altar, have preached good morals; let us see what success they have had. I begin with the poets, the first instructers of mankind, who have the best claim to the attention of their hearers, as they always speak divine language, os divina sonans. We have nothing left of the works of Orpheus, who sung his morals before the days of the prophets. But if fable, in order to give us a high idea of them, tell us that he tamed the fiercest animals, and even softened the heart of Pluto; it tells us at the same time that he could not calm the amorous rage of the women of Thrace, who tore him to pieces, on account of his indifference;—a bad omen for these poets who were to preach virtue after him."

"Among the poets we are acquainted with, some have preached in heroics-such as Homer, Virgil, Lucan, Tasso, Camoens, Milton, and the author of the Henriade.-When the Iliad appeared, Greece was divided into as many parties as there were states in it. They were continually attacking each other, and intestine convulsions shook the general constitution. Homer foresaw the fatal consequences of their divisions, and employed the voice of reason, the force of example, the majesty of composition, the pomp of words, and all the charms of poetry, to show them the danger of discord: But, union no where appeared. Never perhaps was the Iliad more read or more admired than in the days of Pericles; because at that period, the taste and genius of the Greeks were at their height: Even the vulgar were struck with the beauties of poetry and eloquence. It is not necessary to cite the passages where Homer, always attentive to the great point he had in view, paints discord in the form of a famished monster, feeding on blood and carnage. It is sufficient for my purpose, to observe that the Greeks, whilst they were singing the verses of Homer, extolling his poetry, and the moral he inculcated, to the skies, were tearing one another in pieces."

"The wise Virgil, whilst he flattered the Romans in his Eneid, purposed to himself, no doubt, to rekindle expiring virtue in the breasts of his countrymen. Accordingly he sings of a hero, ever just, ever patient, ever brave, ever full of piety towards the gods. This is the principal character with which he marks him, pius Eneas, &c. and in order to inspire the greater horror of irreli