son's disposition and talents, that they had made him completely an orange gourd soused in snow: by which I understand, that, with pretensions to enthusiasm and glow, he was, in reality, like that apparently flaming plant, watery and cold by nature. Of this coldness, generated by the restraints and the fastidiousness of modern taste and periodical public criticism, they are each unjust enough to complain, and to reproach the author for the productions of their own ice-house.

This consciousness has always repressed in my mind every idea of writing tragedy; but if I were obliged to assume the buskin, I would make a large dramatis personæ, people the stage well; endeavour to inspirit the representation by complicated business, and by numerous and contrasted characters. I would disdain to assume the fetters of the unities as to time and place, invented with a design to create a deception, which never did, never will, never can exist, for a single moment, in a rational mind, as Johnson has finely demonstrated in his preface to Shakespeare. It is by other means than the insane belief that the actors are really Cæsar and Antony, and the stage Rome, or Pharsalia, that the drama interests and affects. The mind readily accommodates itself to change of place, be the distance ever so wide; and as to time, if it extends beyond that of the re

presentation, an elapse must be supposed; and the elapse of years is as easily supposed as of weeks, or even of a single day or night. A boundless latitude, as to time, enables the author to exhibit the persons of his drama in various and contrasted situations.

In Shakespeare, we find the dramatic felicity which results from such emancipation—and, therefore I would emulate the freedom he asserted.

While I would avoid long declamation, my style should be impassioned, and consequently metaphoric, for metaphor is the natural language of a raised imagination and agitated heart.

Thus would I attempt the Shakespearean characteristics rather than those of the Grecian, the French, or the modern English drama. Therefore, whatever my audience might do as to groaning, hissing, and cat-calling, at least they should not sleep. I verily believe, had Richard III., Cymbeline, Hamlet, or any other of Shakespeare's most admired plays been written and presented now, they would be hissed, groaned, and cat-called: so completely has modern criticism vitiated and depraved the taste and feelings of the age. It is no wonder that the tragic muse has sunk— she is not permitted to soar; but, at every hazard,

and amidst every opposition, she should imp her eagle wings. Life is busy, eventful, and manycoloured: the stage should be the world's epi

tome.

LETTER XXXIV.

MISS PONSONBY.

Lichfield, April 3, 1799.

THAT your and Lady Eleanor's kind attentive cares have restored the health of your humble friend and follower of your fortunes, I congratulate you, my dearest Madam*. Concerning your own and mutual health, the kind letter, which I have now the honour to acknowledge, makes no mention. I therefore flatter myself it is unimpaired.

* The female servant who, when these ladies left their splendid connections in Ireland, twenty years ago, to seek a lettered retirement in Wales, pined a few months for their absence, and then set out to search for them in England, without any clue to direct her pursuit, since, to avoid solicitations to return, they had kept the scene of their retreat a secret even from their nearest relations and friends.-S.

Would to Heaven I could entertain for your peace as dear a certainty * !-but let me forbear to touch the jarring string, which you shun to vibrate;nor will I descant on my own increasing weakness from the augmenting tyranny of rheumatic dis

ease.

Correcting every proof-sheet of my emerging volume, has been a task at once engrossing and irksome. Yet was it not repented even in the most oppressive moments of lassitude. The proper or improper position even of commas and semicolons, is momentous to perspicuity. We cannot hope from the demons of the press a sedulous attention to them, and revisers are very prone to conceive a meaning in passages foreign from the author's conception, and hence to alter the punctuation so as to favour their own mistaken idea. There is no guarding against that danger, but by the author correcting the press himself. It is true his eye, conscious of what should be, is apt to overlook what is. This propensity has probably left several erroneous verbalisms in myself-revised sheets; but worse mischief had probably ensued from delegating that trust, even though the person so employed were a man of sense, and a scholar.

* On account of the present dreadful situation of their native Ireland.-S.

The desire which you say your numerous correspondents express to see my muse re-entered on the paths of publicity, is highly flattering, thorny as those paths are apt to prove. Considering that desire as sincere, it gratifies my hope of her welcome reception in the world; and, in the modester idea, that such avowed impatience is merely the wish of saying what they know will please those whom every person of taste desires to please, their courtierism must result from a belief thrice precious to my heart;-and thus, either way, am I gratified.

A friend of Mr Roscoe's lately sent me that gentleman's translation, in verse, of an ancient Italian poem, La Balia*, by Tansillio. By making immense boasts, in the preface, of the poetic merit of his original, Mr Roscoe made himself responsible for a very charming poem in an English dress. Either he has been fascinated by the grandeur and sweetness of the Italian language, into a very overweening appreciation of the merit of La Balia, or he has suffered the charms and graces, of which he boasts, to vanish from beneath his pen in their translation. It is, in truth, a drynurse in his versification, destitute of imagery, barren of metaphor, and nearly naked as to allu

The Nurse.-S.