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VERY flight incidents often characterize a people. A French gentleman, once going in his cabriolet from Paris to Calais, was accofted by a man, who was walking along the road, and who begged the favour of him to let him put his great coat,, which he found very heavy, into the carriage. • With all my heart,' faid the gentleman; but if we should not be travelling to the fame place, how will you get your coat 'Oh, fir,' anfwered the other, with great naïveté, Je ferai dedans-I fhall be in it.'The gentleman immediately took him into his carriage.

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fled from the capital of his dominions, at a time when it was befieged by the Swedes. On this emergency, queen Philippa hero cally affumed the command of the Danish garrifon, and conducted the defence of the city in fo gallant a manner, that the enemy. were obliged to retreat. At another period, in the absence of her husband, Philippa fent a fleet against the Swedes, who had, at this time, shaken off the yoke of Denmark. She was not fo fortunate in this enterprise, and probably because the fleet was not commanded by this queen in perfon. But the gallant Eric, although he could not defend his kingdom, could beat his queen; and, upon his return, he revenged the difgrace of his arms, by treating her in fo cruel a manner as to occafion her death.

An Account of Ivy BRIDGE, in Devonshire: With a beautiful Perspective View of that Romantic Spot.

IVY

VY BRIDGE is a pleasant little village in the county of Devon, fituated on the banks of the river Arme, upon the high road leading from Exeter to Plymouth, from the laft of which places it is about eleven miles diftant. Though a fmall place, it has the fingularity of being in four parishes; for, being built upon the precife fpot where the angles of the four meet, part of it happens to ftand in each. Its fituation is extremely rural and picturefque, having, on the north, the rude barren mountains of Dartmoor, and, on the fouth, one of the most fertile and beft cultivated countries in the kingdom; while the river, which runs with great rapidity through it, having its courfe interrupted by many huge maffes of granite, which lie in a confused manner in its bed, forces its way among them with great noife and impetuofity, and, when fwelled with heavy rains, exhibits a very romantic appearance. As the road croffes it near the entrance of the village, a bridge, from which probably the village derives its name,

has been thrown over it for the convenience of travellers. A little above the bridge, is a confiderable paper manufactory, where very excellent paper is made, notwithstanding the waters of the river, which are used in the manufacturing of it, are deeply tinged with brown, by the foil through which they pafs; but as the fubftance which communicates this tinge is in a ftate of entire folution, and the water perfectly tranfparent, the colour of the paper is not found to be fenfibly affected by it. The river rifes in the foreft of Dartmoor, which approaches very near the village on the north, and by its vicinity greatly increases the feverity of the cold in winter, the fnow frequently lying here to a confiderable depth; when at Plymouth, and other places, only a few miles diftant, there is no appearance of any fnow to be feen. This forest, as it is called, is of great extent, being about thirty miles long and twenty broad. The whole of it is very elevated ground, and it is almost entirely covered with hills, fome of which are

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fo lofty, that the fea, on both fides of thefe, however, have been fo much rethe island, may be discovered from duced within the laft fifty years, that the tops of them, where are to be feen at prefent they are very rarely feen, likewife the ruins of fome ancient and it is imagined that the breed is beacons, conftructed for the purpose nearly extinct. The prince of Wales, of alarming the country upon the ap- as duke of Cornwall, is lord of the proach of an enemy. The greateft foil of Dartmoor, and an acknowpart of this tract abounds with that ledgement is annually paid to him for fpecies of granite, commonly called all cattle driven out to pafture there moorstone, which generally lies fcat- during the fummer. Its extent, howtered upon the furface in detached ever, is continually diminishing, by a pieces of various fizes, but in fome very fingular custom, which prevails places is found piled up in enormous in its neighbourhood. Whenever there maffes, upon the tops of the higheft is a fresh take of an eftate adjoining hills, in a most wonderful and astonish- to the Moor, that is, whenever it paffes ing manner. One of thefe ftupen- out of one hand into another, the new dous natural structures, was a few years proprietor is at liberty to inclose a ago, ftruck by lightning, and several certain portion of the Moor contiguvaft fragments of ftone were thrown ous to it; and as the ground was in down into the valley below. Many many places very capable of improvemines of tin and lead have been dif- ment, these inclosures were found fo covered, from time to time, among profitable, that it often happened upon the hills, very few of which are at the fale of an eftate, that instead of present worked, and those which are, being conveyed to the purchaser imare not reckoned very productive. mediately, it was conveyed firft to a The greateft part of the forest of Dart- truftee, and by him, perhaps, to a moor, is fuppofed, as its name imports, fecond, and fo to a third, before the to have been, in very remote times, real conveyance was made by the last covered with wood; but there is now to the purchaser; by which means, as fcarcely a tree upon it. It is with all thefe perfons made their fucceffive much more certainty known to have inclosures, a large tract of land was contained great numbers of red deer, eafily gained. This practice, however, at no very diftant period, which being being justly deemed to be a fraud much larger and ftronger than the upon the custom, great complaints common fallow deer, generally held have been made upon the subject, and the chace longer, and afforded moft measures have been taken to prevent admirable sport. The numbers of a repetition of it in future. An ESSAY on the most celebrated WRITERS of TRAGEDY among the ANCIENTS and MODERNS.

SCHYLUS, the Athenian Shakfpeare, if I may fo exprefs myself, has been ever acknowledged the father of tragedy, and was fo declared to be by the decree of the Athenian fenate. Thefpis and Phrynicus, it is true, had, before his time, given fomething like a regular form to the poetical devotions paid to Bacchus, by continuing the fame actor and the fame ftory between all the different paufes of the festive hymn, and laying a foundation for the adapt

ing of the lyric parts of the entertainment to the recited ftory. But ftill this could have constituted nothing more than a mere poetical narrative, embellished with occafional flights of fancy, attuned to inftrumental melody, and accompanied with descriptive dances. But the dialogue, and, in all probability, the ftrong and ac tive paffions of the foul, were first introduced by Æfchylus, who, changing the itinerant cart for the characteris tic fcene and decorated stage, laid

the real foundation for all the honours of an individual who deferved, and of the Grecian buskin. who obtained, the highest honours both in literature and in arms + ; his portrait being affociated with that of Miltiades himself, in the painting defigned to perpetuate the battle of Marathon ‡, and his ftature being erected by the great Lycurgus, together with thofe of Sophocles and Euripides.

Afchylus was defcended from an honourable Athenian family; and his martial fpirit, not inferior to the fublimity of his genius, having led him to the moft diligent study of the works of Homer, he formed, while he was yet very young, the bold defign of inventing a new fpecies of compofition, and of becoming, in the dramatic part of poetry, what his immortal master had already accomplished in the epic: a design which he began to carry into execution before he had attained his twenty-fifth year; and which he did not ceafe to profecute, till he had accomplished it in the most ample manner, by the production of near seventy plays, worthy, in every respect, of the flourishing fame of his maternal republic, then at the highest pinnacle of her glory. And this too he effected without neglecting any of the more active duties of a freeborn citizen; diftinguishing himfelf on the contrary, above his compatriots, among whom each individual was a hero, in the battles of Marathon, Salamis, and Platææ*; fo that we have here a fingular inftance

With refpect to the plan of this author's dramas, nothing can, in general, be more fimple. To the unity of his fcene he regularly adheres, and it may be observed, without any violence to the probability of the action. His dialogues alfo partake of the fame fimplicity. Whatever implicity of construction, however, we admit as characteristic of this writer, we cannot deny that he has alfo the more exalted praise of an imagination wildly fublime, figurative, and impaffioned. His conceptions are bold, his diction is richly poetical, and expreffive of the genuine effervefcence of enthusiasm ; a ftriking inftance of which is remarked by Mr. Jodrell, in the following paffage in the fecond scene of the Seven Chiefs againft Thebes,' and which may thus, perhaps, be rendered:

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Æfchylus, in point of military virtue, appears not to have been in the least difgraced by the fpirit of his two brothers; both of whom shared with him the dangers and honours of the memorable battle of Marathon. One of them, Cynæægyrus, was afterward one of the four naval commanders, who, with an armament of one thousand Grecians, defeated thirty thousand Perfians; but he loft his life in the action. The other, Amynias, during the fea-fight off Salamis, feizing too boldly upon one of the Perfian fhips, had his hand lopped off with a fabre. fchylus flew to his rescue, and preferved his life. After this, when the poet was unjustly accused of impiety, Amynias, who, ever fince the above circumftances, had been infeparable from his fide, ftepped forward, with all the zeal of affection and gratitude, to plead his caufe; and the judges, ftruck with fo moving a fpectacle of reciprocal tenderness, pronounced his acquittal. Æfchylus, however, refented this accufation fo highly, that he retired to the court of king Hiero in Sicily, where he died about three years after, in the 67th year of his age.

+ Germany, in the prefent century, has afforded another remarkable inftance of the kind, in the illuftrious Kleift, of whose Life we have given Memoirs in our Magazine for April last.

He was placed at the head of the ten commanders, and drawn in the act of encouraging the foldiers, and beginning the battle. Our fublime Collins, in his ‘Qde ta Fear, has a beautiful allufion to the martial spirit of this poet :

Yet he, the bard, who first invok'd thy name,
Difdain'd in Marathon its power to feel;
For not alone he nurs'd the poet's flame,

But reach'd from virtue's hand the patriot's steel.

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