require more investigation we make these extracts from them: "It appears as if the writer of this play had said, "previous (previously) to the commencement of the task, "I will shun the faults imputed by the critics to modern "dramatists, I will avoid farcical incidents, broad jests, "the introduction of broken English, whether provincial or "Hibernian. Vain is the forecast of both man and woman! "What is the event of her cautious plan? Has she produ"ced a good comedy? No: she has passed from one ex"treme to another; and in attempting to soar above others, “' she has fallen beneath herself.” Can Mrs. Inchbald be surprized at this, after saying that "various personages of the drama, however disunited, amuse the looker-on; while one "little compact family presents a sameness to the view, like "unity of place, and wearies the sight of a British audience fully as much." Could she look at the Dramatis Personæ, and suppose the play would be popular? Or when she allows also, that "incidents must be numerous, however unconnected, "to please a London audience, who seem, of late, to expect (6 a certain number, whether good or bad," how could she hope that simplicity, which is the avowed characteristic of the play, could ever make it a favourite with the public? Mrs. Inchbald pays too high a compliment, even to the most exalted genius, to suppose it possibly capable of "giving to a "play of simple construction, all those attractive powers "which every complex drama is sure to produce.”

To the comedies of Mr. Holcroft our authoress seems very partial: this remark on the Road to Ruin,' seems as singular a piece of dramatic panegyric, as ever was written: "The 46 scenes between Dornton and his son, are not like scenes in a play, but like occurrences in the house of a respectable "banker, who has a dissipated though a loving and beloved We have always considered the merit of imitation of every kind, but especially of dramatic imitation, to draw incidents and situation, which, without going beyond the

son.

bounds of probability, shall produce stronger interest than is usually found in the events of real life.

After what has been said on Mr. Cumberland's Wheel of Fortune, Mrs. Inchbald's eulogium on the Stranger is not wonderful though when she chose so strongly to advocate the cause of an adultress, it is to be lamented, that she introduced so sacred an authority.

Heaven may forgive a crime to penitence,

Because Heaven knows if penitence is true.

But the dramatic poet is bound to respect the opinions of mankind. In the eye of popular opinion, the character of a woman is degraded by want of chastity, as that of a man is by want of courage; and he would be a bold writer who should venture to draw a coward as an object of respect.

The remark on the catastrophe (which is certainly highly affecting) is very curious, as suggesting a doubt, whether the concluding embrace was really cordial, or that the endearment was only transient, to be followed by perpetual remembrance of former injury. Such an enquiry would destroy all the pleasure we feel, from every play that has a happy catastrophe, and is equally applicable to the interesting réconciliation of Lord and Lady Townly.

It is difficult to conceive on what principle De Montfort could be introduced among a collection of plays "which are acted at the London Theatres," since it was only brought forward to gratify one actor, was very coldly received, and acted for a very few nights. We acknowledge the merit of Miss Baillie as a poet, but her poems, though dramatic, are not calculated to please in representation: neither, while we doubt of the consistency of inserting the tragedy in this collection, can we censure a circumstance that has given occasion for so much excellent dramatic criticism. Great truth, mixed with perhaps a little too strong a tincture of compliment, will be found in this passage: "Theory and practice are very dif

"ferent things, and perhaps so distinct is the art of criticism "from the art of producing good plays, that no one critic so "good as herself, has ever written a play half so good as De "Montfort." Without saying any thing of the high panegyric at the conclusion, the whole history of the Drama confirms the general observation. What Mrs. Inchbald says of the hatred of De Montfort, being carried to such an excess as to border on constitutional mania, is perfectly just, and such a character is not proper for the drama. A man like Lear, driven into frenzy by events within the course of drama, excites pity and terror in the highest degree; but "rooted antipathy with❝out ome more considerable provocation than is here ad"duced, is too like the first unhappy token of insanity," to be a proper object of dramatic imitation.

The last play in this collection, is Mr. Tobin's Honey Moon. After much merited praise on this very pleasing drama, and an interesting account of the author who did not live to witness its success, our fair critic says that “it is al"ledged, that the author, with all his talents, was deficient "of invention, and therefore he reminds his auditors too, "frequently of the plots and incidents of other plays." This, it must be confessed, is true; but when it is allowed, that “it "must also be confessed, that his choice of examples has been "directed by taste and judgment;" and that his imitations are of such poets as Shakspeare, or Beaumont and Fletcher, surely, if their merit has not suffered in the imitation, Mr. Tobin is entitled to no mean praise. Virgil will always rank with the first of poets, notwithstanding his obligations to Homer, to Hesiod, and to Theocritus.

The reader will perceive, that our criticism has not been extended to all the plays in this voluminous collection. As the remarks of Mrs. Inchbald, and not the plays themselves, were the objects of enquiry, such plays only are noticed as were prefaced by remarks that claimed particular attention, though in doing this, it was impossible to avoid some critical observations on

the dramas that were the object of these remarks. So many extracts have been laid before the reader, accompanied with observations on them as they occurred, that it may seem superfluous to add any general character of the work: suffice it to say, that most of the notes do credit to the taste and feeling of the amiable critic, and that the chief fault we have to find, is rather a too frequent affectation of singularity of opinion. There is perhaps no part of a critic's duty so difficult, as the steering carefully between the two extremes of too blind a deference to the authority of received opinion, or too wanton a deviation from it.

Shall the Reviewer be pardoned for wandering a little from his avowed object, just to mention a circumstance that struck him in the course of this review? As the manners of the age are no where so faithfully exhibited as on the stage, and as these plays are nearly given in chronological order, they afford a striking picture of the wonderful preponderance that the commercial interest has acquired within little more than half a century. The fine gentlemen, the Mirabells and even the Charles Oakleys of the stage, were men of family and landed fortune, and love and gallantry furnished both the distress and the fortunate catastrophe of the piece. At present, both the man of virtue and the man of intrigue are taken from the country-house; the distress and the difficulties, in the four first acts, originate from a ruined fortune: and in the fifth, the god of wealth appears to solve the dignus vindice nodus, in the shape of an unexpected will, or the arrival of a rich relation from abroad.

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LATIN AND ITALIAN POEMS OF MILTON, TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH VERSE, AND A FRAGMENT OF A COMMENTARY ON PARADISE LOST. BY THE LATE WILLIAM COWPER, ESQ. WITH A PREFACE, BY THE EDITOR, W. HAYLEY, ESQ. AND NOTES OF VARIOUS AUTHORS. For J. Johnson, St. Paul's Church-yard, and R. H. Evans, Pall-Mall, London, 1808.

The Editor of this volume having generously bestowed upon an orphan god-child of his deceased friend Mr. Cowper, whatever profits the sale of it may produce, has sent it into the world accompanied by the good wishes of every candid reader for its success, and as such, I sincerely hope his liberal motives have received, and will continue to receive, their merited gratification and reward.

Mr. Cowper, whose admirable translation of Homer will continue to rise in the estimation of all true judges, has certainly given proof of his very high respect for the author of Paradise Lost by condescending to employ his time and talents on a version of these minor poems, in which, if he discovered any very brilliant dawnings of that mighty mind, that afterwards broke forth with so much splendour, I must own they are lost upon me. I trust I know how I ought to appreciate the judgment of Mr. Cowper, and that also of his learned Editor, but I cannot think with the former that the Epitaphium Damonis is "a pastoral equal to any of Virgil's "Bucolics." (Pref. p. 13.)

That Samuel Johnson spoke contemptuously of this Elegy is not matter of such surprise to me, as that Mr. Cowper should so overrate it; for if I am not very grossly mistaken, the young acamedic, taking Ovid rather than Virgil for his mo del, has overcharged these Elegies with a puerile exuberance