as they are able, to support the lord mayor at the high board, to the evident chagrin of Gog and Magog, who on their brackets are seemingly not more than four heads high, and show their legs at least dreadfully foreshortened.

Kean, I think, would be glad to know, that in a basso-relievo, pretty near the date of Bosworth Field, Richard has just received the last blow from Richmond, and is fallen to the earth; in this position, he grasps the crown he wore upon his helmet, convulsively, with both hands, as even in death desirous to keep it from the usurper.

This sculpture, reasonably good, was, and perhaps still is, over the chimneypiece, in the library of Gosfield Hall, Essex, the seat of the Duke of Buckingham.

It is time to return to the modern drama. Maria Geisweiler had made for Sheridan the translation of "Pizarro," and after his improvements, in the English taste, favoured the Germans by rendering the same into their language. She therefore next, by corresponding with Kotzebue, was favoured with his manuscript of "Joanna de Montfaucon," and translated that into English also, expecting a similar result as to "Joanna." Sheridan, however, having possessed himself of

the "Mines of Peru," was not inclined to court any additional toil, and "Joanna" fell to the lot of Cumberland; but whether Kotzebue was pleased or displeased with the liberties taken by Sheridan with "Pizarro," he was not indifferent as to his fame in England, and finding that Cumberland had merely taken his fable and even debased some of his characters, he hastened to disavow the trash grafted upon his stock, by a public address in the newspapers signed with his name. friends of Cumberland held this to be unnecessary, because he had himself published his avowal that "he was responsible for every sentence in the drama, with the exception of a very few unimportant periods."

The

But surely Kotzebue was justified in the course he took a printed avowal of authorship reaches only those who read the play. Common fame states that a play written by Kotzebue was but indifferently received on the London stage. His fame is affected by it-the charm seems to be dispelled a suspicion is excited, at least among the English, that his success before was derived from his adapters, and that Cumberland having less tact than Sheridan, the German failed of course. Fortunately for Kotzebue in the case

of "Joanna," he was told by our critics what was disliked in Cumberland's perversion, rather than version of his play, and therefore, to all the points of objection, fairly answered that he had never written such stuff, nor drawn such characters. The German author is usually irritable.

Cumberland's "Joanna" had some music by Mr. Busby, and, highly decorated, was produced at Covent Garden Theatre on the 16th of January, 1800. Mr. Harris might expect something from the union of Kotzebue and Cumberland, but the piece lingered on to its eleventh repetition, when, on the 8th of February, Morton, with one of his unexpensive comedies, "Speed the Plough," rendered the manager safe for the rest of the season. It was acted forty times the first run of it, in the short space of four months.

Mrs. Jordan was now returned to her long list of attractions at Drury Lane, and among the novelties afforded her was a comedy by Mr. Prince Hoare, acted the 10th of May, which seemed to be written as a counterpart to the "East Indian;" it was called "Indiscretion," and exposed, roundly enough, the folly of leaving the paternal roof, and accepting the protection of some man of honour, who cannot submit to be

bound by the laws. The very devil possessed the stage of Europe just now; not a single mortal could write but upon the subject of seduction a hateful, treacherous, and unmanly vice. Hoare's "Indiscretion" was better treated by the theatre than his farce, called the "Children, or Give Them Their Way," in which, also, Jordan acted for the general favourite, Bannister's, benefit. The performers of this splendid theatre scarcely knew a word of it, and to give them their way was, in truth, perdition to the "Children." But we now approach very serious matter indeed.

On the 15th of May, 1800, there was a fieldday of the grenadier battalion of guards in Hyde Park, and that fine body of men was reviewed by his Majesty. During the evolutions, a ball cartridge, by accident, was fired from the ranks, and a Mr. Ongly was wounded. No aim, certainly, could here have been taken at the king, for his Majesty was on horseback, and about eight yards distant, on the same line with the gentleman shot. Had that gentleman been the same distance from the king, behind his Majesty, an evil intention might have been inferred and plausibly maintained. It, notwithstanding, challenged particular remark on account of what we are next to state.

Mrs. Jordan's Hypolita was, certainly, one of the most diverting exhibitions on the stage; and their Majesties, with the Princesses Augusta, Elizabeth, Mary, and Amelia went on this memorable day to Drury Lane Theatre to enjoy a hearty laugh at the bustle of "She Would and She Would Not," and the "Humourist," a farce by Cobb, in which the Dabble of Bannister was supposed a caricature of Patence, the dentist. The farce had the honour of being recommended by Edmund Burke to Sheridan, in the year 1785.

His Majesty had just entered his box, and was bowing to the usual applause from the audience, when a man started up from the second row of the pit, about the middle of the bench, and suddenly levelling a horse-pistol at the royal box, fired it. The house was, for a few moments, panicstruck; the neighbours of the man in the pit seized him, and he was passed by persons in the orchestra across the palisades, and thence into the music-room of the theatre. He had dropped the pistol under his seat.

Nothing could surpass the fortitude of his Majesty. Seeing the queen about to enter the box, the king waved his hand to her, that she might for a time keep back. But to remove all apprehen