Vol. I. P. 68. DEDICATIONS.

Warton, Vol. III. p. 444. notices the common practice, about the reign of Elizabeth, of our authors, dedicating a work at once to a number of the nobility. Chapman's Translation of Homer, has sixteen sonnets addressed to lords and ladies. One Henry Lock, in a collection of two hundred religious sonnets, mingles with such heavenly works, the terrestrial composition of a number of sonnets to his noble patrons; and not to multiply more instances, Spenser, in compliance with this disgraceful custom, or rather in obedience to the established tyranny of patronage, has prefixed to the Fairy Queen, fifteen of these adulatory pieces, which, in every respect, are the meanest of his compositions. At this period all men, as well as, writers, looked up to Peers, as on beings on whose smiles or frowns all sublunary good and evil depended.

Vol. I. page 73. DESTRUCTIONS OF BOOKS.

One of the most striking facts which ought to be noticed, is, that conquerors destroy at first with the rashest zeal the national records of the conquered people! hence it is that the Irish deplore the irreparable losses of their most ancient national memorials, which their invaders have been too suc➡ cessful in annihilating. The same event occurred in the conquest of Mexico, and the interesting history of the New World, must ever remain im

perfect, in consequence of the unfortunate success of the first missionaries, who too late became sensible of their error. Clavigero, the most authentic historian of Mexico, continually laments this affecting loss.-Every thing in that Country had been painted, and painters abounded there, as the scribes in Europe. The first missionaries, suspicious that superstition was mixed with all their paintings, attacked the chief school of these artists, and collecting, in the market-place, a little mountain of these precious records, they set fire to it and buried in the ashes the memory of many most interesting and curious events. Afterwards, sensible of their error, they tried to collect information from the mouths of the Indians; but the Indians were indignantly silent; when they attempted to collect the remains of these painted histories, the patriotic Mexican, usually buried in concealment, the remaining records of his country, Vol. I. p. 430. TRAGIC ACTORS.

Two anecdotes are recorded of Betterton, the Roscius of his day, too remarkable not to be noticed on this subject. Davies, in his Dramatic Miscellanies, says, that when he performed Hamlet, his countenance, which was ruddy and sanguine, when he came to the scene of the third act, where the ghost appears, through the violent and sudden emotion of amazement and horror, turned instantly, on the sight of his father's spirit,

as pale as his neckcloth; and at the same time, his whole body seemed to be affected with a tremor inexpressible; had his father's ghost actually risen before him, he could not have been seised with more real agonies. This was felt so strongly by the spectators, that the blood seemed, likewise, to shudder in their veins, and they in some measure participated of the astonishment and horror with which they saw this excellent actor affected. In the Richardsoniana, we find that the first time Booth attempted the ghost, when Betterton acted Hamlet, that actor's look at him, struck him with a dread and horror, which disconcerted him to such a degree, that he could not speak his part.

The reader who has not been of late (except in the solitary instance of a great female actress) accustomed to any circumstance like this, may be inclined to reason about Betterton's marvellous acting, rather than feel it, in the degree the writers would impress us with.

Vol. II. page 2. LITERARY FOLLIES.

Lord North (writes Lord Orford) one of the finest gentlemen in the court of James I. has written one set of a sort of Sonnets, each of which begins with a successive letter of the alphabet. The Earl of Rivers, in Edward IV.'s reign, translated the moral proverbs of Christiana of Pisa—it is a poem of about two hundred lines, the greatest

part of which he contrived to make conclude with the letter E; an instance of his lordship's hard application, and the bad taste of an age, which (Lord Orford observes) had witticisms and whims to struggle with, as well as ignorance.

The following are strange inventions, which originate in the wilful bad taste of the author. OTTO VENIUS, the master of Rubens, is the author, or designer, of a collection of emblems, when emblems formed the fashionable literature, and has taken his subjects from Horace; but certainly his conceptions were not Horatian! He takes every image in a literal sense. Spence has observed several. If Horace "Misce stultitiam CONSILIIS BREVEM,"

says,

behold Venius, takes brevis personally, and represents folly, as a little short child! of not above three or four years old! In the emblem which answers Horace's "Raro antecedentem scelestum deseruit PEDE PÆNA CLAUDO," we find Punishment with a wooden leg,-And for "PULVIS ET UMBRA SUMUS," we have a dark we have a dark burying vault with dust sprinkled about the floor, and a shadow walking upright between two ranges of urns. For “Virtus est vitium fugere, et sapientia prima stultitia caruisse," most flatly he gives seven or eight Vices pursuing Virtue, and Folly just at the heels of Wisdom. I saw in an English bible printed in Holland, an instance of the same taste; The artist to illustrate "Thou seest the mote in thy neigh

bour's eye, but not the beam in thine own," has actually placed an immense beam which projects from the eye of the caviller, to the ground!

As a contrast to the too obvious taste of VENIUS, may be placed Cesare di RIPA, who is the author of an Italian work, which has been translated into most European languages. Iconologia, the favorite book of the age, and the fertile parent of the most absurd children, that Taste has known. Ripa,

darkly subtile, as Venius is lucidly gross; and as farfetched in his conceits, as the other is too obviously liberal. Ripa, represents Beauty by a naked lady, with her head in a cloud; because the true idea of beauty, is hard to be conceived! Flattery, by a lady with a flute in her hand, and a stag at her feet, because stags are said to love music so much, that they suffer themselves to be taken, if you play to them on a flute. Fraud with two hearts in one hand, and a mask in the otherhis collection is too numerous to point out individual instances. Ripa also describes how the allegorical figures are to be coloured; Hope, is to have a skye-blue robe, because she always looks towards heaven. Enough of these Capriccios!

Vol. II. p. 189. at the bottom after the words, "Some may be said to have died of criticism.”

To the various instances adduced, we may add the fate of one Abbé Cassagne; a man of learning, and not destitute of talents. He was intended to