And still he owns, where'er his footsteps roam,

Life's choicest blessings centre all-at home." P. vii.

It is impossible not to laugh at vanity, and Mr. Dallas must excuse the liberty which we have taken, and could not restrain in the perusal of his preface. Had he only written the preface, we should have thought that he could have written a good farce! We owe him no ill-will for former punishments in our way of business, but on the contrary think him a one-eyed monarch among the blind novel-writers of the present day, and we have seen some of his little lyric effusions, set with much genius and taste by his friend MAJOR, which have improved our good opinion of his talents. As a dramatist, however, we must repeat that his first attempt is a coup manqué.

The Speculum, an Essay on the Art of Drawing in Water Colours; with Introductions for sketching from Nature, comprising the whole Process of a Water-coloured Drawing, familiarly exemplified in drawing, shadowing, and tinting a complete Landscape, in all its progressive Stages; Directions for compounding and using Colours, Indian Ink, or Bister. By J. Hassell. P. 32. 1s. 6d. Tegg. 1809.

THE greatest compliment we can pay this little manual is to say that we understand it, and that the art of drawing a land. scape is so simplified, as to have tempted us to lose a good half hour, and two fair sheets of paper, in pursuance of its directions. The essay is addressed to Miss E. WATSON, and had Mr. Hassel been instructing her in all things appertaining to the matrimonial state, he could not have concluded in more appropriate language:

"I believe, Miss, I have now given you ample directions, the practical part will of course rest with yourself. May the taste you possess please your friends, and success crown your endeavours!"

BRITISH STAGE.

We acted a play, written by one of the actors, and I admired how they should come to be poets, for I thought it belonged only to very learned and ingenious men, and not to persons so extremely ignorant. But it is now come to such a pass, that every body writes plays, and every actor makes drolls and farces; though formerly, I remember, no plays would go down but what were written by the greatest wits.

Quevedo's Life of Paul, the Spanish Barber.

WAR AND LOVE.

ALL must recollect how the Moor of Venice describes the sort of witchcraft, which he used to gain the love of Desdemonà.

The battells, sieges, fortune

That I have past.

I ran it through, even from my boyish days.

These things to hear,

Would Desdemona seriously incline.

I did consent

And often did beguile her of her tears.

My story being done,

She gave me for my pains a world of kisses.

She lov'd me for the dangers I have past,
And I lov'd her, that she did pity them.

Folio, 4th Ed. 1685.

I summon this recollection for the purpose of gratifying many of your readers with a striking coincidence in thought, which I find in Wither's Epithalamia. I think it a most interesting and delightful picture.

SOULDIER, of thee I ask, for thou canst best,
Having known sorrow, judge of joy and rest;
What greater blisse, than after all thy harmes,
To have a wife that's fair and lawful thine,

And lying prison'd 'twixt her ivory arms,
There tell what thou hast scap'd by powers divine,

How many round thee thou hast murthered seen,
How oft thy soule hath been neare hand expiring ;
How many times thy flesh hath wounded been :
Whilst shee thy fortune and thy worth admiring ;
With joy of health and pitty of thy pain,

Doth weep and kisse, and kisse and weep again.

Works of George Wither, p. 374, 1633.

**

SHAKSPEARE.

MERCHANT OF VENICE.

Lorenzo. The man that hath no music in himself,

Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons. Act v. sc. 1.

I never read any thing so foolish as STEEVENS' long note on Is there no this passage. LORD CHESTERFIELD is right. difference between an amateur and an artist; an admirer, and a performer; the audience and the orchestra; between him who listens and him who fiddles?

MACBETH. She should have died hereafter;

There would have been a time for such a word. Act v. sc. 5. By a word, STEEVENS says, is meant more than one word, and JOHNSON had supposed that we should read a world, making the speech incoherent. Read award.

MACBETH. Till famine cling thee. Act v. sc. 5.

Steevens writes a tedious note to induce us to believe that Had we not better to cling, signifies to shrivel, or shrink up. read wring?

Thy flame at Luna's lamp thou light'st,
Blank is the verse that thou indit'st,

Thy play is damn'd, yet still thou writ❜st,
My Godwin.

And still to wield the grey goose quill,

When Phoebus sinks to feel no chill,

"With me is to be lovely still,"

My Godwin.

On whither so fast do ye guiltily fly,

With pistol in hand, and revenge in your eye?
What! have ye not lavish'd enough British blood,
Then, gentlemen, why add your own to the flood?
Not now is your vigour preparing to act,
On DENMARK in peaceful alliance attack'd;
Ye are not, sage heroes, to WALCHEREN rushing,
To wrestle with Death in the ditches of FLUSHING;
No foe do ye now with SIR ARTHUR defy,
Who flying to conquer, but conquers to fly.
These glories already encircle your brow,
And only one triumph is left to you now;