tion prohibited him from this extreme originality, and was perpetually supplying him with thoughts, which would sometimes obtain the preference from his judgment, and would sometimes be mistaken for her own property by his invention. Original, however, he is; and of all the sons of song inferior in this requisite of genius only to Shakspeare. Neither of these wonderful inen was so far privileged above his species as to possess other means of acquiring knowledge than through the inlets of the senses, and the subsequent operations of the mind on this first mass of ideas. The inost exalted of human intelligences cannot form one mental phantasm uncompounded of this visible world. Neither Shakspeare nor Milton could conceive a sixth corporal sense, or a creature absolutely distinct from the inhabiters of this world. A Caliban, or an Ariel; a devil, or an angel, are only several compositions and modifications of our animal creation; and heaven and hell can be built with nothing more than our terrestrial elements newly arranged and variously combined. The distinc tion, therefore, between one human intelligence and another must be occasioned solely by the different degrees of clearness, force, and quickness, with which it perceives, retains, and combines. On the superiority in these mental faculties it would be difficult to decide between those extraordinary men, who are the immediate subjects of our remark: for, if we are astonished at that power, which, from a single spot, as it were, could collect sufficient materials for the construction of a world of its own, we cannot gaze without wonder at that proud magnificence of intellect, which rushing, like some mighty river, through extended lakes, and receiving into its bosom the contributory waters of a thousand regions, preserves its course, its name, and its character, entire. With Milton, from whatever mine the ore may originally be derived, the coin issues from his own mint with his own image and superscription, and passes into currency with a value peculiar to itself. To speak accurately, the mind of Shakspeare could not create; and that of Milton invented with equal, or nearly equal, power and effect. If we admit, in the Tempest, or the Midsummer's Night's Dream, a higher flight of the inventive faculty, we must allow a less interrupted stretch of it in the Comus: in this poem there may be something, which night have been corrected by the revising

judgment of its author; but its errors in thought and language, are so few and trivial that they must be regarded as the inequality of the plumage, and not as the depression or the unsteadiness of the wing. The most splendid results of Shakspeare's poetry are still urged, and separated by some interposing defect: but the poetry of the Comus may be contemplated as a series of gems strung on golden wire, where the sparkle shoots along the line with scarcely the intervention of one opake spot.

My Lord,

ORATORIOS.

To the Bishop of London,

IT is now near twelve years since I publicly addressed your Lordship, through the medium of a popular periodical work, on the disgraceful and impious melange which is suffered to be exhibited in the theatre on the Wednesdays and Fridays throughout Lent. My appeal was ineffectual, and this repetition may, perhaps, be equally successless. But as the practice which I then reprobated still continues, and my sentiments respecting it remain unaltered, I shall once more discharge my duty by directing your Lordship's attention to a subject which is so well worthy of it, in the hope that some remedy may be applied to an evil which no pious man can observe without shuddering, and which, as it amounts to little short of blasphemy, must be grievously offensive in the eyes of God.

My Lord, I presume that the prohibiting the performance of plays on those nights, arose from the consideration that the solemnity of the Lent Festival ought not to be disturbed by any amusements calculated to divert the mind from those serious and devout reflections which, at such a season, it is incumbent on every sincere Christian to indulge. But if I prove to your Lordship, as I trust I shall, that the "Lenten Entertainment" offered to the public with the avowed and admitted design of celebrating the passion of OUR SAVIOUR, and of exciting our devotions and gratitude by means of "sacred music,” is polluted by a mixture of words and subjects which, so far from being allied to any thing sacred, are, in the

strictest and most legitimate sense of the word, profane, often an incitement to mirth, and sometimes obscene; I shall then be entitled, I think, to demand of your Lordship that this abominable offence against morality and religion be prohibited for the future, unless some sufficient reason can be assigned why it has been permitted to continue so long.

Of SACRED MUSIC I am a fervent admirer, and my soul has often yielded to the divine enchanting ravishment' of Handel's Messiah. The composer has caught the sublimity of his subject, and I have felt myself agitated, during the performance, with alternate emotions of grief, awe, gratitude, delight, and adoration. But how have I been shocked with the intrusions which, not unfrequently, break in upon the sensations so appropriately excited. I speak now of the evenings when there are given what they call Grand Selections. Wheu transitions are made from Holy, holy, Lord, to the Soldier tir'd; I know that my Redeemer liveth, to Sir John Stuart and the Battle of Maida; Glory to God in the highest, to England's King and England's Glory;-Pious orgies, to O the pleasure;..Endless, mighty God, to Mad Bess. These transitions, my Lord, you must admit, are as abrupt to the imagination, and as grossly sacrilegious, as if your Lordship were to dance a hornpipe in the middle of a charity sermon, or the organist to strike up a jig tune after the first verse of an anthem. Let us see how well such a selection of sacred music accords :

"O God when thou appear'st, &c."

"Tears such as angels weep

"The Lord is a man of war"

"He was eyes unto the blind"

"Lord what is man"

"He gave them hailstones"

"

"Bacchus' blessings are a trea->

sure,

Drinking is the soldier's plea

sure."

"The prince unable to conceal his pain,

Gaz'd on the fair,

Who caus'd his care,

And sigh'd and look'd, and sigh’d and look'd,

Sigh'd and look'd, and sigh'd again:

At length, with love and wine at once oppressed,

"Where is this stupendous The vanquish'd victor sunk upon

Here we have in this musical masquerade the most af fecting and awful passages of Scripture combined with the fables of the heathen mythology, and the mirthful rhapsodies of our own poets: The Lord is a man of war, and a British army defeating the French in Sicily; the King of Kings, and George the Third; The mighty God, and Mad Bess; Tears such as angels weep, and Laughter holding both his sides; Christ feed. ing his flocks like a shepherd, and Dancing nymphs and merry kidlings; soldiers and drinking; Bacchus and Polyphemus; Our Saviour expiring on the cross, and a drunken hero sinking on the breast of a Grecian courtezan !!

And this, my Lord, is sacred music! This is the blasphemous hodge-podge at which your Lordship (not without serious and repeated notice) has connived; which the Legislature sanctions; and which the Lord Chamberlain, who seems to be satisfied with holding his office without discharging its duties, has not thought proper to interrupt. Such is the celebration of that great event in which all the Christian world is interested, and to make way for which the actors are driven from their own boards; as if a moral drama, inculcating virtuous sentiments, were not infinitely preferable to an Oratorio, which, while it affects to praise and to adore, treats the Divine Majesty with a species of mockery and insult, worse a thousand times, in my opinion, as coming from believing CHRISTIANS, than that which the disbelieving JEWS offered to the MESSIAH, when they spit upon

him, and bowing their knees in derision, worshipped him, and gave him gall and vinegar to drink.'

I am more particularly induced at the present moment to address your Lordship upon this subject, because a kind of half measure has been adopted, this Lent, to prevent its being violated by public exhibitions. Mr. Palmer, who last season was allowed to give Readings at the Lyceum, has been forbidden to repeat them. Öther places of evening amusement, heretofore open, have also been closed. The public are debarred from enjoying a a recreation in itself allowable and innocent, but they may go without impediment to the theatre; because that place, though shut against its rightful tenants is fully authorized to burlesque the Christian religion, its followers, its ministers, and its adorable Founder.

I shall expect next year to see the Bishop of London, and the Lord Chamberlain of the Household, standing at the Two Box Doors with the Crozier and White Staff, publicly inviting the people to assist at this solemn mockery. I am, my Lord, Good Friday, March 27, 1807.

Your Lordship's very humble servant,

CLERICUS.

THE FIRST AND SECOND FOLIO EDITIONS OF

SHAKSPEARE.

From Mr. Beloe's Literary Anecdotes.

PERHAPS there is no book in the English language which has risen so rapidly in value as the first edition of the works of our great natural poet.

I can remember a very fine copy to have been sold for five guineas. I could once have purchased a superb one for nine guineas. At the sale of Dr. Monro's books it was purchased for thirteen guineas; and two years since, I was present when thirty-six guineas were demanded for a copy.

I take this opportunity of correcting a mistake of Mr. Steevens, relative to the second folio edition of Shakspeare.