in his finances, and farther established in his reputation; enjoying the otium cum dignitate at North End upon an enlarged scale; holding out the strongest excitements to good society, entertainment for both mind and body.'

It is with sorrow that we see the latter part of the life of this British Aristophanes clouded with cares. Indeed, he may be said to have fallen a victim to the most infamous calumny. He had been involved in a dispute with the celebrated Duchess of Kingston, in consequence of being suspected of intending to represent her on the stage as Lady Kitty Crocodile, in the Trip to Calais; into which play he had also introduced a character, supposed to represent a person who was in her confidence, under the title of Dr. Viper*:

From the first report of Foote's Trip to Calais being in contemplation, obscure hints and inuendoes appeared occasionally in the newspapers, relative to his private character; which, from various circumstances, as from their particularly appearing in the newspaper of which Jackson was editor, the public unanimously attributed to this man. On the representation of The Capuchin, this plan of calum ny began to assume a more settled form; and a report was indus triously circulated about the town, that a charge would soon be brought forward in a judicial form against the manager of the Haymarket Theatre for an attempt to commit a very odious assault.'

A bill of indictment was afterward preferred, in consequence of which a trial commenced in the court of King's Bench; and the result was that the Jury, without leaving the box, returned their verdict of not guilty :-but it was beyond the power of any verdict to remedy the ill effects of the prosecution on Foote's health:

Though he had many respectable persons much interested in his behalf, none seemed more anxious than his old friend, and fellow labourer in the dramatic vineyard, the late Mr. Murphy; who, as soon as the trial was over, took a coach, and drove to Foote's house in Suffolk-street, Charing-cross, to be the first messenger of the good tidings.

* Of this person the following account is here given :

'He was a clergyman of the name of Jackson, better known by the assumed title of Dr. Jackson, who had for many years supported himself partly as an editor of a newspaper in London, and always by a life of shift and expediency. He at this time mostly resided at Kingston-house, and was supposed to be of her Grace's cabinet council. This man, after going through a variety of adventures incident to such characters, at last settled in Ireland: where his restless and intriguing spirit led him to join the rebellion in that kingdom in the year 1797, for which he was tried and found guilty; but saved himself the disgrace of a public execution, by taking poison the night before his receiving sentence of death.’

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• Foote had been looking out of the window, in anxious expecta tion of such a message. Murphy, as soon as he perceived him, waved his hat in token of victory; and jumping out of the coach, ran up stairs to pay his personal congratulations: but alas! instead of meeting his old friend in all the exultation of high spirits on this occasion, he saw him extended on the floor, in strong hysterics; in which state he continued near an hour before he could be recovered to any kind of recollection of himself, or the object of his friend's visit.

• On the return of his senses, finding himself honourably acquitted, he received the congratulations of his friends and numerous acquaintances, and seemed to be relieved from those pangs of uncertainty and suspence which must have weighed down the firmest spirits on so trying an occasion. But the stigma of the charge still lingered in his mind; and one or two illiberal allusions to it, which were made by some unfeeling people, preyed deeply on his heart. The man who for so many years had basked in the sunshine of public favour, who was to live in a round of wit and gaiety "or not to live at all," was ill calculated to be at the mercy of every coarse fool, or inhuman enemy.'

Foote did not long survive this shock, but died at Dover in his way to France, on the 21st of October, 1777, in the fiftyseventh year of his age.

Vols. II. and III. of this work are occupied by remarks on Foote's character, public and private, and by a collection of the bon-mots, characters, opinions, &c. of Foole and his cotemporaries. Drs. Monsey, Johnson, Swift, and Franklin, Garrick, Burke, the Delavals, Rich, Hiffernan, Murphy, &c. &c. occasionally figure in this assemblage; and many amusing anecdotes are introduced that are new to us, as well as many more that we have before heard. In his preface, Mr. Cooke thus speaks of this part of his publication:

Of the characters, anecdotes, opinions, &c., most were related by Foote himself, and many by the literary society in which he lived. Some, being either referred to in the range of conversation, or growing out of a corresponding subject, the Editor thought fit to subjoin, from a wish to give to the original matter a richness of appropriate colouring and diversification.

In short, this part may be considered not only as the school of Foote, but of his time: where the hero is discovered among his friends and cotemporaries in his night-gown and slippers;" where the wit, the whim, the humour, the taste, and general character, of the man will be best seen; and where perhaps will be found the best apology for many parts of his life; as he who had such jocular propensities, with such inexhaustible sources for pleasing mankind, could have no serious views of ever becoming their enemy."

The subsequent anecdote of Garrick is related as original; and we certainly do not recollect to have before met with it: • When

When Garrick first undertook to play Bayes, in The Rehearsal, he had some doubts of the propriety of taking off his brother performers; and therefore made a proposal to Giffard, the manager of the theatre in Goodman's fields, to permit him to begin with him as a kind of an apology for the rest. Giffard, supposing that Garrick would only just glance at him to countenance the mimicry of the others, consented: bat Garrick hit him off so truly, and made him so completely ridiculous, at rehearsal, that Giffard, in a rage, sent him a challenge; which Garrick accepting, they met the next morning, when the latter was wounded in the sword arm.

The comedy of The Kehearsal had been during this time advertised for the Saturday night ensuing; but the duel intervening (which none but the parties and their seconds knew of at that time, and very few ever since), the play was put off for a fortnight longer, on account of the sudden indisposition of a principal performer. At the end of that time it came out with imitations of most of the principal actors; but Giffard was totally omitted.'

A criticism by the late Lord Orford, on the dramas of Beaumont and Fletcher, is also worth quotation:

The following letter, not published in any of his works, was written by the late Lord Orford in answer to a letter of lady C-n, requesting his opinion of The Scornful Lady by Beaumont and Fletcher, since altered to the comedy of The Capricious Lady.

"I return your Ladyship the Play, and will tell you the truth. At first I proposed just to amend the mere faults of language, and the incorrectness: but the farther I proceeded, the less I found it worth correcting; and indeed I believe nothing but Mrs. Abington's acting can make any thing of it. It is like all the rest of the pieces of Beaumont and Fletcher: they had good ideas, but never made the most of them; and seem to me to have finished their plays when they were drunk, so very improbable are the means by which they produce their denouement.

"To produce a good play from one of theirs, I believe the only way would be, to take their plan, draw the characters from nature, omit all that is improbable, and entirely re-write the dialogue; for their language is at once hard and pert, vulgar and incorrect, and has neither the pathos of the preceding age nor the elegance of this. They are grossly indelicate, and yet have no simplicity. There is a a wide difference between unrefined and vicious indecency: the first would not invent fig leaves; the latter tears holes in them after they are invented."

The supplementary dramatic pieces are not of much importance. They are followed by Foote's Defence of his Minor, in answer to some remarks on it, which was printed in a pam phlet in the year 1760, and noticed in our 23d Vol. p. 328.

ART. III. General Zoology, or Systematic Natural History, by George Shaw, M.D. F.R.S. &c. With Plates from the first Authorities and most select Specimens, engraved by Mr. Heath and Mrs. Griffith. Vol. VI. Insecta. 2 Parts. 8vo. pp. 520. with 137 Plates. 21. 12s. 6d. Boards. Kearsley. 1806.

VERY judiciously, Dr. Shaw prefaces this continuation of an elegant and important work with some general observations on insects, and a short notice of the Linnéan classification of these minute productions of animated Nature. In a few additional pages, he might have sketched the history of Entomology, accompanied by biographical anecdotes of the principal authors: but brevity and rapidity seem to have presided over this portion of his labours; and he not only dispenses with regular references and synonyms, but presses his exposition of the whole class of insects, which contains at least twenty thousand distinct species, into the compass of a single volume. Such a superficial view of the subject may satisfy the bulk of ephemerous readers, but must excite the regret of all who are in the least conversant in this department of Natural History; and who cannot avoid reflecting that many genera and numerous species are wholly omitted, and others very imperfectly eluci dated. With Dr. Shaw's powers of description and accuracy of observation, something more, we conceive, might have been easily accomplished, without incurring the risk of prolixity, or repelling those who are solicitous of instruction. As an entertaining and well-penned illustration of a few of the most remarkable kinds of insects, the present volume is intitled to very considerable commendation but it can hardly be regarded as forming a part of a regular and systematic series, We are, indeed, aware that the interests of knowlege are too often sacrificed to the influence of more mercenary motives; that the length of a moral treatise, or the dimensions of an Encyclopædia, must be regulated by the state of the literary market; and that undertakers must be obtained, who can adjust their communications to certain prescribed limits. Whether our skilful naturalist has found it expedient to submit to such trammels, we cannot pretend to determine: but we observe, with sincere satisfaction, that even within his very circumscribed boundaries, he selects the most alluring portions of his materials, and contrives to bestow popularity and interest on a subject which seemed to have exhausted the language of technical definition, and to have drawn on its votaries the unmeaning ridicule of the ignorant and the thoughtless.

The Coleopterous genera, which pass under the Doctor's rapid review, are, Scarabaus, Lucanus, Dermestes, Ptinus, Hister,

Gyrinus

Gyrinus, Pausus, Byrrhus, Silpha, Cassida, Coccinella, Chrysomela, Hispa, Bruchus, Curculio, Attelabus, Cerambyx, Leptura, Necydalis, Lampyris, Cantharis, Elater, Cicindela, Buprestis, Dytiscus, Hydrophilus, Carabus, Tenebrio, Meloe, Mordella, Staphylinus, and Forficula. Thus it is obvious that at least as many more are passed in silence; and if from the genera we descend to the species, it will suffice to remark that, according to the most recent discoveries, about five hundred of the latter are included under Scarabæus, only five of which are here particularized.

The ensuing account of Ptinus fatidicus is repeated from the Naturalist's Miscellany, a work published some time ago by the same author:

Among the popular superstitions which the almost general illu mination of modern times has not been able to obliterate, the dread of the Death-Watch may well be considered as one of the most predominant, and still continues to disturb the habitations of rural tranquillity with groundless fears and absurd apprehensions. It is not indeed to be imagined that they who are engaged in the more important cares of providing the immediate necessaries of life should have either leisure or inclination to investigate with philosophic exactness the causes of a particular sound: yet it must be allowed to be a very singular circumstance that an animal so common should not be more universally known, and the peculiar nois which it occasionally makes be more universally understood. It is chiefly in the advanced state of spring that this alarming little animal commences its sound, which is no other than the call or signal by which the male and female are led to each other, and which may be considered as analogous to the call of birds; though not owing to the voice of the insect, but to its beating on any hard substance with the shield or fore part of its head. The prevailing number of distinct strokes which it beats is from seven to nine or eleven ; which very circumstance may perhaps still add in some degree to the ominous character which it bears among the vulgar. These sounds or beats are given in pretty quick succession, and are repeated at uncertain intervals; and in old houses where the insects are numerous, may be heard at almost every hour of the day; epecially if the weather be warm. The sound exactly resembles that which may be made by beating moderately hard with the nail on a table. The insect is of a colour so nearly resembling that of decayed wood, viz. an obscure greyish brown, that it may for a considerable time elude the search of the enquirer. It is about a quarter of an inch in length, and is moderately thick in proportion, and the wing-shells are marked with numerous irregular variegations of a lighter or greyer cast than the ground-colour In the twen tieth and twenty-second volume of the Philosophical Transactions may be found a description of this species by the celebrated Derham, with some very just observations relative to its habits and general appearance; and it seems singular that so remarkable an insect should have almost escaped the notice of more modern entomologists. In

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