Sept. 15. This evening the Hay-market Theatre_clofed for the prefent feason with Tit for Tat, and The Agreeable Surprife, and on the fucceeding night,

Sept. 16, Drury-Lane Theatre opened with the School for Scandal, and All the World's a Stage. On the following Monday,

Sept. 18, The Theatre of Covent Carden opened for the feason with the comedy of The Belles Stratagem, to which the reftoration of Mrs, Pope and Mrs. Mattocks gave, its original sprightlinefs and vigour. The part of Flutter was played by Mr. M'CREADY, from Dublin, whofe perfon and features, though neither ftrikingly elegant or expreffive, are fufficiently neat and regular to qualify him for the reprefentation of a variety of comic characters. He buftled through Flut ter with tolerable fuccefs, but the part does not fhew scope enough to enable the comedian to display his powers to full advantage.

Effay on Seduction. "Beneath the grafs conceal'd a ferpent lies." HERE is not a crime attended with ΤΗ worfe confequences than that of feduc. tion, there is not a crime to accomplish which fuch villainous means are purlued, nor is there a crime in which one party is looked on with lefs deteftation. The feducer facrifices every principle of friendship, honour, and virtue, and in many inftances tramples on the laws of hofpitality, to effectuate the ruin of the object of his paffion these remarks ftruck me more forcibly than ever in the ftory of Mifs R

She was the daughter of a worthy clergyman, who lived in a small village at a diftance from the metropolis; he brought her up in his own houfe, and being a man of letters, and her mother a woman of the best education, they took fuch pains with their daughter, that he was remarkable for her accomplishments; having too a most beautiful perfon, fweet temper, and engaging deportment, it was no wonder that the country refounded with her praises.

About feven months after her mother's death, L, in his way to his feat in the Weft of England, had occafion to pafs thro' the village where Mifs R. lived: two miles from the village his carriage overturned; Mr. R was walking near the fpot when he faw the accident, and haftening to the carriage, found his lordship had broke his leg he procured immediate affiftance, and conveyed him to his own house.

There the generous clergyman had his lordship's leg fet, and took the greatest care of him; and Mifs R- was not behind her father in the exercife of the gentle office of humanity; they attended lord Lwith the greatest affiduity and cheerfulness,

and his lordship, in reasonable time recovered. Lord L- , having returned many thanks to his kind hoft and his daughter, took his leave, and proceeded for his feat, deeply enamoured of Mifs R.

Lord L- — was a man of fashion and intrigue, had a confiderable fortune, an elegant perfon, and excellent understanding; he once had a good heart, but coming into poffeffion of great property at a very early age, he ran into every extravagance and folly, and foon eradicated those principles of virtue and morality which an amiable father and a finished education had planted in him.

During his ftay at his feat he could not ef face the impreffion Mifs R- had made on his heart; he came up to London, and endeavoured, in the pleasures of the town, to lofe the remembrance of her; he found his method ineffectual: there was no alternative, Mifs R— must be his wife, or he must impofe upon the hospitality of his generous friend, and reward it with the ruin of his daughter. His heart recoiled at this idea; but fearing the ridicule of debauched companions, before whom he had often laughed at the matrimonial state, and having imbibed ftrong prejudice againft it himself, he resolyed to attempt her virtue.

Arriving at the clergyman's house, he was welcomed with the greateft gladness, which was much increased when he declared his propofals, he being far from indifferent either to Mifs R- or her father; the firft had been ftruck with the elegance of his perfon and manners, and, unused to diffimulation, had feen nothing in his behaviour to make her think he was not a man of honour and integrity; the latter had formed the fame opinion of lord L-'s own manners, and the excellent character of his father.

It was not long before he accomplished his design; Mifs R- -, to whom the arts of feduction were unknown, and who had a great paffion for him, too easily surrendered. He left the house without taking leave either of Mifs R or her father; on his return to town made a boast of his fuccefs, and was congratulated on it by his companions. Mifs R- — having waited fome time with the greateft impatience and anxiety, hearing nothing of his lordship, began to entertain fufpicions of his treachery; the resolved to throw herfelf on his mercy, and in the tenderest and most pathetic terms wrote a letter to him; he returned no answer, but fhewed it to his libertine friends as a farther proof of his triumph.

Mifs R

abandoned herself to de fpair: her father was much furprised at lord L- 's abrupt departure, and could not tell to what caufe to affign it; but feeing his daughter's diftrefs, he interrogated her, and got from her the fatal fecret. He wrote to

lord

1786.

lord L, but kis letter, like his daughter's, received no answer; he endeavoured, therefore, to ease his daughter's heart, and his own as much as poffible; but this was rendered more difficult by learning by a friend in London how free lord L- had made with his daughter's character.

At this crisis, Mifs R's brother, an amiable youth, arrived from Gibraltar, where he had been ferving his country a few years: upon his arrival at home, where he hoped to find hilarity and happiness, how great was his regret, at feeing his much loved fifter ill of a fever contracted through grief, and his aged father plunged in diftrefs!

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His father informed him of the caufe, and with much difficulty prevailed on him to fmother his resentment, and go to London to have an interview with lord L--- and try to prevail on him to espouse Mifs R. The captain haftened to town, and there to his astonishment learned that his fifter's misfortune had been made quite public by his lordship; this circumstance his father had not informed him of; he, therefore, thought himself juftified, if lord L refused to marry his fifter, in calling him out. He went immediately to his lordship's houfe, and had an interview with him, in which he pofitively refused to marry his fifter, and treated captain R- with much infolence; the confequence was to meet in Hyde Park the next morning:

Being attended by their feconds, lord Land the captain met, they chefe a very small distance; the first piftol on each fide did no execution, but the fecond, from the captain ftruck lord L in the right fide, who immediately returned the fire, and laid the poor unfortunate officer dead.

The melancholy news of his fon's death was not long before it reached the clergy man; a letter from a friend informed him of the catastrophe. When the letter came he was fitting befide his daughter's bed; grief, for a moment, fufpended his vital powers, he dropped the letter, and fel back in his chair; recovering a little, he was taken by command of his daughter to his chamber: he had left the letter behind him on the bed, which the, expecting the worst, took up and read. The villainy of lord Lthe death of her brother in defending her caufe, were too ftrong for her tender frame, already much exhaufted, to bear. She fell into ftrong fits, from which no medical affiftance could recover her, and in the middle of the fame night expired.

and

The father of Mifs R― could scarcely bear the latter fhock, added to the former one, with patience; but knowing it was part of the duties of his function, to fubmit to the wife decrees of unerring Providence,

509 he compofed himself as well as his paternal affection would permit.

In the interim lord L-'s wound grew worse, and a fever enfued; his phyfician entertained little hopes of his life; on a fick bed reflection occurred to him, which health, the pleasures of the town, and a continued round of diffipation had prevented. He now reflected on the villainy of having feduçed the daughter of a kind friend, ruined her reputation, impaired her health, murdered her brother, and deftroyed the peace of mind both of her and her father. Repa ration was out of his power, he could but ask. her forgiveness, and his offences had been fo great as to warrant them both to deny him that. He fincerely lamented that he had departed from those principles of virtue that his father had taught him. To alleviate his anguish a little he wrote to Mifs R's father, imploring his and his daughter's (whole death he had not heard of, forgiveness.

The good old clergyman received this let ter the evening he had interred his daughter; at firft refentment would not permit him to open it: he was going to return it, but at length opened it, and thereby perceived the diftreffed fituation of his lordship's mind: the injuries he had fustained prompted him to give no answer, but his pity overcame his anger, and he wrote to lord Lafter gently upbraiding him with his breach of friendship, and the lofs of his two children, he gave him his forgiveness, and exhorted him to prepare himself for a future state.

Upon receipt of this letter, which was couched in the moft tender terma,' lord L-was more agitated than ever; his perfidy to fuch an amiable man rendered his perturbation too ftrong to be borne, he fell into ftrong convulfions, and, in a few hours, followed Mifs R- and her brother.

Need I obferve on the bafeness of lord

L- ? and yet this character is not yet reprehenfible in the eyes of men of fashion-I question if in any woman of fashion. Had he acted like a man of true honour, he might, have lived happy in the love of Mifs R the friendship of her brother, and the affection of her father.

How can a man glory in the virtue of his own fifter, and yet allow himfelf in the attempt of another's fifter? Can fuch a man as lord L-deferve pity? No-he who would betray and ruin the virtue of an innocent woman who loves him, ought to bę the deteftation of mankind.

The Imprudent Step. A Tale. IR Henry Lozan was of the number of those men, who are born to be virtuous, burg

probably, have mentioned fomething of it. It should likewife be remembered, that there fubfifted at that time, a fpirit of oppofition between the regular players and the academics of the two univerfities, the latter of whom frequently acted plays both in Latin and English, and feem to have piqued themselves on the fuperiority of their exhibitions to those of the established theatres: wifhing, probably, to manifeft this fuperiority to the royal pedant, it is not likely that they would chufe for a collegiate interlude, a fubject which had already appeared on the public ftage, with all the embellishments that the magic hand of Shakspeare could bestow.

This tragedy contains an allufion to the union of the three kingdoms, England, Scotland, and Ireland, under one fovereign, and alfo the cure of the king's-evil by the royal touch (act iv. fcene 1, 2); but in what year that pretended power was affumed by king James I. is uncertain. Macbeth was not entered on the Stationers book, nor printed till 1623.

At the time when Macbeth was fuppofed to have been written, the fubject, it is probable, was confidered as a topic the most likely to conciliate the favour of the court. In the additions to Warner's Albion's England, which were first printed in 1606, the ftory of the Three Fairies, or Weird Elves, as he calls them, is fhortly told; and king James's defcent from Banquo carefully deduced.

Ben Johnson, a few years afterwards, paid his court to his majefty, by his Mafque of Queens, prefented at Whitehall, Feb. 12, 1609, in which he hath given a minute detail of all the magic rites that are recorded by king James, in his book of Dæmonologie, or by any author ancient or modern.

Mr. Steevens hath lately discovered a MS. play, entitled the Witch, written by Thomas Middleton, which renders it queftionable, whether Shakspeare was not indebted to that author for the first hint of the magic introduced in this tragedy.-The fongs, beginning, Come away, &c. and Black Spirits, &c. being found at full length in Middleton's play, while only the two firft words of them are printed in Macbeth, favour the fuppofition, that Middleton's piece preceded that of Shakspeare; the latter, it fhould feem, thinking it unneceffary to fet down verses which were, probably, well known, and, perhaps, then in the poffeffion of the managers of the Globe Theatre. The high reputation of Shakipeare's performances likewife ftrengthens this conjecture; for it is very improbable, that Middleton, or any other poet of that time, fhould have ventured into thofe regions of fiction, in which our author had already expatiated.

Mr. Steevens hath produced fome curious

extracts from this old play, which, we are informed, "will be published entire, for the fatisfaction of the intelligent readers of Shakspeare."-In this play, fomewhat of that imagery that hath equally aftonished, charmed, and terrified us, in the closet and the theatre, in the tragedy of Macbeth, may be traced out by a curious and difcerning eye.

Shakspeare hath the admirable art not only of applying his borrowed parts with propriety, but of embellishing and improving them. He adds to them a grace and dignity, which, at leaft, are his own. In the tragedy of Macbeth, his fpirits, though fimilar in name to those of Middleton [particularly the prefiding deity hath in each the Grecian name of Hecate], yet they differ from Middleton's in almoft every effential attribute of conduct and character. Middleton's fairies are light, frisky beings, who wreak their malice on fmall culprits, and revenge little mischiefs. Shakspeare's are brought on the stage for purposes of higher account. They are to be the inftruments of dire events-revolutions that were worthy the councils of the gods. This great object was of fufficient importance to excufe the interpofition of supernatural beings. Hence, what Middleton invented to amufe, Shakfpeare's more daring genius improved into inftruments of terror. This he hath accomplished with wonderful propriety; and we admire that kill and power which, on fo flight a basis, could erect such a stupendous fabric.

Shakspeare's witches feem to be fully aware of the high importance of the fubject of their incantations, by the number of the ingredients which they throw into the cauldron. Hecate is anxious for its fuccefs; and enquires into the particulars of the infernal mixture. They folemnly caft in their refpective share of the compofition, but inftead of the griftle of a man banged after fun-fet, [i. e. a murderer, according to Middleton's play] they throw in the grease that's fweaten from a murderer's gibbet; and inftead of Middleton's fat of an unbaptised child, they mix with the other ingredients of the cauldron, the fingers of birth-firangled babes. Perhaps it may be impoffible to defcribe the precife difference in the energy of thefe expreffions. It must be felt from their several effects on the imagination. Confidered in that view, the difference is very great; at leaft, it is felt to be fuch by us; and from a variety of circumftances of this kind, we are perfuaded that Shakspeare never fat down to write from another's copy. His language was the natural expreffion of a mind fraught with the nobleft conceptions, and the most lively ideas; and when the whole of Middleton's play is published, perhaps, our con

victions