Ne le pourriez-vous point connoitre à ce portrait?

All languages have little idiomatic niceties, that are of vast importance, and defy translation. The timid, flat, cautious assent of the "A-PEU-PRES," is one of these.

Rendering the French philosopher an English gentleman of the Classic family, the Married Man proved sufficiently entertaining, and augmented the proverbial good humour of the summer audiences.

The younger Colman in the summer season produced the Battle of Hexham, at the little theatre. As he intended no great depth of plot or extent of interest, he compressed his play into three acts, and it has no fuller catastrophe than the flight of him for whom we are interested, and the escape of his Queen and Son. The language of his play is an imitation of that of Shakspeare; for this he does not assign so good a reason as he might do. He contents himself with saying that "the language of remote characters should conform to their dress." If Shakspeare himself had thought thus, he would not have written the language of his own period. The reason why it were best to imitate Shakspeare's language, (presuming the power,) is, that at no time, before or since, was the English tongue so decidedly poetical as in the reign of Elizabeth. It is therefore the richest and fittest garb for distant events, that partake, through tradition, of the romantic. He has another critical remark, "A coxcomb only would aspire to the resemblance of the boundless powers of Shakspeare. Boundless power can only be imitated by power unbounded; and power thus equal will not bind itself to imitation. It is always proper to aspire to the highest excellence. How nearly you approach it is a point to be settled by others. But Mr. Colman has happily not confined himself to verbal imitations. He thinks after Shakspeare's fashion, chiefly, however, in what is sportive. The following are lucky resemblances :

"Such a coil kept up with their two houses! One's so old and t'other's so old!

They ought both to be pulled down, for a couple of nuisances to the

nation."

"Adel.-How now fellow?

Fool.-How now, fool?

Adel.-What, sirrah! call you me fool?

Fool.-'Faith may I sir; when you call me fellow."

These seem to be recollections-they are only perfect imitations.

Shakspeare but seldom expatiates upon verbal niceties. He has done so once in the Antony and Cleopatra, on the words BUT YET.-Hear himself:

"Cleo.-I do not like but yet, it does allay
The good precedence; fye upon but yet:
But yet is as a gaoler to bring forth

Some monstrous malefactor."

Now then remark the use which a youthful genius of twentysix has put it to :

"La Var. Who, of our party, pry'thee, since the battle, Have shelter'd here among the villagers?

Can'st tell their names?

Barton. Ay, marry, can I, sir.

But CAN and WILL are birds of diff'rent feather.

CAN is a swan, that bottles up its music,

And never lets it out till death is near?

But WILL's a piping bulfinch, that does ever
Whistle forth every note it has been taught,
To every fool that bids it."

But his beauty of expression is at times simple and exquisitely true. He leaves an imitation of Comus for the following picture

"West of this a little,

There stand some straggling cottages, that form
A silent village;

This epithet is, I think, new. I have no doubt of its feeling propriety. Mr. Colman has retained his loyalty conspicuously through life. He has made the best use here of that ennobling sentiment, in the references, which he permitted himself, to a painful occurrence about the throne, and the virtues which it called forth. The audience, I remember, applied them with rapturous delight.

Among the applauded passages in this play, none stood higher than the picture of the outlaw's interrupted slumbers. Perhaps the common stabber of the forest feels but little; his life passes in enterprise or intoxication; and reflection is banished by what Macbeth calls "hard use." The picture

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may certainly be received as a faithful portrait of such a mind as Gondibert's.

The song, which poor Edwin used to sing in Gregory Gubbins, called "Moderation and Alteration," is a judicious imitation of the famous old ballad, "The old and young Courtier," in Percy's second volume. The imitation appears to be closest in the following stanza

"With a good old fashion, when Christmasse was come,

To call in all his old neighbours with bagpipe and drum,
With good cheer enough to furnish every old room,
And old liquor able to make a cat speak, and man dumb.
Like an old courtier of the queen's,

And the queen's old courtier."

I never yet understood that the sympathy with the heroic Margaret, after the Battle of Hexham, was weakened by the sufferings of the Temple; and though Clery's narrative be extremely affecting, yet Mrs. Inchbald's reading must have been confined, when she thinks it may bid defiance to all that history has recorded or that poets have feigned. But her remarks upon this play are excessively careless-they examine nothing they tell nothing. Her question, "Did Gondibert know who his sovereign was?" is idle in the extreme. The partizan always knows this sufficiently to influence his conduct; and risks his life upon his opinion. Nor was this a question for the omnipotence of parliament to decide. It was at last determined by power, and if the right lay in the house of York, the blood of Lancaster" ultimately prevailed.

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As one proof of the pleasant turn of Colman's mind; during the progress of his play one of the tarantula physicians, who dance so madly after theatres, pestered the poet with prescriptions for the better health of his piece. “I beg your pardon, Doctor, said George, but we are talking about the Battle of Hexham, and not a bottle of Huxham." The Doctor, who equalled himself in good humour, swallowed the tincture, as soon as excessive laughter permitted, and fled from the BATTLE.

CHAPTER III.

Season of 1789-90.-Mrs. Siddons absent.-Mr. Kemble's resources.-Covent Garden.-The Author's friend, Harley. -His talents.-Kemble in Henry V.-The Tempest.Purcel's music.--Vanbrugh's false friend.-Mr. Kemble in the Libertine.-The Iron Masque.-King at Covent Garden.-The Crusade.-The Haunted Tower.-Mrs. Behn's Rover.-Quick in Richard.-Summer Theatre.Palmer's return.-Winter season of 1790-1.-Duke of Cumberland's death. -Disinterment of the supposed remains of the great Milton.-Inquiry into the fuct.--Mr. Kemble's conviction on that subject.

MR. KEMBLE experienced, as manager, some difficulty during the season of 1789-90. Mrs. Siddons had suffered in her health by the severe continuance of her professional duties; and she resolved to avail herself at length of a variety of invitations, which tempted her in a series, that brought her to the beautiful scenery of Devonshire. The tragedies of female interest were therefore either to be weakened by inferior representation, or for a time laid aside. The latter was the safer course. But the inexhaustible treasures of Shakspeare presented to Mr Kemble a highly tempting monodram, in the play of Henry V. ;" and he thought, how justly we shall shortly see, that the conqueror of Agincourt fell more completely within the range of his powers, than the characters of John or Richard III.; for reasons as much mental as personal--the pleasantry which so agreeably in Kemble relieved his severer habits, and the heroic perfection of his countenance and his figure. He therefore set himself seriously to prepare the play for representation. Now this, in Mr. Kemble's notion of the business, was, not to order the prompter to write out the parts from some old mutilated prompt copy lingering on his shelves; but himself to consider it attentively in the author's genuine book: then to examine what corrections could be properly admitted into his text; and, finally, what could be cut out in the representation, not as disputing the judg ment of the author, but as suiting the time of the representation to the habits of his audience, or a little favouring the powers of his actors, in order that the performance might be as uniformly good as it was practicable to make it. The stage arrangements throughout the play were all distinctly marked by him in his

own clear exact penmanship, and when he had done his work, his theatre received, in that perfected copy, a principle of exactness, which was of itself sufficient to keep its stage unrivalled for truth of scenic exhibition.

Another play that he prepared, and rendered prodigiously attractive, was the Tempest, admitting in a temperate way some of the additions of D'Avenant and Dryden. These rendered it fuller as a stage spectacle and secured the assistance of Miss Farren in Dorinda, and Mrs. Goodall in Hippolyto. It gave a terrible dance of Furies in one place, and a masque of Neptune and Amphitrite in another; and a beautiful accession indeed in the occasional Epilogue, written by the elegant Burgoyne, and spoken by Miss Farren. After laughing at the present monsters of the Isle-the HE Miss Milliners, and the stringed and cravatted Exquisites, he comes to objects worthy of a people's gaze, and thus alludes to his present Majesty, when Prince of Wales:

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High o'er the crowd, inform'd with patriot fire,
Pure as the virtues that endear his sire,

See one who leads-as mutual trials prove

A band of brothers to a people's love :
One, who on station scorns to found control,
But gains pre-eminence by worth of soul.
These are the honours that, on reason's plan,
Adorn the Prince and vindicate the man;

While gayer passions, warmed at Nature's breast,
Play o'er his youth--the feathers of his crest."

Acquainted by age with the points of this allusion, I add with sincere pleasure, that no compliment, that experience presents to my memory, ever surpassed the above in propriety, and none ever approached it in delicacy and beauty. I would offer the last couplet triumphantly, as an attestation to the refined genius of Burgoyne. The mixed tone of tenderness, airiness and respect, with which Miss Farren delivered the last line, can never be forgotten

"Play o'er his rOUTH-the feathers of his crest.”

Having thus noticed what Mr. Kemble had prepared, to supply at all events the means of battle, though his great ally had not joined him, I pass over to the other theatre to remark upon the first appearance of my early friend, Harley who came up with great distinction from Norwich to supply in part, if possible, the loss of Henderson. Harley had been bred to business in the banking-house of Lefevre, Currie and Co., in Cornhill. He was distinguished even there for quickness and accuracy; he played with what others would have called toil;