ted it at the call of his sovereign, and died in the field of battle. We lament we have not room for an elegant poetical translation of the Hermit's Farewell to Dronningaard, from the pen of Leigh Hunt, Esq. a friend of our tourist. The remainder of the chapter is occupied with a description of the Crown Battery, harbour, arsenal; the academies of marine and land cadets; the citadel; the palace of Roscaberg; the observatory; university library; prisons, hospitals, and such other objects as were worthy of notice, in the city and neighbourhood of Copenhagen. We were much amused with the idea entertained of our English ladies by a Danish gentleman, who, as he was picking his teeth with his fork, a delicate custom, very prevalent upon the continent amongst all classes, observed that he had heard the English women were very pretty, but he was confident that he never could love them. Upon being pressed for his reason, he replied, because he understood they were never seen without a pipe in their mouths !" Quitting Copenhagen, our traveller bent his course towards Sweden. He makes us acquainted with Fredericksborg, the palace of Fredensborg, the retreat in which Juliana Maria resigned her last breath, and the garden of Marie Lyst, supposed to be the spot on which "the Majesty of buried Denmark did sometimes walk." Juliana's Palace furnished a subject for our author's Muse; and Hamlet's Garden produced from his tasteful pencil a fine view of Cronberg Castle and Elsineur, which are to be seen from a tower that overhangs the cliff. The scene brought forcibly to our recollection the line in which Horatio expresses his apprehensions for the safety of Hamlet : "What if it tempt you towards the cliff, my lord, "And there assume some other horrible form, "To draw thee into madness ?" In the fortress of Cronberg was confined the unfortunate Matilda, immediately after the sudden revolution of 1772. The details of this important event have been given in other works, but Mr. Carr, of whom may be said what Dr. Johnson has observed of Goldsmith, "quod tetigit ornavit," has related the leading circumstances with exquisite pathos. We must here halt a little ;-in our next we shall bear Mr. Carr company into Sweden. If we do not make very rapid progress, the blame must rest with the author, who has thrown out so many allurements to tempt and detain us on our critical march. [To be continued.] THE BRITISH STAGE. Imitatio vita, speculum consuetudinis, imago veritatis. Cicero. The Imitation of Life---The Mirror of Manners---The Representation of Truth. SHAKSPEARE AND BEN JONSON. A LITTLE west of St. Mary Overie's (in a place still called Globe Alley) stood the Globe, immortalized by having been the theatre on which Shakspeare first trod the stage, but in no higher character than the ghost in his own play of Hamlet. It appears to have been of an octagonal form, and is said to have been covered with rushes. The door, it is said, was very lately standing. James I. granted a patent to Laurence Fletcher, John Heminges, Henrie Condell, William Sly, Robert Armin, and Richard Cowlie, and others of his majesty's servants, to act here or in any other part of the kingdom. Notwithstanding the modesty of Shakspeare made him decline taking any considerable part in his own productions, his good nature and friendship for the morose Ben Jonson, induced him to act both in the Sejanus and Every Man in his Humour; a benevolence that greatly contributed to bring the latter into public notice. A remarkable anecdote concerning the introduction of the latter play to the theatre, has been handed down traditionally. Ben Johnson presented his Every Man in his Humour to one of the leading players in that company, of which Shakspeare was a member. After casting his eye over it carelessly and superciliously, the comedian was on the point of returning it to the author with a peremptory refusal, when Shakspeare, who, perhaps, had never till that instant seen Jonson, desired he might look into the play. He was so well pleased with it, on perusal, that he recommended the work and the author to his fellows. The success of the comedy was considerable, and we find that the principal actors were employed in it; Burbage, Kempe, Hemmings, Condel, and Sly. Shakspeare himself is generally said, by his name being first in the drama, to have acted the part of Old Knowell. He was at that time in the thirty-fourth of his age, and Ben Jonson in his twenty-fourth. year Notwithstanding the friendship which Shakspeare had manifested to Ben, by patronising his play, yet the reader will find that the prologue is nothing less than a satirical picture of several of Shakspeare's dramas, particularly his Henry V. and the three parts of Henry VI. It is very probable that Lear and the Tempest are also pointed at. Every Man in his Humour was first published in 1602. The prologue was not added to the edition of the play, nor must we sup pose that it was spoken originally; and, indeed, such a gross affront to their great friend, would not have been permitted by the players. It does not appear that this insolent invective was ever pronounced on the stage, or printed, till after the death of Shakspeare, who died in April, 1616. Amongst the old plays revived, upon the opening of the theatres after the Restoration, this comedy was not forgotten. It was acted about the year 1675, by the Duke of York's company in Dorset Gardens. It was also revived at the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, about the year 1720. Towards the beginning of the year 1750, Garrick was induced to revive this comedy he expunged all such passages in it as either retarded the progress of the plot, or, through length of time were become obsolete, or unintelligible; for Jonson was most apt to allude to local customs and temporary follies. The characters were allotted by Garrick as follows. Kitely, ...........Mr. Garrick. SOME ACCOUNT OF MOSSOP, THE TRAGEDIAN. (Continued from Page 124.) Mossor's principal parts have been enumerated. He had many more, both in tragedy and the graver species of comedy, in which he acquired great reputation. He has been accused by the critics of too great a mechanism in his action and delivery; and he was, in some degree, open to this censure the frequent resting of his left-hand on his hip, with his right extended, has been often ludicrously compared to the handle and spout of a tea-pot; whilst others called him, "The distiller of syllables." But these criticisms were evident exaggerations. Persons whose narrow judgments, tempers, or prejudices, induce them to look only for faults, will find them in the most perfect artists; and though he sometimes, in level speaking, exhibited rather too much stiffness in his attitudes, and too much length in his pronunciation, his energy and correctness, in a great measure, atoued for these trifling defects; whilst in the more impassioned parts, he was excellence itself. This degree of fame, however, did not satisfy Mossop. He would be the lover both in tragedy and comedy; and if we might guess at his principal motive for quitting Barry and Woodward, at a proffered salary of one thousand pounds per year, and becoming manager of Smock-Alley theatre with little or no hopes of success, we must attribute it to the power of casting himself in those parts so favourable to his inclination, but at the same time so inimical to his real talents. Many instances could be given of the effects of this absurd prepossession during his diversified and tumultuous management. One, however, will be sufficient for this purpose. The fame of the opera of "The Maid of the Mill" reaching Dublin under his management, he very properly thought of getting it up at his theatre, as one of the novelties of the season. He had vocal performers sufficient in his company, and a band uncommonly good at that time; the opera, therefore, was announced in the green room for rehearsal, and all the parts distributed, except that of Lord Aimworth. This excited some curiosity amongst the performers, to know who would be the person cast for the part. The secret was, however, kept back till within a few days of the performance, when the bills pompously announced in capitals, "The part of Lord- Aimworth (without the songs) by Mr. Mossop.” The hero of an opera without singing, was a species of novelty one would think too much bordering on the brogue for any performer to adopt, or any audience to countenance; but, however strange to tell, both succeeded: the custrated 'opera run eight nights to crowded audiences! whilst Mossop received the flatteries of his friends, and the town, on his success in a new department of acting. This business, however, was effected by an under-management, more or less practised by most managers when the means are in their power, viz. that of imposing on the town. Mossop, as a man, had the art of attaching many friends to him in the various trials of life—his misfortunes, as they were called, though all the acts of his own indiscretion, rivetted those friends the closer to him. Whilst the Countess of B, who then led the fashion in Dublin, was his avowed protectress, this lady, beside the high company she every night drew to the boxes, commanded a great part of her tradesmen. These, with the young men of the college, (Mossop's contempora BB-VOL. XX. ries,) formed the principal part of the audience, who, by saving the remaining part the trouble of thinking for themselves, dictated to the town; and thus was a project which, left to itself, would have soon worked out its own damnation, carried through, by artifice, with profit and applause. However absurd this dramatic licence may be considered in Mossop, Sheridan, who had still higher claims to critical acumen, was at least equally culpable, by transferring Mercutio's fine description of a dream, in the first act of Romeo and Juliet, to the part of Romeo-merely because he would monopolize so fine a speech to himself. Sheridan, though a good actor in grave and sentimental parts, had neither the voice or tender d'abord of a lover: but admitting he had, how he could so violently wrest this speech from its proper place, to give it to a character which it fitted in no one instance, can scarce be accounted for, but by the predominancy of selflove; which not only trampled upon his own judgment, but on the common sense, and common feelings, of his audience. That the public may better judge of this impropriety, we shall recall to their recollection a part of the poetical and beautiful des'cription we allude to. "Ha! ha! a dream. Oh! then, I see Queen Mab has been with you: She is the Fancy's midwife, and she comes, In shape no bigger than an agate stone Her waggon spokes made of long spinners' legs; And in this state she gallops, night by night, Through lovers' brains, and thus they dream of love." Whilst we can now laugh at these follies with becoming contempt, may we not ask ourselves, in the language of the Roman satirist, Quid rides? &c. |