toga-hooded; of the turbaned Easterns; and of the velvet cap of Italy, and the hat and feathers of Spain, and the cocked-hat, and clerical beaver, &c.,-a résumé duly enliven ed by gossip ethnological, æsthetical, historical, and anecdotical.

a plot with the sparkling dew of his own fancy--bid the light plume wave in the fluttering grace of his style-or catch ere she fell the Cynthia of the minute,' and fix the airy charm in lasting words."* It was in 1805 that he joined his brother John, to undertake the dramatic critiques in the News, then just set up. "We saw," he says, "that independence in theatrical criticism would be a great novelty. We announced it, and nobody believed us; we stuck to it, and the town believed everything we said." The legitimate drama was not as yet exiled to Hoxton and the Edgeware-road, nor, when spoken

was beloved and frequented by King and Commons at night, and discussed by them at noon. That is fifty years since. And at that time a critic who would criticize it for them with a candid spirit, a tolerably searching eye, a zestful sympathy, and a light pen, must win attention. The critic of the News won more. He was in every play-goer's mouth, every morning. And every night, there he was at his post, every night he

was at "the play,"
And saw uprise the stage's strange floor-day,
And Childhood saw, that glad-faced squeezeth
And music tuning as in tune's despite;

Or, let his text be "Pantomimes."* Off he goes, and tells you at once, whatever your age or estate, that not to like pantomimes, is not to like animal spirits, not to like motion, not to like love, not to like a jest upon dulness and formality, or to smoke one's uncle, or to see a thump in the face, or a holiday, or the pleasure of sitting up at Christmas; that it is not to sympathize with your chil-of, was it in tones of apology. The theatre dren, or to remember that you have been a child yourself, and that you will grow old, and be as gouty as Pantaloon, though not, perhaps, so wise and active. The text al lows fair margin for discoursing on the Italian growth of Pantomimes, and their English transformation. They are commended as the satirist of folly as it flies. Harlequin is admiringly scrutinized-demi-masked, partycolored, nimble-toed, lithe, agile, with his omnipotent lath-sword, emblem of the converting power of fancy and light-heartedness; Columbine, the "little dove" that is to be protected, ready to stretch her gauze wings for a flight, the moment Riches would tear her from Love; Pantaloon, a hobbling old rascal, void of any handsome infirmity; and the Clown, round-faced, goggle-eyed, knock-kneed, but agile to a degree of the dislocated, with a great smear for his mouth, through which dumplings vanish, and sausages innumerous, and macaroni by the mile, and rum by the gallon. Pantomime is shown to be a representation of motion-motion forever, and motion all at once-of the vital principle of all things, from the dance of the planets down to that of Damon and Phillis. Whether the essayist's nerves and spirits can endure a Pantomime now, we know not; but while nerves and spirits hold together he will probably be prompt to endorse the sentiment with which this essay concludesthat there is nothing wiser than a cheerful pulse, and all innocent things which tend to keep it so.

The late Justice Talfourd held that Mr. Leigh Hunt has never been approached in theatrical criticism, at once just and picturesque in the art of applying his graphic powers to a detail of the performance, and making it interesting by the delicacy of his touch; "encrystal the cobweb intricacies of

• The Companion.

tight

One's hand, while the rapt curtain soars away,—
And beauty and age, and all that piled array--
Thousands of souls drawn to one wise delight.

Now-a-days it is only very old play-goers
who can tell you aught of these dramatic
bygones, or even remember to have met with
the lucubrations, jaunty, gay, sincere, which
deal with Kemble's unbending seriousness-
his success in the prouder passions, and ina-
bility to express that of love-his excellence
wherever an air of self-importance or ab-
straction was required-his perfect mastery
of bye-play-the admirable art which sup-
plied the natural weakness of his voice by an
energy and significancy of utterance-his
pronunciation crotchets-his genius as a
whole more compulsive of respect than at-
tractive of delight; his sister's resemblance
to him in all his good qualities, but not any
of his bad ones, and deserving undoubtedly
the palm both of genius and judgment ;-
Pope, without face, expression, or delivery;
his unmeaning rage consisting in a mere
staring eye and a thundering voice ;-Ray-

TALFOURD'S Thoughts upon the late William
Hazlitt. 1836.

† Autobiography of Leigh Hunt.

Sonnets: "To the Author of 'Ion.'"

and Charles Kemble, excelling in the tender lover, in the spirited gentleman of tragedy, and in a very happy mixture of the occasional debauchee and the gentleman of feeling.

mond, always natural and always admirable | stage, master of every species of hypocrisy ; in the gradations and changes of passion; H. Johnston, always upon stilts, heralding every trifling speech with cold pauses of intended meaning;-Bannis, unapproachable in the heartiness of jovial honesty and the sincerity of ludicrous distress;--Lewis, all Mr. Hunt's critical biographies of Wycherheart, all fire, polite from a natural wish to ley, Farquhar, Congreve, and Vanbrugh, are please,-exuberant in frankness and vivacity, done with great pains and genial talent; selinimitable in affecting the lounging fop, his dom, if ever, has he appeared to more adlaborious carelessness of action, important vantage in so far as the quality of ingenuity indifference of voice, and natural vacuity of and nicety of appreciation goes. But we pass look ;-Munden, extravagant and grimacing, them over; siding as we do with the Macauas confined in action as vagrant in features, lays and Thackerays in their antipathy to the but a special master in the relaxed gesture group, rather than with the Lambs, Hazlitts, and variable fatuity of intoxication;-Faw-and Hunts in their sympathy; and saying cett, gaining his effects by eccentricity, by a ditto to Sir Bulwer Lytton's censura litterahastiness of gesture, a strange harsh rapidity ria: "They are worse than merely licentious, of speech, and a general confidence of man--they are positively villanous-pregnant ners;-Simmons, unassuming, correct, and with the most redemptionless scoundrelism, and delicate;-Liston, irresistibly humorous, their honor debauches the whole moral but adding to his role nothing of stage affec- system; they are like the Sardinian herbtation, nor diminishing from it aught of na- they make you laugh, it is true; but they ture-exquisite in portraying the voluptuous poison you in the act."* self-repose of conceited folly, and in the rawness of country simplicity,-indeed, for the range of his characters,

own'd without dispute

Thro' all the realms of nonsense absolute

Happily, Mr. Hunt has applied his critical gifts to more wholesome uses. He has written admirably of many who both deserve and command admiration-not with mere vague panegyric or second-hand rapture, but with intelligence, with discrimination, with an answer for those who would know the reason

Emery's tragi-comic intensity; Johnstone's ra- why. He can not only relish a beautiful diant Irish jollity; Dowton's supremacy in poem-as an accomplished brother-critic, the testiness of age; Mathews, great in offi- Mr Foster, if we mistake not, has said—but cious valets and humorous old men; Mrs. he can also explain the mystery of its meMattocks, with "a head to conceive and a chanism, the witchery of peculiar harmonies, hand to execute any mischief;" Mrs. Jordan, and the intense force of words used in certain unrivalled in acting childhood, its bursts of combinations: the mysteries of versification temper and its fitful happiness-combining in their subtlest recesses are known to him: with cordial frankness a power of raillery his sensibility, originally delicate, has been managed with inimitable delicacy her cultivated into taste by a lifelong intercourse laughter the happiest and most natural on with poets-and he has not only read much, the stage, intermingling itself with her words, but read well. His greatest drawback as a as fresh ideas afford her fresh merriment, teacher is, in the judgment of the same welland sparkling forth, at little intervals, as re- disciplined judge," the absence of that con collection revives it, like flame from half-ception of literature as the product of national smothered embers-yet unable to catch the elegant delicacy of the lady, from her perpetual representation of the other sex, and of the romping, unsettled, and uneducated part of her own; Miss Duncan, original and alone in her representation of the fashionable lady, with an imposing air of perpetual flourish: Mrs. H. Siddons, of entirely feminine genius, delightful for her sweetness and her feeling, but for nothing so delightful as for the chastity of her demeanor; Elliston, who alone has approached Garrick in universality of imita tion; Cooke, the Machiavel of the modern

thought, which though often carried to ex cess, is the distinguishing characteristic of modern continental criticism"--of that new class of thinkers, to wit, who, when judging of a work of art, endeavor to throw themselves back into the era in which it was produced, and to look at it as its contemporaries did--to understand that era in its language, beliefs, and prejudices. Now in practice, whatever he may be in theory, Leigh Hunt, it is here contended, belongs to the eigh

• Devereux.

teenth century school of critics. He judges 1 works of art absolutely; the effect they produce on him is taken as the test of their ex

cellence. A method which, though proper enough for each man seeking merely his own pleasure among books, is, we believe, singularly unfit for literary criticism." The literary pièce d'occasion which suggests these strictures is Dante's Divine Comedy, Mr. Hunt's account of which furnishes ample evidence of the charge of personal predilections, and of trying old catholic creeds by the right (made wrong) of new private judgment. "His own Muse loves to wander amidst the Graces and Charities of life, and shrinks from any outburst of violence and energy. The vehement Dante startles and annoys him. His aim has ever been to inculcate gentleness and tolerance. The stern and fanatical Dante makes him shudder." "Dante the theologian is quite left out of sight; indeed, the whole poem is never looked upon as a product of the middle ages.... He was the creature of his age: the intense expression of its dominant elements. If asked whether such fanaticism, such vehemence be laudable now, no one can hesitate as to the answer. But the question for the literary critic is whether they were laudable then."* This notice of Mr. Hunt's tendencies as a critic

comes in partial confirmation of what Hazlitt once said, that the style of poetry which a man sat down deliberately to write, was the style he would praise, and that only.

doing it, as a man does when he is telling a lie; at Addison even, as wanting greatness of every kind, whose " virtue, even in its humblest moment, was but a species of good breeding, equally useful to him, he thought, in and out of the presence; a mixture of prudence, egotism, and submission ;"--but for once that he charges or hints a fault, and avows or hesitates dislike, how numerous (or say innumerous) his eulogies, his handsome compliments, his tributes of loving admiration, his eurekas over a latent beauty, some literary violet, by a mossy stone half hidden from the eye. Indeed, to such violets he may be thought by some to add fresh perfume,--to paint his lilies, and regild his fine gold, for he has been taxed before now with a habit of finding in his favorite authors more than they contain, and of placing to their credit things that they know not. He has a charming knack of calling attention to the benè notanda in a poet's verses, by a few harmoniously pitched prose intervals of his own, in (to apply a bit of Wordsworth)

His later works, "Imagination and Fancy," "Wit and Humor," &c. (when are we to have the promised third of the series, "Action and Passion ?"), show his critical aptness, delicacy, and enthusiasm to fine effect; and what a 66 'nosegay" exhales from that In other respects there is a marked and "Jar of Honey from Mount Hybla," whose largely re marked catholicity of taste in melle fragrantia very redolent thymo and all Leigh Hunt's literary verdicts. Where, in- the floribus variis concerned in the concocdeed, he has personal dislikes, or particular tion of Hyblæum nectar-what honeyed antipathies, he freely expresses them, but sweets he discourses anent, of divine Althey little affect his general estimate of the pheus, and Proserpine, and the Sirens, and writers concerned. Thus, he has his fling Acis and Galatea, and the pastorals of Theoat Young, as a preferment-hunter, who was critus, and Tasso, and Guarini, and the prosperous enough to indulge in the "luxury" Shepherd's Kalendar" of Spenser, and the of woe," and to groan because his toast was not thrice buttered; at old Isaak Walton, whose angling hobby he can never speak of with patience, and whom he regards as an overweening old man, whom to reverence were a jest "you might as well make a god of an otter;" at Franklin, as vulgarized throughout a long life by something of the pettiness and materiality of his first occupation, that always stuck to him, his only Justice arithmetic, and stubbornness his nearest approach to Fortitude; at Colman, as having no faith in sentiment, mouthing and over

* See Foreign Quarterly Review, vol. xxxvi.

Masques of rare old Ben, down to the piping of Allan Ramsay's Doric reed amid the Pentlands, nigh to that bonny Bonaly whose learned, letters-loving laird hath so lately fallen on sleep.

If the reader is bored, and fairly worn out by the oppression of our "too-muchness," let him (notwithstanding that the full soul loathes the honey comb) seek what shall revive him, by a dip (the deeper the better: into this said Jar of Honey; its thymy flavor, its Hyblæn odor, shall anon recruit him; and he shall be himself again in a trice.

From Dickens' Household Words.

TWO NEPHEWS.

expressive of sorrow at the nature of their | visit. At last, stopping them,

"Enough boys, enough!" said he. "Let us find some better subject to discuss than the state of an old man's health. I want to know a little more about you both. I haven't seen much of you up to the present time, and, for anything I know, you may be rogues or fools."

John Meade seemed rather to wince under this address; but Peter Finch sat calm and confident.

we'd better talk of something else. John, tell us all about the last new novel."

They conversed on various topics, until the arrival of the invalid's early bed-time parted uncle and nephews for the night.

Mary Sutton seized an opportunity, the next morning, after breakfast, to speak with John Meade alone:

"John," said she, "do think more of your own interest-of our interest. What occasion for you to be so violent, last night, and contradict Mr. Collett so shockingly? I saw Peter Finch laughing to himself. John, you must be more careful, or we shall never be married.”

"Well, Mary dear, I'll do my best," said John. "It was that confounded Peter with his chain of iron maxims, that made me fly out. I'm not an iceberg, Mary."

"To put a case now," said Mr. Collett; "this morning a poor wretch of a gardener, came begging here. He could get no work, it seems, and said he was starving. Well, I knew something about the fellow, and I believe he only told the truth; so I gave him a shilling to get rid of him. Now I'm afraid I did wrong. What reason had I for giving him a shilling? What claim had he on me?" What claim has he on anybody? The value of his labor in the market is all that a working man has a right to; and when his labor is of no value, why, then he must go to the Devil, or wherever else he can. Eh, Peter? That's my philosophy; what do you

think?"

"Thank heaven you're not !" said Mary; but an iceberg floats--think of that John. Remember--every time you offend Mr. Collett, you please Mr. Finch."

"So I do!" said John. "Yes; I'll remember that."

"If you would only try to be a little mean and hard-hearted," said Mary; "just a little, to begin with. You would only stoop to conquer, John-and you deserve to conquer." "May I gain my deserts, then !" said John. Are

you not to be my loving wife, Mary? And are you not to sit at needle work in my studio, whilst I paint my great historical picture? How can this come to pass if Mr. Collett will do nothing for us?"

"Ab, how indeed ?" said Mary "But

a clever fellow, Peter. Go on, my dear boy, here's our friend, Peter Finch, coming go on !"

"What results from charitable aid?" continued Peter. "The value of labor is kept at an unnatural level. State charity is state robbery private charity is public wrong." "That's it, Peter!" said Mr. Collett. "What do you think of our philosophy, John ?"

"I don't like it, I don't believe it!" said John. "You were quite right to give the man a shilling. I'd have given him a shilling myself."

Oh, you would-would you ?" said Mr. Collett. "You're very generous with your shillings. Would you fly in the face of all orthodox political economy, you Vandal ?"

"Yes," said John: "as the Vandals flew in the face of Rome, and destroyed what had become a falsehood and a nuisance."

"Poor John!" said Mr. Collett. "We shall never make anything of him, Peter. Really

through the gate from his walk. I leave you together." And so saying, she withdrew.