THE BRITISH STAGE.

Qui minus

Eadem Histrioni sit lex, quæ summo viro?
Virtute ambire oportet, non favitoribus.
Sat habet favitorum semper, qui rectè facit:
Si illis fides est, quibus est ea res in munu.

Prologue to the Amphitryon.

THEOBALDUS SECUNDUS;

OR

SHAKSPEARE AS HE SHOULD BE!

HAMLET PRINCE OF DENMARK-CONTINUED.

LATIN and Greek are the only two tongues, in which departed spirits can be addressed; for this reason they are denominated the dead languages. The non-appearance of those supernatural beings in the present day, may be fairly ascribed to the decay of the learned languages. COBBETT, with all his volubility, has not a word to throw at a ghost. Johnson says

When Learning's triumph o'er her barbarous foes,
First rear'd the stage, immortal Shakspeare rose.

This is converting learning into a bricklayer, and would have
come with a better grace from BEN JONSON than from SAM.
But however that may be, under such an architect, ghosts would
naturally be inrolled in the company. Dr. FARMER may say
what he pleases, but I firmly believe SHAKSPEARE had Latin
enough to talk to his own ghosts; though I doubt whether I can
express the same belief as to certain modern writers, who, by re-
viving ghosts to squeak and gibber on the London stages, have
taken the same liberties as SHAKSPEARE, without taking the
same talents" We have no cold beef, Sir," said the landlady at
Glastonbury to a hungry traveller; " but we have excellent mustard !"
All this, however, is foreign to the Prince of Denmark.
I have heard,

Horatio.

The cock that is the trumpet to the morn,

Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat

Awake the god of Day.

DOCTOR FUNGUS will have it, that cock should be clock, and grounds his opinion upon the situation of St. Paul's clock. But

G G-VOL. Y.

this would spoil the poetry of the whole passage. What an accurate picture does the creative pencil of our great poet present to the mind's eye! The epithet, lofty, has fallen through the sieves of all the commentators excepting THEOBALDUS SECUNDUS. It obviously alludes to the high-roosting perch of that valiant bird; nor is the mythological imagery in this sentence to be passed by without its merited eulogium. LINGO, by way of agreeable surprize, informs us that the cock is the bird of PallasPallas is the goddess of Wisdom, and of course an early riser.Early to bed, and early to rise, &c.

Her favourite bird undoubtedly awoke her with his shrill note, and at the same time roused the slumbering fop Phœbus, who answered in the words of Dr. WATTS

"You have wak'd me too soon, I must slumber again;" and being the god of Wit, when he rubbed his own eyes, doubt. less vented an imprecation on those of Minerva.

"Thus wit and judgment ever are at strife."

Pope.

The moral is obvious;-they who, like Mr. SHERIDAN, aim only to be men of wit, lie abed; while they who, like Sir ISAAC NEWTON, Mr. BURKE, and a very few others, aspire to be men of wisdom, rise with the lark. Horatio in continuation→→

"Th' extravagant and erring spirit hies

To his confine."

The extravagant, i.e. got out of his bounds-WARBURTON.Bravo! old Hurlo-thrumbo! got out of his depth, WARBURTON, you mean. Extra-vagant certainly may be construed wandering out of bounds: we need no ghost with a mouthful of syntax to tell us that; but SHAKSPEARE had too much taste to adopt such an absurd Latinism. I have no doubt that the late king was a man of expensive habits, and is here compared to a prisoner within the rules of the King's Bench, who must return to quod at a given moment, or compliment the Marshal with the debt and costs. At the crowing of the cock, the extravagant and erring spirit (that is, the spendthrift of a defendant) whether he be drinking arrack punch at Vauxhall, champagne at the Mount, or brandy and water at the Eccentrics, must kick off his glassslipper, and hobble back to St. George's Fields, like the lame bottle-conjurer of LE SAGE.

But look, the morn in russet mantle clad,
Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill.

Russet mantle! What sorry attire for a goddess! I wish the critics would settle, once for all, the costume of Aurora; at present she has clothes, fingers, feet, bosom, and hair, of as many colours as the roquelaure of Joseph. Homer styles her 'Pododæxluλos Hws. Rosy-fingered Morn; this is more like an old washerwoman than a young goddess. Ovid calls her rutilis Aurora capillis. And againUt solet aër

Purpureus fieri, cùm primùm Aurora movetur.

I translate "purpureus fieri," a fiery purple. What says Virgil of that particoloured damsel

Tithoni croceum liquens Aurora cubile.

A golden bed, by the way, is but a poor atonement for a leaden old spouse snoring in it.

Lucia thinks happiness consists in state,

She weds an ideot, but she eats off plate.

The moderns have been equally fanciful in describing Aurora. An old song says—

The morning was up grey as a rat,

The clock struck something, faith I can't tell what.

And Rosina now says, " See the rosy morn appearing;" and now "The morns returns in saffron dress'd."-SELIM, in Blue Beard, sings," Grey-ey'd morn begins to peep," which is no compliment to the beauty of the goddess. If she had changed colours with the magician, it would have been well: a grey beard is fit for an old man, and blue eyes for a young woman.

And now, reader, “make way for the speaker."-The scene draws, and discovers a room of state, containing, the King, Queen, Hamlet, Polonius, Laertes, Voltimand, Cornelius, Lords, and Attendants. This is the first appearance of Hamlet.-Here,then, we must suppose a clapping of hands, and a cry of hats off-down-down. You will, -therefore, fancy to yourself a young gentlemen, arrayed in black velvet, with a plume of sable feathers in his bonnet, big enough for the fore-horse in Ophelia's hearse. But as in a certain assembly, if a member, however elevated in rank, rise to speak late in the evening, he sets his hearers coughing (there being no pectoral lozenge equal to an early harangue); and, as touching the Lord Hamlet in that manner, would be touching the honour of a prince, I shall keep his royal highness as a bonne bouche to open my next dissertation.

[To be continued.]

G G 2

ON THE LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE, AND ON THE

TRANSLATED EPISTLES.

I

FURTHER REMARKS.

N my paper on the Learning of Shakspeare, I wish "vending," to be corrected to—“ reading.”

suppose

It may perhaps seem strange that I should suppose that Heywood and Shakspeare might both have made distinct and different translations, independently of each other of these Epistles of Ovid; Paris to Helen, and the Reply. But I have never seen Heywood's book. And it seems doubtful whether any one have ever compared the epistles in the one publication with those in the other. It may seem strange too that I should that Heywood, upon no other ground than that of being told of a translation from these epistles of Ovid, should conclude, without examining, that it must be his.. But stranger things have hap pened. And with all the world's faults, my profession, and my observation of mankind, have taught me to adopt the maxim of justice and of benevolence, and of policy at the same time, that fraud is not to be unnecessarily presumed.

Few persons have attended our courts of justice, with minds even moderately qualified for that attendance, who must not have observed that the appearances of perjury are frequent, where after all there is reason to believe that the crime of perjury has not been committed. A person perhaps might say, "I have news for you-Shakspeare has published your epistles." On which the other might fly out indignantly, as if there could be no other translation than his own of those epistles. This is my idea upon conjecture. But some of your readers may have Heywood's book, and may have compared the two books. If such would communicate their remarks, it is not unimportant to be informed whether the translation in each be different or the same. In the catalogue of Heywood's dramatic works is a Lucrece.

If, as to the translation of the epistles, it be identical in each, we should thus be reduced to the necessity of imputing a heavy charge either to Heywood or to Shakspeare, or at least to Jaggard. I think I have already given sufficient facts of princi ples, on which to ascertain that Shakspeare ought to be exempt CAPEL LOFFT. from the imputation.

THEATRES.

THE hint of the propriety and necessity of having door-ways, as in the ancient amphitheatres, communicating with every part of the house, in the shortest line, so that the audience might quit it in the least time, and with the least possible confusion, is a necės-, sary and valuable hint. It may, if adopted, preserve hundreds of lives. Still, from their situation, the pit and the galleries--the galleries in particular, can be very imperfectly secured in this way.

I know not whether Mr. Hartley's plan of interrupting the communication of the wood-work every where by plates of cast-iron (or of copper), and perhaps the farther expedient of washing over the wood, and boiling the boards of the floor, before they are laid in a strong solution of alum, and the same of the roof, would not be the best precautions against the renewal of this calamity. United, it seems that they could hardly fail of being effectual. The additional expence would be great; but that is not to be compared with the loss and calamity to be prevented. It is plain a reservoir of water in the ceiling could not but be illusive; for unless it would literally drown the pit, it could not be expected to save a theatre in flames, nor indeed even then.

Another consideration comes perhaps too late, or has been already anticipated-the form best adapted for seeing and hearing; and for general good effect. This I apprehend would be for the stage, a segment of a parabola taken parallel to its verter, or, which is practically the same, of a very eccentric ellipsis. The vertex would then form the back of the stage: and its transverse aris the front next the orchestra.

The form of the body of the house might be nearly as it has been, that of a horse-shoe, but not so strait at the sides.

The long rectangle which the stage with us has formed, is contrary to beauty: it occasions a great loss of sound, and intercepts the view of their own side of the stage from a great part of the side bores, as they have been hitherto constructed from the view of their own side of the stage.

The outline of an egg would perhaps not ill represent the form of the interior of a theatre, the narrower end representing the stage.

* See, in our last, Jaques on Theatras destroyed.