"After a twelvemonth was passed, and not a word had transpired, finding the Officer kept the secret, the King sent him a commission dated a year back." P. 70-75.

We have taken largely from this publication, because we see with regret, that it is without a publisher's name.

DRAMATIC.

The Dramatic Mirror, containing the History of the Stage, Dramatic Writers from 1660, and Performers from Shakespeare's Time to 1807, &c. &c. By T. Gilliland. Vols. 11. 1s. Chapple, 1808.

EVERY thing relating to the stage is interesting to a certain class of readers, and that being the case, we may safely and honestly promise such folks an abundance of entertainment, from this large collection of important trifles concerning the mimic race, who are in general treated like walnuts, all men speaking ill of them, and all men enjoying them. Mr. Gilliland's diligence has been great, and his success quite sufficient to satisfy us, in spite of a considerable lack of correctness. A powerful magnet he has stood in the middle of the circle, and attracted, amongst weightier things, every chip and straw within its circumference. That his collection does not offer more valuable fare is not his fault.-The Garden presents him with but little of the choicer fruit of anecdote, and Drury-Lane boasts as many virgins as new and valuable facts. Two things he tells us, which we did not know before.-Mr. Braham was once thought a fit representative of Cupid! p.682; and Mr. Elliston, the tragedian, made his debut in Tressel, in Richard III. p. 744. Now, the remark, we should have expected on this occcasion, would have been, that Mr. Braham can never go back, though Mr. Elliston should-the former has quite outgrown Cupid, but the latter, with all his cleverness in comedy, is still no more than just equal to the performance of a Tressel in tragedy. We must here observe, however, that Mr. G. perpetually writes with his pen dipt in honey-always a good Christian, but frequently a very bad Critic. The work is, nevertheless, amusing, and of the seventeen engravings, most are correct likenesses.

To the Right Worshipful JOHN BULL, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

RESPECTED SIR,

DENIED

ENIED access to your sacred person, I avail myself of the press to solicit your notice. You have, doubtless, by this time totally forgotten poor THEOBALDUS SECUNDUS, for short memories are not the exclusive property of great wits. Truth is said to lie at the bottom of a well, and as your Worship seldom looks beyond the surface, I am not surprized that she should hitherto have eluded your researches. If fate has ordained my ink-stand to be the bucket that shall draw her from her watery grave for your edification, I expect a premium from your humane society for my pains. If not, you may kill the next Percy yourself." I am now to solicit your patience, while I recount my adventures, in doing which I shall ape the dignity rather than the prolixity, of the run-away Prince of Troy, when seated on the high bed of the enamoured Queen of Carthage.

I am, may it please your Worship, grand nephew to the renowned LEWIS THEOBALD, one of those numerous broth-spoiling commentators, who have smothered poor Shakespeare in the onion-sauce of conjectural criticism. My great uncle was, with reverence be it spoken, a great blockhead; but that was no fault of his, he being a younger brother, and the family genius being. vested in my grandfather, with remainder to his sons in tail * RVOL. Y.

male. From my earliest childhood I have looked upon SHAKESPEARE as the real king of England, and the two winter-theatres as his proper palaces. "The period spent on stubborn Troy,” has now elapsed, since I began a commentary on the plays of our immortal bard. O the rivers of ink that I have exhausted in cleansing his Augæan page from the black-letter filth heaped upon it by his different commentators! The task was laborious, but such labour is my delight. The waters of Avon suit my palate better than Boniface's ale. "I eat my Shakespeare, I drink my Shakespeare, and (when certain players enact him) I always sleep upon my Shakespeare."

Apollo was a doctor of physic as well as a doctor of divinity, and Dryden, we are told, took his physic whenever he wanted to borrow his inspiration. A dramatic writer of the present day writes tragedy in a helmet facing a mirror. Ever while you live, encourage the imagination! My faith in Shakespeare is so unbounded, that I verily believe the "Hell-broth" of Macbeth's witches would, if properly mixed, engender a real armed head and bloody child. I lately, at a great expence, collected all the materials in my kitchen copper; I must own the experiment failed, but I found out the cause. The resurrection-man, whom I employed to get me the " Liver of blaspheming Jew," had made free with the corpse of a very religious man of that persuasion.→→ I must be more careful another time-but this is foreign to our present purpose.

Having completed my commentary, my parched hopes sighed for the golden shower, which I expected from presenting my Dedication to your Worship. The times were tempting, your two winter-playhouses were at that time experiencing a nightly overflow, and Tragedy was, as she should be, all the rage! I knew not the cause, but rejoicing in the effect, huddled my manuscript into my great-coat pocket, and trotted to your residence in Portland-place. For be it known, sir, to those whom it may concern, (your tradesmen) that you no longer reside within five minutes walk of the Royal Exchange. Formerly you passed your evenings in posting your ledger, and shaking your head at the follies of fashion; you now exhaust that portion of the day in posting to the Opera, or shaking your heels at Willis's Rooms, and your elbows at the Union Club. If I felt pleased at finding you at home, how was my satisfaction increased, by hearing from a

yellow-bellied waspish footman, that you were busy with the first tragedian of the day? Good! said I to myself, this must be Mr. Kemble: there is no man better able to appreciate my labours-I'll break in upon them without ceremony. On approaching your Worship's parlour door, I heard the words, "knuckle down," articulated in a shrill voice. I thought this an odd exclamation for the first tragedian of the day; but how was I petrified with astonishment, on entering the room, to find you on your knees, playing at marbles with the little Roscius! Speechless with admiration, I retired unperceived. To have deranged a single taw would, in my mind, have been a sacrilege as great as an attempt to upset the balance of the Copernican system. I had scarce time to reflect on your improvement in dramatic taste, when I learned that you had engaged a Roscia at your theatre in Covent-Garden. Indeed, so wide had your love of the rising generation at that time extended, I was credibly informed that Genoa was on the point of shipping a squalling Roscium for the edification of your Operahouse, when the bubble burst like the gas of the Pall-Mall lamplighter: Reason's dragon-teeth had been buried long enough, and a race of men succeeded. The worshipful John Bull acted 、 the part of the cow, in Tom Thumb. Ridicule, that infallible emetic of sick minds, had eased your stomach of its baby incumbrances; Miss Mudie returned to her mamma, and Master Betty also retired to break Priscian's head, and hide his own in the bosom of alma mater !

How elastic is hope when a man thinks he has written a good book; and what mortal ever supposed himself the author of a bad one?" Quassas reficit rates." I again collected my darling notes on Shakespeare, and in the firm hope that your stomach was well disposed to its natural aliment, assaulted your door with face as brazen as the knocker I handled. It was Saturday night, and your yellow barouche was waiting at the door, but I confidently reckoned upon five minutes conversation with you, ere you repaired to the Evening Lecture, to which I concluded a sober man like you was about to adjourn. Whilst hesitating upon the fit mode to address you, a figure descended the stairs, which at first sight I mistook for an Alguazil, in a plethora, but upon nearer approach found to be your worshipful self, posting to the Opera, clad in a great-coat of the newest cut, all fringe

and frippery, the offspring of a German tailor. You and your cloak were so enveloped in frogs and self-conceit, that I could compare you to nothing but King Pharaoh, inoculated with a plague greater than any in Egypt, an Italian singer. After desiring me, in a surly tone, to call to-morrow morning, your Worship mounted your vehicle, and scampered away to the Region of Recitative. O, cried I, in bitterness of spirit, why has John Bull, my revered patron, quitted his city residence? In his warehouse he has bales of cotton in abundance, and might, like the wise Ulysses, stuff his large and long ears with a portion of that commodity, to enable him to escape the snares of the Haymarket syren."

Those who have patrons, must also have patience. I dissembled my chagrin, and you may remember, most worshipful sir, that I called the ensuing day, at two o'clock, to allow you time to ponder on the morning's service. Alas! I was now fated to be forestalled by a son of France, as I had before been by a daughter of Italy. Both kingdoms boast the same emperor, and their natives come hither upon the same embassy. Whilst I and Shakespeare were kicking our heels in the hall, you and Mons. Deshayes were kicking yours before a pier-glass in the drawing-room. I had soon the satisfaction to observe your worship endeavouring to imitate the te-totum pirouettes of that agile gentleman, in doing which you bore a much stronger resemblance to the Dervise in the Arabian Tale, inasmuch, as after spinning some time, you threw down a purse, which the wily foreigner, as light of finger as of foot, did not fail to pocket. This, to be sure, was no time for Shakespeare; I, therefore, left your Worship, hoodwinked by the Frenchman, to turn about three times and catch whom you may.

I now sported the sullens in dignified retirement.-But it would not do murder will out, and so will manuscripts. I resolved to make one more effort. But were I to bring to your recollection all the mortifying repulses I endured, I should quite destroy that patience of which you stand so much in need, to listen to the debates at the next meeting of your commoncouncil. At one time, naked from the waist upwards, you were waging war with Belcher, the Hittite: at another you had taken an invisible girl into keeping your cash was drained by lotteries, missionaries, and mountebanks of all sorts and sizes: boys,