ject for speculative remark that can occur upon the question of invasion. The author's observations on this point we shall therefore quote at length.

"Our advice-boats spread over the enemy's coast will, no doubt, give notice of the approach and destination of such a force; the sailing of such an armament, unless provided with the ring of the Caliph, or of Jack the Giant-killer, must undoubtedly be perceived by the telescopes of those on shore, at a considerable distance. In either case, the natural, the necessary progress of such a mighty body, will afford sufficient time to those on shore to remove from the coast whatever may be of the least use to an enemy; horses, cattle, provisions, grain, even hay will be removed some miles up the country, and what cannot be transported ought to be burnt. Making every allowance for the state of the weather and of the ocean, two days will intervene between the period of such a notice, and the ranging the armament for debarkation upon our shores. A much longer period, even with a small armament, consists with experience. Consider for a moment the immense number of horses for draught, and for the troops, the prodigious number of cannon, mortars, carriages, ammunition, baggages, tents, provisions, and even forage, entrenching-tools, and a thousand other articles necessary for such an army, and such an armament? Do I exceed probability in asserting, that the debarkation of these, even in the most favourable season, above all in autumn or winter, when such an expedition would be most probably attempted, to say nothing of the collection of the various corps, the stores, provisions, and necessaries of each, at one or more given points, must at least occupy thirty days from the moment of their armaments touching ground? The experience of Buonaparte himself determines the question. In the most favourable season, in the most accessible and finest harbour, and in a sea without tides, ten days were necessary to land twenty-five thousand soldiers from only three hundred vessels, with the necessary stores for occupying Egypt, and that with unremitting labour. The third of that space hardly sufficed to land five or six thousand men with their muskets, and a day's provision, though he laboured day and night. What period of time is then necessary for debarking eight times that number on a shore washed by the ocean, where the ebbing and flowing of the tide render exertion for one tide of the day, indeed for any more than eight hours, entirely useless? When to this is added, the ordinary state of the weather and of the sea, at this period, it will be perceived, that the above calculation is much within the limits of probability. All this too upon the supposition of no interruption on the part of our numberless cruizers. It would be superfluous to demonstrate the absurdity of a debarkation with flat bottomed boats---they could hardly land even naked soldiers; before reaching land they would be dashed in pieces; their ammunition wetted, their carriages of every sort broken on the rocks or sands by the surf, or a flowing tide.

"Though I have proved, to demonstration, that at least one month will necessarily intervene betwixt the landing and the final debarkation, though I might have proved that double that period is necessary for a debarkation with such a force, though the present state of our navy entitles me to assert that no landing whatever would be permitted to take place, or a single vessel engaged in it to return to the port of France, I will concede to our croakers more than they can even demand, I shall take it for granted that only one half of that period, or fifteen days only must necessarily elapse between the landing and de

barking of the armament of Buonaparte. To these fifteen days some addition is necessary to recruit the health of the soldiers, sickened and debilitated by their sea voyage, to refresh and invigorate the horses, jaded and fatigued by their continuance on shipboard. For this purpose, and for the repair and restoration of the different kinds of carriages, and others unavoidably broken, disjointed, or lost by the embarkation, and the debarkation on our coast, six days are necessary. Twenty-one days, at the least possible computation, must elapse; (indeed double that number is indispensibly requisite) before the army could begin their march; a period sufficient, with one half the patriotism, and one third of the force locked up in this island, to crush the greatest force that France ever brought to the field.

The remarks respecting the march of the invading army, will be read with no less interest; and we recommend the whole to our readers, as the production of a well-informed mind, and particularly entitled to attention at this critical moment,

DRAMATIC.

The British Drama, comprehending the best Plays in the English Language. 8vo. 3 Vol. in 5 Parts, Miller.

A JUDICIOUS dramatic selection has long been, confessedly, a desideratum in literature, on account of the difficulty that has hitherto existed, of procuring, in a convenient form, the favourite productions of the British stage. Many of the best plays in the language were not to be obtained except in a detached state, and others were only to be found in a complete edition of the works of their respective authors, so that a lover of the drama was reduced to the necessity either of scattering his room with heaps of pamphlets, or loading his shelves with numerous volumes, of which the dramatic contents bore but a small proportion to the bulk of foreign matter.

To obviate this difficulty appears to have been the wish of the editor of these elegant volumes, which are published in a style that reflect the highest credit on his taste and judgment. As tragedy, comedy, and farce, possess entirely distinct characters, a volume is devoted to each, which together, he observes, will, it is presumed, "be found to constitute a commodious, cheap, and judicious dramatic library, while the public will find the advantage of arrangement, in being able to procure either volume separately, if there should be any persons who exclusively prefer either species of composition. Even those who are equally attached to both will feel the advantage of this classification, as it will the more readily enable them to indulge the taste of the moment, whether it tend to the grave or the gay; and as each play has been chronologically arranged, the reflecting mind will be able to see the progressive

changes that have taken place in dramatic composition, and mark the distinct æra of improvement."

To each of the volumes is prefixed a brief sketch of the birth and progress of the Muse, to whose productions it is exclusively devoted; where the editor undertakes "to vindicate the superior excellencies of the modern drama, over the boasted claims of Greece," and asserts that an examination into the state of the various theatres of Europe would incontestibly prove the truth of his remark, that "Britain possesses as decided a preeminence in this branch of literature over contemporary nations, as she does over remote antiquity." On this head our readers are at liberty to adopt their own sentiments; we cannot however but observe that these essays are written with uncommon neatness, and evidently prove their author a man of genius and a scholar.

The volumes are elegantly printed in double columns, uniformly with the Edinburgh edition of the British Poets, by Dr. Anderson, to which work the British Drama will be found to be a most useful and valuable appendage.

A few Observations in Defence of the scenic Exhibitions at the

Royalty Theatre, and on the intolerant Censure of the Drama in General, contained in the "Solemn Protest" of the Rev, Thomas Thirlwall, M. A. in the Name of the Society for the Suppression of Vice; by John Percival, Esq. 8vo. pp. 42. Griffiths. Of Mr. Thirlwall's intolerant pamphlet we already have decidedly given our opinion. In the defence of the drama before us, we must own that some of its points are ably combated. Mr. Percival, however, has attacked the Society for the suppression of vice in terms by far too general, and we by no means feel disposed to coincide with him in his censures on that useful and respectable body. Valentine and Orson, a Romantic Melo-Drame, as performed at Covent-Garden Theatre. By T. Dibdin. Barker.

MR. DIBDIN has judiciously chosen a story familiar to us from our childhood, and produced from it a dramatic spectacle of equal interest and merit.

The Sailor's Daughter: a Comedy, in Five Acts, now performing at the Theatre Rayal Drury-Lane. By Richard Cumberland, Esq. Lackington Allen and Co.

THIS Comedy, it is needless to observe, met with no very favourable reception on the stage. In the closet, it will be found to be better entitled to attention.

THE BRITISH STAGE.

Imitatio vite, speculum consuetudinis, imago veritatis.

Cicero.

The Imitation of Life---The Mirror of Manners---The Representation of Truth.

INTRODUCTION
TO THE

REMARKS UPON THE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE.

BY MR. SEYMOUR.

WE have already given various specimens of Mr. Seymour's capacity as a commentator on Shakespeare; but that the plan of publication, which we announced in our twelfth volume, p. 187, may be more clearly understood, we shall now extract some passages from the preface which he means shall accompany his ingenious annotations, when they appear in their regular order before the public.

"After the labours," says Mr. S. " of so many acute and judicious men as, during almost a century past, have successively applied their talents to rectify and explain the works of Shakespeare, it might reasonably be supposed that little room was left for further observation; that an authentic, or at least an approved text, was firmly established; that all inaccuracies were repaired or noted; that the viciousness of interpolation, and the ignorance or idleness of transcribers and reciters, were no longer to be confounded with the effusions of the poet, and that every passage which had languished in the trammels of obscurity was, at length, either redeemedto illustration, or abandoned finally to impervious darkness; but a review of the plays, as they have been presented to the public by the last editor, will shew that such expectations remain, even yet, unfulfilled.

"It is true, indeed, the circumstances attending our great dramatist and his productions must ever leave questionable the authority even of the best copies; for, excepting a Midsummer-Night's Dream, we shall not, perhaps, find a single play that is not evidently corrupted; and there exists no other rule whereby we can distinguish the genuine from the spurious parts, but that internal evidence which critical discernment may be able to extract from a patient and minute examination of the earliest copies, the consciousness of a peculiar and predominating style, and the sagacious per

T TVOL. XVII.

ception of an original design, howsoever adulterated or deranged by innovation or unskilfulness.

"On this ground, possibly, a rational hypothesis of purity may be erected, whenever there shall come forth a combination of talents and industry sufficient for the task: this, however, is a latitude of criticism, to which no editor, as yet, has extended his enquiry they have all been satisfied with delivering the text of each drama as they found it, with preference occasionally to the readings of different impressions; and if the choice they made be deemed judicious, so much of their undertakings has been performed; but, with regard to those anomalies, in which the measure, construction, and sense are often found vitiated, they appear to have been strangely negligent, and, sometimes, more strangely mistaken. The absence of meaning can never be excused; the disregard of syntax is no less reprehensible; and every poetic ear must be offended by metrical dissonance; yet all these faults abound, without even a comment, in the last edition of Shakespeare's plays.

"Upon examining the compositions before us, we must presently discern two different kinds of imperfections, one of them the result of haste or idleness; the other, of habitual inaccuracy. Those which were produced by mere inadvertency, whether of the poet himself, or his transcriber, and where concord, prosody, and reason unite in suggesting the true expression, should at once, perhaps, without scruple or remark, be set right in the text.

"The other more compendious as well as mischievous class of errors, are those indigests of grammar, both in words and phrases, which are not, indeed, confined to this author, but equally disfigure the works of others, and are, unhappily, to be found in the volumes of writers the most applauded for correctness and elegance of diction. The frequency of these impurities, and the eminence of the names from which they seem to derive countenance, so far from furnishing any argument in their defence, present the strongest reason for their condemnation; since vicious modes and practices should always be resisted with a zeal proportioned to the danger arising from the prevalence of custom and the seduction of example: and though much of what is here complained of cannot now be reformed, it should at least be noted, to prevent what is really erroneous from being sanctioned by authority, or multiplied by adoption. But the most pernicious, as well as copious source of disorder, in these works, is what has poured into almost every page of them, a torrent of interpolation, which, bearing on its surface the form of au tiquity, has been so mixed and blended with the rest, as to be, at