the Chriftian, Jewish, or Mahometan. The learned Rabi z swers, that they are all very good in their way; but that i impoffible to fav, till the day of judgment, which is the bet and then gratifying his royal pupil with heaps of gold, he leas Lim enchanted with his wifdom and munificence. The Tempir without confidering his vow of celibacy, now becomes very u gent to marry the daughter of Nathan; and fome accident obftacles being thrown in the way, it turns out, ift, that this fair creature is not the Jew's daughter, but the daughter of a Christian Knight, who had confided her to his charge; 2d, th the gallant Templar is the fon of the Saracen prince who had dilappeared from Saladin's court, and, wandering into Europe, had been feized with the caprice of becoming a Knight Templa and fighting againit his own beloved brother, under which chr racter he had chofen, however inconfiftently, to marry a Germa lady, and beget this young hero; and, 3d, that the fame illu trious convert was alfo the father of the Jew's reputed daugh:, and confequently, that the fe young lovers ftand to each other in the relation of brother and fifter. The most edifying part of the ftory is, that this discovery produces no fort of uneafinefs t disturbance to the parties concerned; on the contrary, the young people feem quite delighted with the occurrence; and the autho leaves them embracing their uncle the Sultan, in a paroxyfm of filial and paternal affection.

Such is the fable of Nathan the Wife. Its moral, we are informed, is to inculcate the duty of mutual indulgence in rel gious opinions and truly, it must be confefied that it does this in a very radical and effectual way, by urging, in a very confident manner, the extreme infignificance of all peculiar fystems of faith, or rather, the ftrong prefumption against any of them being at all worth attending to, or in any refpe& better than another. The author's whole fecret, for reconciling Jews, Ma hometans, and Chriflians to each other, is, to perfuade them all to renounce their peculiar tenets, and to reft fatisfied with a kind of philofophical deifm, in which they may all agree. The play, we are told, had a great effect in Germany, in quelling the dif fenfions of contending fectaries; and it is now made public in England with the fame benevolent purpofe. We would do much to forward the end, but we can by no means reconcile purfelves to the means which are here recommended. We fhall quote a line or two, to fhew that we do not at all mifreprefent the doctrines of the author, when we fay, that his antidote for religious intolerance is abfolute indifference, or infidelity. When the Templar is reproaching the Jew with the prejudices and fuperftitions of his nation, he anfwers,

Nath

• Nath.

-Defpife my nation

We did not chufe a nation for ourselves.

Are we our nations? What's a nation then?
Were Jews and Chriftians fuch, ere they were men?
And have I found in thee one more, to whom
it is enough to be a man?

Temp.

That haft thou.

Nathan, by God, thou haft. Thy hand; I blush

to have mistaken thee a fingle inftant. ' p. 104. This pious Knight makes a ftill clearer profeffion of his faith in a dialogue with a Christian woman, in which the having happened to say,

Daya.

-nor were this time

the firft, when thro' an unexpected path
the Saviour drew his children on to him
across the tangled maze of human life.'

he answers,

6

Temp. So folemn that! and yet if in the ftead of Saviour, I were to fay Providence,

it would found true

p. 170.

poor damfel

The creed of the Sultan appears, from a variety of paffages, to be equally liberal and accommodating.

The diction and compofition of this piece is not, as we have already obferved, altogether fo magnificent or ambitious as that of the modern German theatre. It aims rather at great fimplicity and aptnefs. The dialogue is the most familiar and natural imaginable, and the metaphors and figures which are introduced the molt humble and homely. There is a vein of innocent jocularity which runs through the whole drama; and the fultan and his minifters gibe and play upon each other, in the very fame ftyle of infantine raillery and impatience, which prevails between the young Jewels and her governante. The perfonages are all very quick and fnappifh withal, without ever fubjecting themselves to the agitation of the greater paffions; and the author has contrived moft ingenioufly to produce a drama, which has all the levity of comedy, without its wit or vivacity, and all the extravagance of tragedy, without its paffion or its poetry.

The tranflator, we think, has done great juftice to his original; except that his partiality for the German idiom has induced him to ftick to it occafionally, to the manifeft prejudice of his Englifh his notions of metrical harmony are probably borrowed from the fame fource. But our readers will judge better of the work by a fpecimen. The following is the Templar's first foliloquy, af ter he has fallen in love with the Jewels.

• Temp.
-'Tis fure I fled in vain ;
but more than fly I could not do, whatever

4

come

comes of it. Ah! to ward it off-the blow
was given too fuddenly. Long, much, I ftrove
to keep aloof; but vainly. Once to see her-
her, whom I furely did not court the fight of,
to fee her, and to form the refolution,
never to lose fight of her here again,
was one-The refolution ?-No, 'tis will,
fixt purpose, made, (for I was paffive in it)
feal'd, doom'd. To fee her, and to feel myself
bound to her, wove into her very being,
was one-remains one. Separate from her,
to live is quite unthinkable-is death.

And wherefoever after death we be,

there too the thought were death. And is this love?
Yet fo in troth the templar loves-fo-so-
the Chriftian loves the Jewefs.

What of that?

Here in this holy land, and therefore holy
and dear to me, I have already doff'd
fome prejudices.-Well-what fays my vow?
As templar I am dead, was dead to that
from the fame hour which made me prisoner
to Saladin. But is the head he gave me
my old one? No. It knows no word of what
was prated into yon, of what had bound it.
It is a better; for its patrial fky

fitter than yon. I feel-I'm confcious of it.
With this I now begin to think, as here
my father must have thought; if tales of him
have not been told untruly. Tales-why tales?
They are credible-more credible than ever-
now that I'm on the brink of ftumbling, where
he fell. He fell? I'd rather fall with men,
than stand with children. His example pledges
his approbation; and whofe approbation

have I elfe need of? Nathan's? Surely, of his
encouragement, applaufe, I've little need
to doubt-O what a Jew is he! yet easy
to pafs for the mere Jew.' P. 159, 160.

The following is part of the firft dialogue that paffes between

the lovers.

Recha, Where have you been? where you perhaps

ought not

-

Temp. What! If the spot may yet be seen where Mofes
ftood before God; when first-

Recha.
No, no; not that.
Where'er he flood, 'twas before God. Of this

I know enough already. Is it true,

I wish to learn from you, that-that it is not
by far fo troublesome to climb this mountain

as to get down-for on all mountains else,

that I have feen, quite the reverse obtains.' p. 128-29. ter some farther talk, equally innocent and edifying, the amors Templar exclaims

Temp. How truly faid thy father, " Do but know her!" Recha. Who has-of whom-said so to thee?

Thy father

Temp. faid to me, "Do but know her," and of thee.' p. 130. The following foliloquy of the Wife Nathan, when the fultan aves him to ponder on his query about the three religions, is in a >ftier style, and is in the best and most fententious manner of the uthor.

Nath. I came prepar'd with cafh-he afks truth.
as if truth too were cafh-a coin difus'd

that goes by weight-indeed 'tis fome fuch thing-
but a new coin, known by the stamp at once,
to be flung down and told upon the counter,
it is not that. Like gold in bags tied up,

fo truth lies hoarded in the wife man's head
to be brought out-Which now in this tranfaction,
which of us plays the Jew? he afks for truth,
is truth what he requires, his aim, his end?
That this is but the glue to lime a snare
ought not to be fufpected, 'twere too little,
yet what is found too little for the great-
In fact, thro' hedge and pale to talk at once
into one's field befeems not-friends look round,
feek for the path, afk leave to pass the gate-
I must be cautious. Yet to damp him back
and be the ftubborn Jew is not the thing;
and wholly to throw off the Jew, ftill lefs.
For if no Jew he might with right inquire-
why not a Mufulman ?-

p. 145-46.

Truth?

We fufpect our readers have enough now; yet there are many choice phrafes and images to be culled. Nathan, reproving pride, fays,

The iron pot would with a filver prong

be lifted from the fire, '

The fair Recha comparing the truth of Christianity to weeds fown in her mind, fays,

Yet

Yet I must acknowledge

I feel as if they had a four fweet ndour,

that makes me giddy — that half fuffocates me.'

And her handmaid, obferving the agitation of her lover, obferves with much elegance,

• Something paffes in him.

It boils-but it muft not boil over. Leave him

The fame perfonage conceiving Nathan to be fomewhat fevere in his farcafms, replies to him with great foirit, by firft saying, Hit f,' and then exclaiming, you are on the bite.' We fufpect, however, that we are indebted to the talte of the tranflator for the dignity of thefe two repartees. There is one other phrafe to which he feems particularly partial, and which has a very fingular effect on his compofition He can by no chance be prevailed upon to use the verb to find,' without coupling it with the particle up; thus, he fays, We'll find the up a staff;' -go find me up the Jew;'- Will no one fi d me the Dervis up;' '—' I wish to find him up that may convert her,' &c. &c. The phrafe occurs at least twenty tunes; and whether it be borrowed from the idiom of the original, or invented by the tranflator, must certainly be allowed to poffefs fingular grace and animation.

We have now exhibited enough, we conceive, of this drama, to fatisfy the greater part of our readers, that, in fpite of fome Jate alarming fymptoms, there is good reafon for holding, that there is ftill a confiderable difference between the national taste of Germany and of this country. The piece before us, has not only been a favourite aéting play for thefe laft fix and twenty years, but it is confidered as one of the best productions of their celebrated Leffing, who is vaunted as the purest and most elegant of their dramatic writers, and has long been the idol of thofe who cry down Schiller and Kotzebue as caricaturists. The tranflation is from the pen of Mr Taylor of Norwich, whose admirable verfions of Lenore, and of the Iphigenia in Tauris, have placed him at the head of all our tranflators from that language.

ART. XII. English Lyrics. Third Edition. By William Smyth, Fellow of St Peter's College, Cambridge. 12mo. pp. 150. London, 1806.

THE HIS is a very elegant and pleafing little volume: the work evidently of a man of refined tafte and amiable difpofitions, The character of the poetry is delicacy wather than force, tendernefs