licence of one, -as secretaries of institutions exhibit a dried bug, or a preserved caterpillar,-by way of a specimen of a curious genus.

"5th March, 1829.

"It having been represented to me, by the Examiner of All Theatrical Entertainments, that a printed book, entitled 'Joseph and his brethren,' being an English translation of Mehul's celebrated Oratorio, does not contain in it anything immoral, or otherwise improper for the stage entertainments which are appropriated to Lent, I, the Lord Chamberlain of His Majesty's Household, do, by virtue of my office, and in pursuance of the Act of Parliament in that case provided, allow the said printed book to be performed at your theatre, without any variation in the words whatsoever, unless such variation be likewise approved of by me in due form.

"MONTROSE."

It were curious to speculate on what suggested the selection of an old irregular Dramatist to be a modern moral Judge. Mr. Colman, however, who has known the value of a damn, before it was more profitable to him to expurgate it, upon the principle of Snake forsaking the trade of slander, when he was paid double for telling the truth-has been chosen to fill the unworthy office. Bob Booty has turned Mr. Peachum.

Jonathan Wild, of whom Fielding has given a whole-length, was not only a highwayman, but the betrayer of highwaymen. He took fees, or blood-money, for the sacrifice of his comrades; and was the swiftest to peach against others, when he saw a chance of detection coming home to himself. Unless licensed by him, the examiner of Hockley in the Hole, no road-drama could be played, no professor of the mask could perform! Sir Walter Scott in one, perhaps the best, of his Scottish Tales, accounts for "Jem Rat's" promotion from thief to turnkey, upon the same invaluable principle. One would almost think the great novelist had been wickedly writing at the licenser, when he penned the following pertinent passage.

"Then, in heaven's name, what did you expect?"

"Just the post of under-turnkey, for I understand there's a vacancy," said the prisoner; "I wadna think of asking the lockman's place ower his head; it wadna suit me sae weel as ither folk, for I never could put a beast out o' the way, much less deal wi' a man."

"That's something in your favour," said the magistrate, making exactly the inference to which Ratcliffe was desirous to lead him, though he mantled his art with an affectation of oddity. "But," continued the magistrate, "how do you think you can be trusted with a charge in the prison, when you have broken, with your own hand, half the gaols in Scotland?"

"Wi' your honour's leave," said Ratcliffe, " if I kenn'd sae weel how to wan out mysel, it's like I wad be a' the better a hand to keep other folks in. I think they wad ken their business weel that held me in when I wanted to be out, or wan out when I wanted to haud them in."

"The remark seemed to strike the magistrate, but he made no further immediate remark, only desired Ratcliffe to be removed.

“When this daring, and yet sly freebooter was out of hearing, the magistrate asked the city clerk, What he thought of the fellow's assurance?'"

"It's not for me to say, Sir," replied the clerk; "but if James Ratcliffe be inclined to turn to good, there is not a man e'er came within the ports of the burgh could be of sae muckle use to the good town in the thief and lock-up line of business. I'll speak to Mr. Sharpitlaw about him."

And it is quite clear that this active legal limb has been appealed to in "our hero's favour," as Fielding invariably calls that other great man, Jonathan Wild; and Sharpitlaw's spirit appears to have revived in our modern Jem Rat-to have prompted his severity and created his six-and-eightpenny morality-To have drilled his mind into that state in which,

66

all that law

"As yet hath taught him, is to find a flaw."

We are really sick and ashamed of this prostitution of power, and begin to wish, as our readers must now do, to escape from the subject. It was our intention-but our limits put a veto upon that intention-to have very respectfully submitted Mr. Shakspeare's plays to the supervising judgment of Mr. Colman; and to have thereby ascertained what advantage morality, poetry, and loyalty would have gained by the supervision. We had selected a rare collection of illegal though immortal passages-but when our readers detect what havoc the licenser would have made of the few following instances, they will be able at once to exterminate Shakspeare, per Colman.

“Angels and ministers of grace defend us !

Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn'd?
Bring'st with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell.”

"Curses not loud but deep."

Macbeth.

"Out, damned spot."

Macbeth, (turned Licenser.)

"Or that the Everlasting had not fixed, &c."

Hamlet.

And last, not least" in fitness for submission to the pruning-knife, (“the pruning-knife? - the axe,") of the licenser, there is the following sadly worded remonstrance of King John :

"It is the curse of kings to be attended

By slaves, that take their humours for a warrant

To break within the bloody house of life;

And, on the winking of authority,

To understand a law,—to know the meaning

Of dangerous majesty!"

The words in italics must have been expunged (and indeed the last extract has something of Captain Absolute's rudeness in reading the libel upon Mrs. Malaprop to the old lady herself), and Shakspeare and the world must equally have been exposed to a terrific prohibition. But we have done. We have endeavoured to lay bare a bad system to our readers. For Mr. Colman, as a dramatist, and a liberal one, we have a sincere regard;-for Mr. Colman, as a licenser, and in our opinion an illiberal one, we have a bitter disregard—but in speaking of this gentleman, we merge the man in the office, at least we endeavour to do so, though he has a wilful way himself of merging the office in the man. At his age, and with his valuable experience, we can expect no healthy reformationbut we do look to the moral courage, youthful disinterestedness, and love of virtuous reform in the present Chamberlain, the Marquis of Conyngham, to effect the great good which it has been our humble attempt in these pages to advocate.

We here conclude our remarks on theatres, on the theatrical laws, and on those who mal-administer them. We have (as we have intimated already) cutrun our limits, or we should be tempted to indulge in a few observations upon our dramatic literature, that vast attractive power, which with its "elevation or decadence," raises or depresses the moral imagination and power of a country. When the drama has been VOL. II. N° II.

RR

most pure, the people have been comparatively pure with it; and when the drama has been debased, the debasement has sunk into the people, and lowered and tainted their habits and their feelings. At the present time, with all the anti-damning propensities of the licenser, the drama has fallen somewhat into the state in which Charles II. fostered it. We have the same laxity in our Actresses, with something of the same patronage in our Nobility, and our plays appeal to the depraved eye and ear, rather than allow truth and beauty, through inspired language "to come mended to the heart." Accustomed as we have been in our early days, to love-to adore the dramatic muse in all her purity-to look up to her as the sweet promoter of every young and right feeling-we cannot contemplate the prostituted, fantastic, and faded creature which she has in these our times become, without a sombre remembrance of what she was in the days of our first love!Her glory, like that of Ichabod, is departed!

Crabbe has "looked upon this picture, and on this," with the eye of a sad, severe, but true painter; and though professing himself no artist, realises the painful portrait with dismal fidelity.

"But is it she?-O! yes; the rose is dead,
Its beauty, fragrance, freshness, glory fled:
But yet 'tis she-the same-and not the same-
Who to my bower an heavenly being came;
Who waked my soul's first thought of real bliss,
Whom long I sought, and now I find her-this!

"I cannot paint her-something I had seen
So pale and slim, and tawdry, and unclean;
With haggard looks, of vice and woe the prey,
Laughing in languor, miserably gay;

Her face, where face appear'd, was amply spread,
By art's coarse pencil, with ill-chosen red :
But still the features were the same, and strange
My view of both-the sameness and the change,
That fix'd me gazing and my eye enchain'd,
Although so little of herself remain'd;
It is the creature whom I loved, and yet
Is far unlike her-would I could forget
The angel or her fall! the once adored
Or now despised! the worshipp'd or deplored!"

591

ARTICLE VII.

Inni Sacri. Del Conte T. MAMIANI della Rovere. Napoli: 1833.

Nuove Poesie. Del Conte T. MAMIANI della Rovere. Parigi: 1836.

Del Rinnovamento della Filosofia antica Italiana. Libro uno. Del Conte T. MAMIANI della Rovere. Parigi : 1835.

THE appearance of works, conceived in the spirit and executed with the ability which these volumes display, is well calculated to give fresh colour to those hopes of the moral regeneration of Italy, which the political changes of so many centuries have failed to realise, but which the lovers of beauty and of mankind have never ceased to entertain. We hail with delight every attempt to renew the ancient Italian philosophy, to which the world owes so many of its brightest pages and wisest lessons; but it is with feelings of indignation and sorrow that we read the author's name in that list of exiles, which includes the most illustrious and most national characters of modern Italy. Are foreign types the only means by which the Italian, who combines reflection with patriotism, and the fire of genius with anxiety for the improvement of his country, can impart his convictions to mankind? Must the harp, which sings of the glories of Italy, be a harp hung upon the willows? And are the contemplation of the wisdom of past ages and the ambition of enlightening the present and future generations, crimes to be expiated by exile and proscription? Amongst all the evil consequences of foreign oppression, none is more odious than that wall of separation which it erects between a nation and the minds most qualified to instruct and adorn it. In all the sufferings of banishment, there is none more keen than the knowledge, that thoughts and language eminently suited to benefit the land of their origin, will be less usefully bestowed on the the stranger. At this moment two poets, one of the North and the other of the SouthAdam Mickiewicz and Terenzio Mamiani, are banished from the countries which bore and nurtured them. Their chief merit, and their only crime, is the national spirit of their writings. Their works are animated by the same