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action that boundless extent of genius and of intellectual endowment which Providence has scattered so profusely and so impartially among every rank of men; they are the paths by which the Newtons and the mute, inglorious Miltons" of the hamlet may reach the heights of usefulness and of fame: and philanthrophists should strive to advance it, because it presents the means most easy and effectual to meliorate the condition of mankind, to soften their manners, to refine their pleasures, to multiply their comforts, and to extirpate their most baneful and degrading vices. But it belongs more especially to those who have adopted the Christian religion, with all its sanctions and hallowed associations, as their own, to press forward in the race of benevolence with persevering constancy, and unwearied liberality.

The advocate for the poor Highlanders thus presses his arguments upon all orders of men; and we have now the assurance, that such arguments have not been addressed in vain to many individuals and associations in our country. The fund already collected by the Assembly's Committee amounts to nearly £.6000 independently of the liberal contributions which will certainly be obtained in the colonies, and the sums still expected from many parishes where collections have not yet been made. We trust, that when exertions so praise-worthy are making on behalf of the more extended Association, that this excellent auxi

liary, whose Report is before us, will not appeal in vain to the beneficence of the public, although undoubtedly it must draw its chief support from the people in its own neighbourhood, who can best appreciate its merits.

We cannot close this very interesting Pamphlet without expressing our highest approbation (valeat quantum) of the care and ability with which the Report and relative documents have been prepared and laid before the public. While talents such as, it is manifest, have been employed in this task continue to direct the attention of the public to the great object of the Inverness Society, it is impossible that it should fail to command the exertions of many in its behalf. It is cheering to find truly practical views of what has been done, and what may be done for the advancement of human improvement and happiness, mingled with the spirit of rational piety,—a spirit utterly distinct from that of canting, uncalculating enthusiasm, which so frequently brings into contempt the exertions of men who are in heart truly worthy, but who, in the conducting of affairs wherein the feelings and the passions of masses of human beings are called into full play, manifest only the most deplorable ignorance and incapacity. It will afford us much pleasure to recur to this subject when the more extended, and, we believe, very accurate Report of the Assembly's Committee shall have been published.

Public Distress. As you have perhaps heard much of the prevalent gloom which pervades the metropolis, the melancholy aspect of public affairs, in consequence of the pecuniary crisis, and the very general and alarming distress, you will of course conclude that the city of the world is as dull and as lifeless as a city of the dead: such is not the case, I can assure you: even in this awful period of calamity, the world seems to move round as gaily as ever on its axis; need I add, that men and women eat, drink, and sleep, as much and as

well as ever, and that the gloom and consternation are principally confined to the columns of half-adozen industrious newspapers, at least as far as we see of it in London. As our grandfathers used to declare in our days, and their greatgrandfathers before our days, that there never were such times, we make use of the same cry now, in order that our great grand-children may not feel particularly terrified at its sound. In proof that the general distress lies in some degree in the imagination, a collection of nobleman's pictures has sold for nearly forty

thousand pounds; our ladies of fashion have not had one ball or party the less during the season, and have, to relieve their sensibility, provided themselves with an Italian singer, who soothes their distress, for the very moderate consideration of two hundred and sixty guineas anight! Calamity upon calamity! However, say what you will, the English are an open-hearted people, ready enough to relieve the wants of their own, or any other countrymen, provided they are not put to any trouble, and their names appear in the newspaper. Nearly a hundred thousand pounds have been subscribed for the relief of the manufacturers of Manchester and Blackburn, and no less than three fancy balls have been given with the same benevolent intention. What a delightful way of yielding the milk of human kindness! A gentleman, instead of going to the opera, pays his guinea for a ticket, and puts on his tights with the satisfactory feeling that he is doing a benevolent action, and sighs at the excesses the warmth of his heart leads him into; while the fair partner, in a head-dress of feathers and diamonds, which cost as much as would keep a dozen families from starving for a twelve-month, resigns herself to the impulses of her sensibility, and actually walks through a figure in a quadrille, for the relief of her starving countrymen.

Dramatic Authorship.

The Lion of the metropolis, since the death of Chunee the elephant, is a German one, and the talented composer of Der Freischütz-the Baron Von Weber. His long-promised and expected opera of Oberon has at last made its appearance, and, from the delicacy people seem to have in giving their opinions, falls infinitely below expectation. Bishop, of the other house, has also, in the ele gant and expressive idiom of the Fives' Court, "come up to the scratch," and has also, to continue in the same language, come off "second best." It is a singular fact, that the greatest composer of the day, and the first of our own country, should, in what has generally been allowed, even by themselves, to be a trial of skill, exerted themselves with less satisfac

tion than on any former occasion. If want of success on both sides may confer a victory on either, each of the combatants has come off most triumphantly.

A word or two respecting the literary merits of these operas: they are both as bad as possible. It would be, I fear, a convincing proof of an aberration of intellect, to complain of the insipidity of a modern opera; but really the doses in the forms of Oberon and Aladdin are of a more nauseating aspect than the veriest song-lover had ever yet to swallow. Have you any idea of the task that the unfortunate wretch, satirically entitled the author of a musical drama, has to undergo? In the first place, he is retained on the establishment at a regular salary, whether he works "by time or piece," n'importe, after the same fashion as the poets under the patronage of Mr Warren, the blacking, or Mr Taylor, the bears'-grease-manufacturer. So many times in the season he is called upon, to work on tragedy, comedy, opera, oratorio, or occasionally, by way of recreation, pantomime. When done, don't fancy his job is over, and he carries home his work in one hand, and puts out the other for payment. Oh no! the manager, or the manager's friend, (en passant, generally some stupid dolt of a lord,) takes time to look at it; if approved of, then the musical composer is called in: he shakes his head, and declares the dialogue too heavy, this character too light, and the next not light enough, in fact, that the piece is not adapted to his music. He then hums or plays over a certain number of libertine airs or tunes, in the expectation that the dramatist will marry them into a respectable family of poetry. The aspirant for fame having the fear of the King's Bench and an empty stomach before his eyes, dare not rebel, and at last the composer is satisfied. Next comes the performers: Mr A. declares he would rather pay the fine than play the part marked for him. Mr B. don't care if he does, provided it is entirely re-written. Mrs C. says she has too much to do; Mrs D. has too little. Mrs E. wants Mrs F.'s part, and Mrs F. neither likes Mrs E.'s nor her own.

Messrs, Misses, and Mesdames G, H, I, J, K, and L, want a little addition here, and a little substraction there; in short, there are twenty grievances for every letter in the alphabet. None of the ladies and gentlemen are of the same opinion, except that the author is a dolt, and that they are conferring a mighty honour on him in damning his piece. After the performers have exhausted their ingenuity in picking out faults, comes the deputy-licenser-the awful deputy-licenser! Mr George Colman. That gentleman in office, with the same line of decency and propriety which his works and private character have demonstrated, and the acute penetration for which he must surely have had the thanks of every author who has ever come under his surveilliance, exterminates every d-n, obliterates every allusion to a certain old gentleman, who shall be nameless, and consigns, with a pen dipped in red ink, to the most unqualified perdition, every witty stroke that might be misconstrued into an indelicate meaning. After all this scowering and purging, the author at last is allowed to show his face. Can it be possible that the public can have such flinty hearts as to decide for themselves, when the poor devil of of an author has already been worried to death by manager, manager's friend, composer, performers, and deputy-licenser, deciding for them? You remember the story of St. Peter, who thought that the miseries of the tailor who had undergone the purgatory of a married life, was a sufficient punishment for his sins, and kindly admitted him, without further examination, into heaven. Surely the kind-hearted John Bull could not consign the play-wright to damnation, after he has gone through a purgatory five hundred times worse, according to my notions of those situations.

I mention these facts, in order to dispose the world charitably towards the piece, and to let it into a secret which has often puzzled it, of the total absence of any thing like dramatic talent in our modern theatre, when every other department in literature can boast of such highsounding supporters. What author,

in the name of "all the talents," one pitch above mediocrity or starvation, would bend his genius to the whims and caprices of managers, players, or scene-shifters? The expense of getting up (as the slang of the play-house goes) of Oberon and Aladdin, exceeds, I venture to say, the gross amount of the sums received by Shakespeare, Congreve, and Farquhar, for those productions with which we have been nightly delighted and instructed, as were our ancestors before us, and as our posterity will be after us. Can we wonder, then, if the treasury is exhausted on the scene-painter, the property-master, and the costume-finder, that the man of letters should direct the current of his intellects towards a more fertilizing soil?

Oberon.

The incidents of which this opera is composed relate to the fortunes of one Sir Huon of Bordeaux, who is banished from the Court of the illustrious Charlemagne, on account of his having sent, by a summary process, the son of the Emperor rather hastily on his travels to the other world. For this trifling mistake, he is banished from the Court of France, with a promise of pardon if he atones for his offence. The terms are a mere nothing; he has only to cut the throat of the affianced husband of the Caliph of Bagdad's daughter, and make her his wife. The story meets the ear of Oberon, the king of the fairies, who, having had a tiff with his wife Titania, is parted from her, never to meet again, till two lovers preserve their constancy after every temptation to break it. The scene accordingly opens with a view of the king's bower, where groups of fairies are cocking up their legs and wings to a height truly edifying. By the way, these fairies are not of such an etherial nature as cur friends in the Midsummer Night's Dream, as some of them average fourteen stone, and rather puzzle one to think what figures they cut when flying. Oberon transports Sir Huon and his squire to the palace of the Caliph, where he arrives just in time to save Reiza, his daughter, from being married; she falls in love with him,

in

obedient to all the rules of romance and chivalry at first sight; he, with equal expedition, carries her off, (though friend Braham found it rather a difficult matter in Miss Paton's, or Lady L-'s, rather delicate situation;) they are shipwrecked, and fall into the hands of a Saracen prince. Here they both undergo the trial of their constancy. Braham, or Sir Huon, has a pretty woman on one side, and a bowstring on the other; while his lady love has to contend with Mr Cooper in a tremendous pair of moustachios. They have the grace or virtue to withstand these awful sufferings, triumph, and are finally united. Oberon and his frail rib are again turtles. As you may anticipate, the prin. cipal or only charm in Oberon is the music. It is a delicate and an ungracious task to speak slightingly of the labours of a man of genius. The world has got, to me, a shocking way of speaking its mind upon all occasions, and thinks nothing of saying, that So-and-so falls off, and that he is nothing like what he used to be. Were we to compare Oberon to Der Freischütz, it would be undoubtedly to its disadvantage: yet still it has many beautiful and exquisite touches of genius and melody, though the general effect is monotonous and heavy. The music is elaborate in the utmost sense of the word not an air but what carries with it evidence of intense and profound study. The composer has, however, discovered a mannerism of which I did not suspect him. For instance, "I revel in hope and joy again," appears to me nothing more than an echo of the beautiful, though oft-repeated air, "Hope again is waking," in his popular opera. "O turn not away from the banquet of bliss!" is the hunting chorus in a new shape. Are we never to hear the last of that chorus? The repetition really raises devils bluer than those in the incantation scene. In fact, the ear is completely cloyed with "some well-remembered" turn or transition, which, though not exactly plagiarism, yet strikes us in the same way, as hacknied or borrowed ideas, in original or different language. Some parts of the overture, particularly the opening, is very beautiful;

delicate, wild, and of a hushing sweetness; sounds such as, on a moonlight night, you could fancy a party of fairies could dance to, and

And melt in the heart as instantly,

-Which fall like snow in the sea,

The vulgar taste, as it is impudently called, has always struck me as the true criterion of genius. At the corner of every street you will hear the finest of the airs of Der Freischütz; and I do not think you can have a more decided proof of my judgment than in affirming, that out of the dozens of airs in Oberon there will not be one whistled by a pot-boy, or massacred by a balladsinger. The poetry is in general graceful and elegant, but the dialogue wretchedly insipid. The piece may have a run; but, to crack a joke, which I suspect is not mine, I fear 'twill be a run-off its legs.

Aladdin

Is got up with as much regard to splendid scenery and magnificent costume as its rival at the other house, and with the same amiable disregard to literary distinction. The opera is indeed insufferably dull; and if it was not for Miss Stephens, who plays, or rather sings Aladdin, and munches apples with particular nonchalance, and talks of

knocking people about," (by the bye, if I should have liked to be knocked about, it should be by Miss Stephens,) no one would be able to yawn through it. Bishop has given us several delightful airs, but a few bars of music will not compensate for three hours and a-half (the time the opera took in performance) of wearying attention. Horn sung with great effect in a bravura style, and Mrs Davison (the only Lady Teazle of the day) played an old woman. The boxes were indifferently filled at half price, and the opera was succeeded by the appropriate entertainment of the "The Devil to Pay," the manager having made up his mind, though only the second night of performance, that the piece never would.

House of Commons.

The only night I have attended since my arrival in London was the

one on which the Spring-Gun-Repeal-Bill, or the New Garden-Act, was read for the second time. It is almost disgraceful to humanity to enter into an argument on the necessity of this measure; however, as the bill has not as yet passed, and has moreover met with some opponents, I must out with my real opinion. One question I would ask the advocate of spring-guns, which I consider comprehends all that can be said, pro and con, the passing of the bill for their discontinuance,-Which is the more worthy of protection, the life of a fellow-creature, or the preservation of a head of game? If he admit the former, I cannot think he can open his lips again in defence of this authorizer of legitimatized man-slayers-a law which seems to have an existence like that of the fabled vampyre, by the blood which is shed to perpetuate it.

What is the ostensible object of spring-guns?-To destroy those who are in pursuit of game; ergo, a multitude of needy peasantry are to be sacrificed, in order that the lord of the manor may enjoy a few months shooting in the autumn. Do you remember the story of the Algerine Dey, who, upon any grand occasion, for instance, the arrival of a foreign ambassador, would, by way of a treat, order a score or two of his subjects to be slaughtered, expressly for the entertainment and gratification of his august visitors? The country gentlemen of England, in regard to the zeal they discover for the amusement of their September guests, appear to have formed their notions of hospitality from that amiable autocrat. I do not believe it possible that there can be a preserve of game at present in this country but what has been purchased by a life, or at least a limb. What an honest pride a hospitable lord of the manor must feel in observing to his autumnal visitors, "The covey you sprung this morning cost a halfstarved labourer his leg;-the haunch of venison of which you are now partaking was procured by the annihilation of a villanous poacher;that hare which I sent you a fortnight ago was taken out of the hands of one of my tenant's sons as he lay dead, shot by one of my pa

tent spring-guns.-What an admirable code is our game-laws!"

As I have hitherto regarded springguns as they operate against the guilty, if they are not to be defended on that view, (and Heaven and humanity forbid that they should be!) what can be said in their favour, with the knowledge that they are endangering the lives of the innocent? Is it not horrible to reflect, and yet has it not often occurred, that strangers to the soil,-labourers returning from their daily toil, in ignorance of the neighbourhood of these horrid engines,-have taken, as they consider, the nearest way to their homes, and have found it the shortest to eternity!

Sensibility of Hangmen.

There is something particularly gratifying in the exercise of amiable feelings; and although there may be some who would sneer at the sensibility of Jack Ketch, let the following fact do this hitherto-injured member of society justice. The son of the late respectable individual who executed the office, not having the fear of the Lord and his father's gallows before his eyes, committed a theft, for which he is sentenced to be whipped, one of the functions which Mr Ketch has to go through, jure officii. The gentleman who at present fills the executive office, with a delicacy which does honour to his feelings, has sent, I understand, a petition to the Court, (entre nous of course,) expressing the shock he should feel in exercising his profession on the son of the individual to whom he was indebted for the knowledge of it. Mr Serjeant Arabin, with a due appreciation of such refinement of feeling, has, I understand, taken the matter seriously into consideration.

An Advertisement in a late Number of the Times, addressed to a young gentleman, who has abruptly quitted one of the Universities, after expressing the great loss and affliction his absence has occasioned, concludes by a noble reward of-THREE GUINEAS for the discovery of his place of residence. Society must really experience a "great loss," by an individual, on whose virtues