The character of the Knight in this farce (from the peculiar exclamations he uses) was surely an original. He was a specimen caught by Foote in one of his provincial campaigns. The way in which he is introduced is both easy and natural; and the dialogue has almost a short-hand appearance. Hartop and his friend Jenkin (who is an acquaintance of the Knight) are in conversation, when the latter enters with the waiter.

Sir Greg. What, neither the Gloucester Journal, nor the Worcester Courant, nor the Northampton Mercury, nor the Chester? Mr. Jenkins, I am your humble servant. A strange town this, Mr. Jenkins; no news stirring; no papers taken in! Is that gentleman a stranger, Mr. Jenkins? Pray, sir, not to be too bold, you don't come from London ?

Hartop. But last night.

Sir Greg. Lauk-a-day! that's wonderful! Mr. Jenkins, introduce me.
Jenk. Mr. Hartop, Sir Gregory Gazette.

Sir Greg. Sir, I'm proud to-Well, sir, and what news? You come fromPray, sir, are you a Parliament man?

Har. Not I, indeed, sir.

Sir Greg. Good lauk ! may be, belong to the law?

Har. Nor that.

Sir. Greg. Oh, then, in some of the offices; the Treasury, or the Exchequer. Har. Neither, sir.

Sir Greg. Lauk-a-day! that's wonderful! Well, but Mr.-Pray what name did Mr. Jenkins-Ha-Har

Har. Hartop.

Sir Greg. Ay, true! What, not the Hartops of Boston ?

Har. No.

Sir Greg. May be not. There's one thing, Mr. Hartop, that I envy you Londoners in, very much-quires of newspapers! Now, I reckon you read a matter of eight sheets every day?

Har. Not one.

Sir Greg. Wonderful, wonderful! Then may be you are about Court; and so being at the fountain-head, know what is in the papers before they are printed. Har. I never trouble my head about them. [Aside.] An old fool! Sir Greg. Good Lord! Your friend, Mr. Jenkins, is very close.

Jenk. Why, Sir Gregory, Mr. Hartop is much in the secrets above; and it becomes a man so trusted to be wary, you know.

Sir Greg. May be so, may be so. Wonderful! wonderful! Ay, ay! a great

man, no doubt.

Jenk. But I'll give him a better insight into your character, and that will induce him to throw off his reserve.

Sir Greg. May be so ;-do, do;-ay, ay. Do-do.

Jenk. Prythee, Jack, don't be so crusty; indulge, indulge the knight's humour a little! Besides, if I guess right, it may be necessary for your design to contract a pretty strict intimacy there.

Har. Well, do as you will.

Jenk. Sir Gregory, Mr. Hartop's ignorance of your character made him a little shy in his replies; but you will now find him more communicative; and—in your

ear he is a treasure! he is in all the mysteries of government; at the bottom of everything.

Sir Greg. Wonderful! wonderful!—a treasure!—ay, may be so-may be so! Jenk. And, that you may have him to yourself, I'll go in search of your son. Sir Greg. Do so,-do so. Tim is without. Just come from his uncle Tregegle's at Menegizy, in Cornwall. Tim's an honest lad. Do so, do so. [Exit Jenkins.

Sir Greg. Mr. Hartop, and so we have a peace: lauk-a-day! long-lookedcome at last. But pray, Mr. Hartop, how many newspapers may you have printed in a week?; Har. About a hundred and fifty, Sir Gregory.

Sir Greg. Good now! good now! and all full I reckon ; full as an egg: nothing but news. Well, well, I shall go to London one of these days. A hundred and fifty! Wonderful! wonderful! And pray now, which do you reckon the best?

Har. Oh, Sir Gregory, they are various in their excellences, as in their uses. If you are inclined to blacken, by a couple of lines, the reputation of a neighbour, you may do it for two shillings in one paper; if you are displaced or disappointed of a place, a triplet against the ministry will be always well received at the head of another and then, as a paper of morning amusement, you have "The Fool." Sir Greg. Good lauk! and pray, who and what may that same fool be?

Har. Why, Sir Gregory, the author has artfully assumed that habit, like the royal jesters of old, to level his satire with more security to himself, and severity to others.

Sir Greg. May be so,—may be so. The Fool! ha, ha, ha! well enough! a queer dog, and no fool; I warrant you, Killigrew. Ah! I've heard my grandfather talk much of that same Killigrew, and no fool. But, what's all this to news, Mr. Hartop? Who gives us the best account of the King of Spain, and the Queen of Hungary, and those great folks? Come, now, you could give us a little news if you would: come now,-snug! nobody by. Good now,-do,come, ever so little.

Har. Why, as you so largely contribute to the support of the government, it is but fair you should know what they are about. We are at present in a treaty with the Pope.

Sir Greg. With the Pope! Wonderful! wonderful! Good now! good now! How! how!

Har. We are to yield him up a large track of the Terra incognita, together with both the Needles, Scilly Rocks, and the Lizard Point, on condition that the Pretender has the government of Laputa, and the Bishop of Greenland succeeds to St. Peter's chair: he being, you know, a Protestant, when possessed of the Pontificals, issues out a Bull, commanding all Catholics to be of his religion: they, deeming the Pope infallible, follow his directions; and then, Sir Gregory, we are all of one mind.

Sir Greg. Good lauk! good lauk! Rare news! rare news! rare news! Ten millions of thanks, Mr. Hartop. But might I not just hint this to Mr. Soakum, our vicar? T'would rejoice his heart.

Har. Oh, fie! by no means.

Sir Greg. Only a line,—a little hint. Do, now!

Har. Well, sir; it is difficult for me to refuse you anything.

Sir Greg. Ten thousand thanks. Good now! The Pope. Wonderful! I'll minute it down. Both the Needles ?

Har. Ay, both.

Sir Greg. Good now, I'll minute it; the Lizard Point; both the Needles; Scilly Rocks; Bishop of Greenland; St. Peter's chair: why, then, when this is finished, we may chance to attack the Great Turk, and have the Holy Wars again, Mr. Hartop.

Har. That's part of the scheme.

Sir Greg. Ah, good now! You see I have a head! study many a day. Ah! if I had been in London to papers!

Politics have been my improve by the news

This extract reminds one of Addison's amusing list of the newspaper editors in his day, with the implicit provincial faith of “all the fox-hunters in the nation in Mr. Dyer, as the greatest statesman that our country has produced."

The two little pieces, "The Englishman in Paris," and "The Englishman Returned from Paris," are barely worthy of a third-rate dramatist for a third-rate play-house. "The Author," another farce, is as meagre in plot as it is in composition, with not one repartee deserving a record. In reading such pieces as these for present purpose I have wondered to find them gravely collected and preserved, to comprise the "Works" of a celebrated Wit. "The Minor," indeed, makes somewhat higher demand upon critical attention; for criticism would not only be thrown away upon the productions just named, but it would be like employing a horse-power engine to cut a cabbage for dinner. "The Minor" was evidently constructed with some pains, and it obtained a celebrity in its day from its containing a satire upon the zealous mission of Whitfield, the Calvinistic Methodist preacher, couched in the character of the infamous Mother Cole. With the coarse quality of what might now be styled "gentish" wit, Foote characterises Whitfield as "Doctor Squintum," personal defect being a sure card for ridicule with vulgar minds. The apostle of the newly-organised sect (which was, indeed, but a revival of old Puritanism) had-like his fanatical predecessorsdenounced in unmeasured terms the calling, the opinions, and the morality of the whole dramatic brotherhood: they were designated as children of the evil one, limbs of Satan, and, in short, were consigned over to everlasting perdition. This wholesale crusade against a noble, graceful, and (in its undepraved integrity) a truly moral class of writing, naturally roused those active and uncompromising spirits who were attacked through the whole body collective, to retaliate upon the religious Quixotes, by exposing the weak, and even odious results of their own over-heated calling. They consequently lampooneo the ranting, they ridiculed the ignorant, and they gibbeted the hypocritical who had connected themselves with the class, through self

seeking, and, in numerous instances, vicious motives. The rottenness of the one profession was surely as open to cauterisation as the obscenity of the other. The worthiest spirits of the drama have never slighted a rational, cheerful, and genuine piety; on the contrary, they have uniformly made it the pedestal upon which to construct their grandest designs.

The Great Dramatists have always distinguished between religion and fanaticism, sincerity and worldliness: the puritanical class of religionists, however, it cannot be denied have denounced all dramatic writing and theatrical representation in the mass. They have made no distinction between a play and impiety—a theatre and immorality. Everything that emanates from, and every mental production associated with theatrical illustration has in their estimation an evil tendency. Let it always be borne in mind, however, that the holiest of men in the several phases of Faith, and varieties of Creed, have borne spontaneous and noble testimony to the mental and moral Benefaction of our-and the world's greatest dramatic writer. The late Rev. Doctor Adam Clarke has put the following remarkable and almost facetious opinion upon record. He said: "The man who has not read Shakespeare, had need have public prayers put up for him." And that eminently pious and learned divine, Dr. Donne, Dean of St. Paul's, a man who, for wit, literary science, pulpit eloquence, and pious enthusiasm, is cited as one of the shining lights in the Protestant hierarchy, sent the following earnest answer to an application that had been made to him for an epitaph upon the poet, who had just died. He says in his answer, with a modesty due to the magnitude of the subject, and an admiration worthy of the genius requiring the tribute: "If you had commanded me to have waited on his body to Scotland, and preached there, I would have embraced your obligation with much alacrity: but I thank you that you would command me that which I was loather to do; for even that hath given a tincture of merit to the obedience of your poor friend and servant."

This is a clear irrelevancy to our immediate purpose; it is nevertheless assumed, in the confident belief that the reader will take worthy interest in a eulogy to the memory of our Shakespeare passedby this great and good man. The composition is a quaint one, and impregnated with the conceits of that age, and most especially of Dr. Donne himself, who was celebrated for his fantastic imagery. This is his testimony to the universal mind.

"Renowned Chaucer, lie a thought more nigh

To rare Beaumond; and learned Beaumond lie

A little nearer Spenser, to make room

For Shakespeare in your threefold, fourfold tomb.
To lie all four in one bed make a shift;
For, until Doomsday, hardly will a fift
Betwixt this day and that be slain,

For whom your curtains need be drawn again.
But if precedency of Death doth bar

A fourth in your sacred sepulchre ;

Under this curled marble of thine own,

Sleep, rare tragedian, Shakespeare-sleep alone:

That, unto us, and others, it may be

Honour hereafter to be laid by thee."

And all know the Delphic note of the immortal Milton, in his

epitaph :

"Dear son of memory, great heir of fame,

What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name?
Thou, in our wonder and astonishment,

Hast built thyself a live-long monument,

Pardon is again requested for this digression.

It is sometimes difficult to trace prejudices to their source; and many persons would, no doubt, be at a loss to define the cause of the wholesale denunciations of theatrical exhibitions on the part of the Puritans, for it originated with them; but I have fancied the following to have been the fountain head of, and the reason for their anathema. Under the old Pagan Hierarchy, upon all the festive days celebrated in honour of their deities, it was customary to represent a dramatic poem, the subject of which was associated with, if not founded upon, some point in mythological history, connected with the attributes of the Deity, in whose honour and worship the festival was solemnised. In the early stages of Christianity, and under the persecution of its first followers, the same exhibitions were continued, with the addition of the martyrdom of the Christian proselytes upon those Pagan red-letter days in their calendar. When the Reformation broke out in our country, and every act, every ceremony, every custom, almost every amusement, even to the May-day festivals (the origin of which was Pagan), that could be associated with Papacy became a subject for cavil and vituperation, and even execration; the head of the old Catholic Church being also designated as Antichrist, the theatrical exhibitions became confounded with the older Pagan ceremonies; and that faith being looked upon by the Reformers as no less impure than the worship of the Olympian