that he may or may not have grasp of mind enough, little as it requires, to comprehend the true drift of a dramatic piece; he may see it free from sentences of constructive sedition, and think his duty executed. I am astonished how such a play as "The Hypocrite" is tolerated in the present day. In a dramatic view it is unnatural and absurd; morality it has none. It is forced in every way, and it would be worthy the good sense of the managers of the great theatres to consign it to well-merited oblivion, instead of suffering its disgusting indecencies to flush the cheeks of the better part of their audiences. Its late reappearance was in very bad taste on Mr. Elliston's part. This play was written to satirize Whitfield, who, with his contemporary and friend Wesley, were virtuous, well-meaning, but enthusiastic men, of blameless conduct and irreproachable lives. However erroneous they might be deemed on points where all can be but matter of opinion, they did infinite good in reforming the morals and softening the brutality of the lower classes, from the colliers of Walsall to the miners of the West. Their labours were, as Lord Chatham would say, more those of a college of fishermen than of a conclave of bishops or cardinals. Notwithstanding their aberration from the statute faith, they were just and conscientious men. Are such men fit objects of disgusting satire in the present enlightened times? Ought not the good sound sense of an English audience (the best censor in a free country) to put down that which no excellence of acting can sanction?

We should wish to see all theatrical reform effected by public taste, rather than by any other mode. How often, after being delighted with the exhibition of a noble tragedy, that has elevated the mind to lofty feeling, and roused to mental activity every latent virtue-how often are we disgusted by an afterpiece calculated to eradicate the good impression the tragedy has produced, indebted to double entendre for wit, and to the slang of St. Giles's for phraseology. Now that Drury-lane Theatre is all that can be wished as to elegance of building, accommodation of the audience, and excellence of its company-now that it stands once more the first of our histrionic exhibitions-now that the public fill the house to suffocation on the acting of legitimate tragedy by Kean and Young-it becomes the manager to fix on a firm basis a national standard of taste in his department for our other theatres to imitate. We could wish to see there the selection of tragedy and comedy made from among the best-written and most pure in the language, and a stern rejection of all mawkish trash, under whatever name introduced. The afterpieces should include none but such as have sterling merit in writing, real wit, and a perfect freedom from those indelicacies and jurations resorted to by sterile writers to fill an hiatus or wind up the climax of a stupid sentence. We could wish to see some of our sound old tragedies, and our old genteel comedy, preserved from desuetude. A singleness of object, on the part of a manager possessing freedom of thought, and a bold reliance on common sense rather than on recorded opinion, might effect much good, and complete a theatre that we might justly be proud to array in all things against any in a foreign country-a Théâtre Anglais, where a pure national literature, excellence of acting, and a due regard to decorum, may save us the trouble of apologizing to strangers for faults which they do not tolerate, and give them a clear idea of a drama

adhering to the verity of existing things, and carrying to the summit of perfection the effect of the romantic or Shakspearian school, which must finally, in every country, take the uppermost place as the mirror of nature. Let Mr. Elliston think originally in this respect, and complete the good work he has entered upon; for he has given us a novel and high treat by uniting the excellences of our two most distinguished actors in one piece-let him purify the stage of every thing objectionable on the score of taste, and leave behind him a name as the perfecter of our theatrical exhibitions, in propriety*, costume, style, judgment, and morals. There is one difficulty, however, for him to overcome, which, it must be confessed, is embarrassing, namely, the subjugation of the gallery audience to a well-regulated conduct. The pit was formerly the place of the critic, affording, from its situation, the greatest facility of hearing and judging. The applause or censure of the pit decided every thing; it was the mean between the aristocracy of the boxes, and the radicalism of the galleries. At present the pit is generally filled with a respectable but uncritical audience. The amateurs of the performance are scattered through the boxes, in solitary observation. The tempered and judicious censure or applause once displayed by the pit is exchanged for the ignorant howlings and noisy interruptions of the galleries. Inferior actors, particularly in the more vulgar parts, play to the galleries, that now possess such a petty sovereignty over the whole house as it would be a slur on the audience to tolerate, were they not without a remedy to help themselves. Many reasonable alterations, for which a manager would be greeted with applause, would be overruled by the rabble. Farcewriters and melodram-compounders interlard their abortive productions with the vilest diction, to catch the never-failing applause of the "gods," as they are styled. Thus the gallery is, at present, nearly the dictator of the house, a state of affairs which it is difficult for a manager to alter. The gallery is vast in size, and its receipts are a great object in an expensive establishment; but its clamours operate against the interest of the other parts of the house, and its subjugation to the rules of good order seems a work indispensable to complete success. To hope better things from an amelioration of manners in the class that frequents the galleries is an idle expectation; to submit to it for ever will be a stigma both on the manager and the other parts of the house. Some have proposed to divide the gallery longitudinally, and thus prevent a concerted system of action. In what mode that good can be effected, which, unless effected, gives no hope of perfecting our theatrical exhibitions, is matter worthy the serious consideration of all who feel the charm of rational entertainment, and hold in estimation the pleasures of imagination and poesy. Thousands now do not visit the theatre at all, who, if these objections were removed, would be frequent visitants. The theatre, they justly observe, should be a school of the purest language, and a scene of decorum and refinement; it should be visited as an intellectual feast, in which "no crude surfeit reigned." This subject, which involves the real interest of the drama, has not often enough been brought before the

Why will Mr. Kean persist in playing Othello as a sooty woolly-headed negro? →it is no reason for one of his genius that tragedians have crred before him.

public, nor efforts commensurate to its importance been attempted to change it.

I write this with no knowledge of any manager personally, and with no wish to exalt the manager of Drury-lane above his merits. He has effected much for the public gratification, but much yet remains to be done. It is still farther in his favour, that he has shewn his willingness to give a fair trial to the production of every author that has apparently any chance of success. This is praiseworthy, and adds another laurel to his theatrical crown; but he must leave the author to his own judgment, and not shackle him by restraints. A practice has lately arisen of writing for an actor, and getting a play up with a character purposely drawn for him to sustain. Such a production never can be a happy one either for author or manager, and can only be of temporary interest. It is the actor's place to study the poet, not the poet the actor. In late times, among other strange things, we have seen most extraordinary ac`knowledgments put forth by authors to performers, indicating that the latter have, occasionally at least, pretentions humiliating to the pride of authorship, which the world would never have guessed, but for the confession-a confession no less novel and astounding to contemporaries than to ourselves. We are gravely told of an actor (Mr. Macready), in the dedication of "Julian," lately performed at Covent-garden, that his powers have inspired, and his taste "has fostered the tragic dramatists of the age!!" A piece of information, then first communicated to them, of which they had lived in unfelicitous ignorance, and would have so continued to live but for this important disclosure. "Elegance and luxuriance of praise" are revived from old Dryden's days,-this is to the full as bad as "your Lordship in satire and Shakspeare in tragedy!"

I fear I have occupied more space than I ought in thus noticing, in a desultory way, subjects which would seem to demand more methodic details. Those, however, who love the theatre, will agree in thinking that what remains to be done is so obvious, that the task of execution is alone wanting, and that this rests with the manager who possesses sufficient originality of mind to act by the rules of good taste alone in the improvement of our dramatic entertainments.* Y.

As one step, let the text of Shakspeare be forthwith restored in his plays, and the interpolated trash rejected which has so long disgraced the representation of some of his best works.

Or whether to the redolent Azores,

Amid whose tufted sheaves

The floral Goddess weaves

Her garland, breathing on the glades and shores
Intoxicating air,

Truant! thou dost repair :

Or lingerest still in that meridian nest,
Where myriad piping throats

Rival the warbler's notes,

The saffron namesake of those Islands blest,-
O hither, hither wing

Thy flight, and to our longing woodlands sing!

Or in those sea-girt gardens dost thou dwell,
Of plantain, cocoa, palm,

And that red tree whose balm
Fumed in the holocausts of Israel;
Beneath Banana shades,

Guava, and fig-tree glades,

Painting thy plumage in the sapphirine hue
Thrown from the heron blue,

Or rays of the prismatic parroquet,—
O let the perfumed breeze

From those Hesperides

Waft thee once more our eager ears to greet!

For lo! the young leaves flutter in the South,
As if they tried their wings,

While the bee's trumpet brings

News of each bud that pouts its honied mouth;
Blue-bells, yellow-cups, jonquils,

Lillies wild and daffodils,

Gladden our meads in intertangled wreath :

The sun enamour'd lies,

Watching the violet's eyes

On every bank, and drinks their luscious breath:

With open lips the thorn

Proclaims that May is born,

And darest thou, bird of Spring, that summons scorn?

Cuckoo! Cuckoo! O welcome, welcome notes!

Fields, woods, and waves rejoice

In that recover'd voice,

As on the wind its fluty music floats.

At that elixir strain,

My youth resumes its reign,

And life's first spring comes blossoming again:

O wondrous bird! if thus

Thy voice miraculous

Can renovate my spirit's vernal prime,

Nor thou, my Muse, forbear

That ecstasy to share,

I laugh at Fortune, and defy old Time.

THE VILLAGE BELLS.

Funera plango; fulgura frango, Sabbata pango,
Excito lentos, dissipo ventos, paco cruentos.
Laudo Deum verum, plebem voco, conjugo clerum,
Defunctos ploro, pestem fugo, festa decoro.

Monkish Inscriptions on Bells.

I HAD wandered for a long time, one summer's morning, through the successive copses and thinly-wooded glades that constitute the remains of Sherwood Forest, pondering upon the days of old, when their deeper and more extensive shades echoed to the horn of Robin Hood, and that romantic outlaw might have started from the thickets through which I was strolling, clad in Lincoln green and accoutred with bow and arrow, to challenge me for intruding upon his leafy haunts, when I observed that the trees growing gradually thinner opened at length upon a small lawn, in the centre of which was a piece of water, dotted along its banks with a few straggling oaks. Throwing myself down upon its margin, I was struck with the marvellous transparency of the limpid element, which resembled a mirror spread out upon the grass, reflecting every object of this sequestered nook with a precision that actually confused apprehension by its very clearness. Never was so perfect a piece of mimicry. The blue depths of heaven, with the rich colours and majestic motion of the slowly-sailing clouds, were not only copied in the hemisphere beneath me, but a goat, that had climbed an overhanging crag by my side, saw himself so perfectly represented below that he made every demonstration of attack with his butting head, as if preparing to leap down upon his shadowy opponent. A squirrel seemed to be running up to me out of the water upon the trunk of a reflected tree, upon whose extreme branches a thrush sat piping, as if singing to me from the bottom of the little lake. Other tenants of the air, as they fluttered above, were seen reflected in the wave beneath, while fishes now and then darted like meteors athwart these commingled birds and boughs and skies, as if the elements and their respective inhabitants were all confused together. As I perused this cross-reading of Nature with a complacent admiration, the rising breeze wafted towards me from a neighbouring village the melodious chime of its bells, with the echoes of which I had not only been familiar in my boyish days, but had often stolen into the belfry to awaken them myself, though I never merited the appellation of a scientific ringer. I turned my listless steps towards the church, as the sound died away upon the wind, and again at intervals threw its music upon the air, musing upon the almost-forgotten feelings with which I had listened to the same mellow tones in my childhood,-anticipating the period, now rapidly approaching, when I should lie in the earth beneath them, deaf to their loudest peals-and whispering to myself in the beautiful words of Moore

"That other bards would walk these dells,

And listen to the evening bells ;"

when I fell into a train of thought upon the great sympathy and connexion that exists between these sonorous chroniclers and the public