in the form of a cone, the crown is formed by a round of lace, the cap must be formed so as to give the appearance of length to the head, the crown rather tapers, the cars are left uncovered, strings confine it under the chin, and a small knot of flowers, or long rosette of lace, ornaments the front; a deep black lace square veil thrown over the head is much worn by elegant people. A hat in the form of a crown, with a broad band of gold above the temples, and rich gold tassel suspended from the top, either in dove, coloured beaver or green velvet, is much worn in carriages, to which they are exclusively confined, called the Regency hat. Spensers and pelisses are worn trimmed with rich silk Brandenburgs. For morning dress the gowns are made high in the neck, to button up the back, without collars, mostly in cambric or moss muslin, they are considered equally elegant, either entirely plain or much let in with lace and work; a small jacket, set in to the band, is a graceful addition to the dress. Caps are indispensible, as are Roman boots of white morocco. Smal! muslin aprons are greatly admired. For home or dinner dresses, sarsnets, Merino crapes, Opera nets made high,with long sleeves, and small falling collar of lace, trimmed round the hands with the same, are by far the most approved Imperial and Spanish bombazeens may probably be considered of too close a texture for the season, they are, however, as is also velvet, still worn among the most fashionable circles. In full or evening dress, the bosoms of the dresses are cut square and rather low, the backs inclining higher, the sleeves universally short, the traius of a moderate length. Coloured satin or sarsnet bodies are very numerous, with a narrow shell edging laid plain on round the bosom and sleeves. White satin dresses seem to meet with the most fashionable approval, or black lace over white satin; coloured slips seem to be reserved for a more advanced season. Gossamer nets, figured white gauze are in high estimation. The small lace Opera tippet is a reigning favourite, particularly in full dress. In public, where you are liable to be exposed to a current of air, the satin or swansdown tippet may be more appropriate. Beads are much worn on the hair, a double row twisted across the temples, terminating in tassels on one side; as are Spanish turbans, or Scotch hat, with a point in front confined down with a brilliant pin, the hat trimmed and edged with beads; full tiaras of flowers, pearls, or silver foil. Small lace handkerchiefs tied be Among the newest articles worthy the notice of the fashionable world, are the Regency Spots, or the beautiful Bottilla grounds, for ladies morning dresses; these have an agreeable effect, having a pleasing fall, and giving a graceful effect to the shape. Also a new style of Doyles, of rich and elegant designs, adapted both for dinner and supper parties. A supe rior article of this description has long been wanted, and we are happy to announce its appearance; these articles are bought at the house of MILLARD, in the City. No change has taken place in the mode of wearing the bair; we think it something between the Sappho and Madona; it is combedsmooth over the forehead, divided and curled in large flat curls on each side; it is twisted as low in the neck behind as possible, rolled or braided round, and confined with gold or other ornamental combs. The Roman boot of white morocco, and Kemble slipper, are the only varieties in this part of the dress. There is no variation in the style of jewellery. Necklaces in sapphire, emeralds, garnets, topaz, amber, pearls, or diamonds, &c. blended with gold, or long gold chains, with a variety of trinkets suspended, and earrings in the drop form to correspond, are alike worn. Our belles begin to exert their taste in the choice of bracelets, those of large pearl with emeralds, clasps, or elastic gold, are at present the most admired. The watches are worn small, richly chased, with gold and pearl chains, with transparent Ceylon seals. The prevailing colours for the season are, purple, primrose, jonquille, green, pink, blue, and dove. OBSERVATIONS ON PARISIAN FASHIONS AND DRESS. EXTRACTED FROM "LE JOURNAL DES DAMES," OF FEBRUARY AND MARCH. Some velvet demi-pelisses are yet worn, and the most elegant thing of this kind, which we have yet seen, which seems determined, in spite of the unusual warmness of the weather, to assert the wintry prerogative of the generally boisterous month of March, is a kiud of green pelisse made of fine Merino cloth, its colour is between the deep Spanish fly-green and the Pomona; pelisses and mantles of this beautiful colour are generally trimmed with sable or Astracan fur. The French have lately manufactured a trimming which they call tulle, and we be lieve it is the same which we call patent lace, but of a much finer and more valuable texture. This tulle is not made on a cushion, according to the tedious process of lace-making; but on a machine, in the same manner as our British lace; and we rather imagine that our idea of making patent lace was taken from it; for the Sieur Genton produced the first specimens of this invention thirty years ago. In 1791, a brevet of invention (similar to our patents), was given to Monsieurs Jolivet and Cochet, of Lyons, for the fabrication of tulle. The hair elegantly dressed seems to be preferred in evening costume to any other headdress; yet we have remarked some caps of embroidered chenille on white satin, ornamented with an embroidered ribband of the same pattern, in a large bow; this bow is of various forms; chiefly long, and forming two distinct rows; between which a large oblong curl of hair is introduced. Black caps are also much worn, both in plain velvet, or with lace elegantly introduced between, which gives them a light and airy appearance; but for full-dress, the chief covering for the hair is mostly flowers and velvet, on rich caps of patent lace; the gossamer Merino crape in a light wave over one side of the head; or a turban a-la-Turque, of fine India muslin or white crape. For public spectacles, however, and large evening parties, a bandeau of different coloured gems, or the hair full dressed, without any ornament, is most prevalent. Those ladies whose hair is not naturally fine, and who do not wish to have recourse to false hair, wear yuch the Minerva cap, ornamented with a plume of white ostrich feathers; and to the turbans and demi-turbans, they add flowers of crape, velvet, or foil; the only established rule for varying the fashion, is to suit the colour of the flowers and jewels to that of the hair and the gown, White gossamer satin and crape caps are also worn; they are made to fit exactly to the head, with an half wreath of full Aowers, of roses or jonquille. And we cannot dismiss this article without saying one word of the Egyptian head-dress; two large plaits of hair cover the top of the head from one ear to the other; these braids are mingled with a ribband of the same thickness, and the hair and ribband are drawn together in the middle; and between the twisted curls in front and the plaits, are a few light ornaments of pearls or diamonds. Some black velvet caps seem to rival these head-dresses, and have a trimming of gold lace next the face. During the spring weather experienced in March, a few green caps made their appearance, with a wreath of white roses. The Swedish tippets, and the fur pelerines, vanished with the cold. Merino shawls, and even the thin Pekin wrap, spensers, and scarf shawls, made their appearance during the mild weather. The gowns are made of Chinese silk, taffety, Merino crape, and gossamer satins. Deep and striking colours, such as crimson, scarlet, puce, and purple, are only worn in hats or ribbands with white dresses; and the softer colours, such as pink, white, straw-colour, or blue, are gaining a decided preference. A white bonnet with blue feathers, a white gown trimmed with an embroidery of blue hyacinths, and a blue sash, with kid slippers of the same colour, form an elegant carriage costume. Amongst the rigid votaries to fashion, white rose-colour, grey, jonquille, and cerulean blue, are the prevailing colours.-In the article of jewellery nothing is esteemed to look so well with white dresses as coral, or fine clear red cornelian; though the faintly cerulean-tinged cornelian is much more worn with coloured dresses. The lapis lazuți is valued according to its ever exorbitant price, and it is now more rare than ever; some ladies have six or seven pieces of this precious article set in a watchchain; and turquoise stone and mosaic work of antique beads, are in great requisition for this appendage to the'diminutive watches now in fashion. At private masqued balls and galas, the dominos are made of white or rosecoloured satin, trimmed with rich patent lace, MONTHLY MISCELLANY, INCLUDING VARIETIES, CRITICAL, LITERARY, AND HISTORICAL. THE STAGE. three plays, which still keep possession of the ESSAYS TO ILLUSTRATE THE PRESENT STATE Stage, and two of them deserve it. These OF THE DRAMA.-No. VII. THE course of our Dramatic Review now leads us to Mrs. Centlivre, the authoress of plays are, The Busy Body, The Wonder, and The Bold Stroke for a Wife. Mrs. Centlivre wrote in an age when pub lic modesty and public morals, under the original contamination of the Court of Charles II. were so little required, and in such little public fashion, that they were not only dismissed from the minds of men, but were not even thought necessary in imagination. Mrs. Centlivre, a gay woman, of some wit and spirit, but of an intolerable carelessness, not to call it by a worse name, wrote in the same spirit in which the female Dramatis Personæ of Congreve were introduced as speak. ing. Accordingly, her dialogue is almost always indecorous, and not unfrequently'inexcusably indecent. It is by no means a sufficient excuse, to allege that this indecency is conveyed in decent terms-is couched up in allusions and figures. This, in fact, amounts to nothing—the indecency is the image conveyed to the mind; and the most indecorous images and thoughts may doubtless be conveyed in the most decent terms-words have no meaning by themselves. The merit of The Busy Body consists in its brisk plot, and in a suitable dialogue; Marplot is an original, and, at the same time, a natural character. He is always received with pleasantry. The humour consists in the impertinence of his interruptions. As to the dialogue of the play, it is very good, where it is barely what is necessary for carrying on the plot; where it steps out of the business, and endeavours to animate and strike, it is pertness and flippancy, totally without thought or meaning, and therefore without the slightest pretentions to wit or good writing. || 159 title it to serious consideration. There is the same immoral tendency pervading every part of it. This lady wrote many other plays, which, to the benefit of public morals, are forgotten. No writer, perhaps, has been more hardly treated than Colley Cibber. He has experinced the fate of those, who being in situa tions for which they themselves are certainly unfit, and for which others are eminently adapted, provoke even the sense and feeling of justice against them, and thus lead the town to encourage an attack against them. Cibber was Laureat in the time of Pope, Gay, Swift, &c. Cibber, as a Poet, and in comparison with Pope, was certainly contemptible, and accordingly, affecting to consider him only as a Poet, Pope contrived to render him So. He made him the hero of his Dunciad, and the town were not disposed to complain of the justice of a satire, so well written, and so pleasantly acrimonious. It is unjust, however, to consider Cibber as a Poet. In this point of view we freely give him up. Our business with him is as a dramatic writer. In this character, there cannot be a more degree of strength, he has always enough to pleasant writer. Without any very great He is grave, without being tediously formal, amuse, and even to occupy a thinking mind, and where his plot requires it, even feeling without tragic affectation. The leading merit of Cibber as a writer, is a gentlemanlike ease; a good sense, and a familiar and not inelegant way of delivering it. of his style and character. He had more His Careless Husband is the best specimen nature, and even more grace and comic The Wonder is a much superior play to The Busy Body, though the plot is Spanish, and the main business is not so amusing. Felix, in The Wonder, is drawn with a vigour infinitely beyond Mrs. Centlivre's general powers.beauty, than any of the writers of the age, Sheridan, from pure indolence, has imitated this character in Falkland, and, with powers tenfold above those of Mrs. Centlivere, is here infiuitely inferior to her—Falkland is as dull, stiff, and uninteresting, as Felix is amusing and lively. Falkland is a character suited only for a novel; Felix is drawn from life; Violante likewise deserves great praise. The play, however, is much lessened in merit by the flippancy, the pertness, the unceasing levity and insignificance of the other characters. Mrs. Centlivre, whatever her private character might be, never appears to have written without a dozen intrigues in her head. The Bold Stroke for a Wife is amusing by its briskness, but has all the faults of its authoress, without one quality which can en || and what should never be forgotten, though he wrote in a very loose age, and had nothing before him but models of indecency, he very seldom, we believe, scarcely ever, falls into it. It is always a very considerable merit, when about him, has either too much self-dependa writer, confessedly of inferior rank to those ence to imitate them, or too much taste to adopt their errors. Cibber was surrounded by wits, without being corrupted, or even touched by them, he imitated none of them. What he really possesses, he possesses of his own, and therefore has at least the praise of originality. Cibber indeed never appears to so little advantage as when he descends to what is next to imitation, translation. Amongst his works are several translations from the French stage, and they are infinitely inferior to his With respect to the revival of Blue Beard, we have only to observe, that, in our opinion, own. He had talents, indeed, above this walking in the trammels of others, and the town has been of the same opinion, as his ori-the parts have not been judiciously distributed ginal pieces survive, whilst his translations are deservedly forgotten. In our next Number we shall give some account of his several plays. We could wish, indeed, that some of them, and particularly his Careless Husband, could be restored to the stage. It is an excellent play, and we know not why it has been laid aside. (To be continued.) COVENT-GARDEN-The Managers of this Theatre have revived the pleasing Ballet of Blue Beard, and the great attraction of the revival (and the cause of its present popularity) is the beautiful and costly scenery, and the introduction of horses in the mock battle which concludes the piece. The dresses, the scenes, and decorations of every kind, are in a new style of splendour and magnificence; whether to the advantage of our dramatic taste, upon the whole, we very much doubt. It is a show and a spectacle, not a dramatic composition which is exhibit- || ed. This is undoubtedly in the genuine manner of the Augustan age, but in a manner which was censured by one of the best poets and critics of that or any age. The Proprietors, we think, may, with truth, be said rather to follow than to lead what is called the town, in furnishing out those gaudy and pompous entertainments. The taste of the public inclines strongly in favour of this kind of spectacle, and the profit which accrues from the gratification of this taste, justifies the Managers in consulting it. It is not true that these entertainments exclude the exhibition of those pieces, upon which no expence can be deemed lavish, and no decoration too sumptuous.-Shakespeare and Jonson were never so generally produced on the stage as by the present Managers of this Theatre. All our best Tragedies and Comedies have either been represented, or are in the course of orderly preparation. Scarcely A week elapses without a revival of some play, in which the genuine merits of the author find a powerful auxiliary in the taste with which his piece is brought forward, and he becomes indebted for his strongest impression upon the public to elegant well-chosen decoration. In Covent-Garden Theatre all tastes are consulted, and no part of the public can reasonably be dissatisfied by those efforts which are assiduously directed, and impartially meant, to comprehend the pleasures of all. among the performers. Mrs. Dickons should have represented Fatima, Miss Bolton or Miss Booth, Beda, and Blanchard should have played Ibrahim. LYCEUM.-A new Play has been presented at this Theatre, under the title of Ourselves →→→ This Play is certainly not entitled to take very high ground, but it would certainly be equally unjust to deny it a very considerable merit. The authoress of it is the lady to whom the public is indebted for The School for Friends. It is accordingly marked with the character of that Drama; it is somewhat too sentimental and heavy, but is not deficient in nature and interest. The plot, moreover, has all the ordinary faults of plots from Novels, rather than from the shifting scene of life. Concealed fathers, fortunes unexpectedly dropt from the clouds, and thousands tossed about as so much dirt, are all too removed from common life and daily use, to entitle any Comedy to take a high rank which deals in them. The world however is not so barren, but what even intricate plots may be really found on the stage of life, and the dramatist would do well to transfer them as they are to his canvas. The dramatists of the present day are all spoiled by the puerile taste after which they term incident and bustle; in pursuit of which incident and of which bustle they outrage all nature and probability, and reduce the Drama to a mere brisk farce. Another class, on the other hand, being determined to instruct, forget that it is necessary to amuse; they ac cordingly plunge into sentiment, and become insufferably dull. There are not more than three sentimental plays in the whole catalogue of acting Dramas, and it is a matter of astonishment to us why this kind of writing has not gone out of fashion. The dialogue of those kind of plays is of the same nature with the plot. It is a mixture of silk and worsted, of fustian and satin, which has no existence but on the Stage. The ordinary language of life is never in measured sentences. Nothing is so tedious, so intolerable, as these speaking Ladies and Gentle men. The Drama of Ourselves, however, seems to be one of the best of the kind; but as the whole kind is in no favour with us, we cannot find it in our hearts to give it much praise.—It is perhaps as good as Kelly's False Delicacy, the parent of all this sentimental trash. WORKS IN THE PRESS. The State Papers and Letters of Sir Walter Aston, afterward Lord Aston, who was ambassador in Spain in, the reigns of James I. and Charles I. are printing uniformly with those of Sir Ralph Sadler, in two quarto volumes, with portraits, autographs, and other embelFishments. Arthur Clifford, Esq. editor of the State Papers of Sir Ralph Sadler, has in the press, in a quarto volume, Tixall Poetry; embellished with engravings and fac-similes of the writings of Charles I Bradshawe, Fairfax, &c. the originals of which are in the possession of the editor; and accompanied with notes, illustrations, and an introduction. E. A Kendall, Esq. has the following Works nearly ready for publication :-Travels in the Northern Parts of the United States, in 1807 to 1810.-Travels in the Provinces of Lower Canada and Upper Canada, 1808.-Remarks on the Calumet, or Sacred Pipe.-An Essay On the Worship of Stones of Power. J. Hamstead, Esq. Captain in the royal navy, will speedily publish an Essay to explain the Cause of gravity, with other interesting Dr. Thomas Young has nearly ready for publication, in octavo, a System of Practical Nosology; with an introduction to medical literature in general. CRUELTY-An American paper of a late date gives the following melancholy relation : "Within the last sixteen months, a negro wench belonging to the estate of the late II. L. Davies, Esq. of Bedford county, ran away from Sledd, to whom she had been hired; and sought refuge and protection from one of her old master's sons. Mr. Davies carried the wench back to Sledd, and, with mild language, endeavoured to appease the man, and to soften down gusts of passion, which appeared to be excessive ou beholding the wench brought again under his authority. Exclamations and heats were carried literally, but alas! unfortunately for the victim, into effect after his departure. A strong decoction of red pepper and tobacco was deliberately prepared. The wench was stripped and tied up, and scored and cut, and bruised, and bathed and fomented with the aforesaid decoction! and then scored and cut again, and again fomented, and thus alternately until Mr. Sledd's notions of moral discipline and necessary correction were completely glutted! The wench unbound, crawled to a small branch near the house, to allay the anguish of her sufferings by the application of a little cold water. She did so. Here the poor thing expired! and death released for ever this unfortunate victim from the merciless hands of a remorseless tyrant! The counsel maintained the master's right to correct the slave, and there was no precise limit set for correction. He also maintained that, although the correction should eventuate in death, or that death should ensue, yet, unless the determination in the master to kill, was plainly proved, the crime did not amount to, or constitute murder. Sophistry, not reason or Mr. Montagu Pennington has nearly ready | justice, was in this instauce successful, and for publication, in an octavo volume, Redemp- || instead of being sent to the other world, Sledd tion, or a View of the Christian Religion, from has been sent to the Penitentiary for two the fall of Adam to its complete establishment || years!" under Constantine. matter. Col. W. Kirkpatrick's translation of Select Letters of Tippoo Sultan, with notes and observations, is nearly ready for publication. The Hitopadesa, in the Sanskrit language, printed at the library of the Hon. East India Company, and the first Sanskrit book ever printed in Europe, will soon appear. Dr. Pearson's Warburtonian Lectures, are expected to be published this month. General Malcolm, late envoy to the court of Persia, will shortly publish, in royal octavo, a Sketch of the Political History of India, from the year 1784 to the present date. Psyche, or the Legend of Love, with other poems, by the late Mr. Henry Tighe, are nearly ready for publication. Dr.Curry, of Guy's Hospital, has put to press a work on the Nature of the Hepatic Function, which is expected to be comprised in two octavo volumes, Mr. Stackhouse, author of Nereis Britannica, will shortly publish, in octavo, Illustrationes Theophrasti in usum Botanicorum præcipue peregrinantium. It contains a list of more than 400 species which have been described by that celebrated ancient. No. XVII. Vol. III.-N. S. SIZE A French chemist has recently discovered, that from the starch of potatoes quite fresh, and washed but once, a fine size, by mixture with chalk, might be made. The stucco plasterers of this country have benefited by the discovery, and they find that this kind of size is particularly useful for ceilings and for white washing, being more durable in tenacity and whiteness, and not putrifying like animal size, or exhaling any unwholesome odour. X |