the parade, sable seems the most admired, and best adapted to the smoky atmosphere of the metropolis. Evening dresses are most elegantly appropriate when made of black crape, and worn over white satin. We have also been compelled to admire those in grey crape, trimmed with white bugles; black lace dresses are also very frequent, but they are not mourning. Gold is much worn on the head, either in the form of bands or nets; pearls also, in every device, are very generally worn, and contrast extremely well with the mourning garb. For the promenade, cloaks in scarlet Merino, or grey cloth, black velvet pelisses, lined with grey sarsnet, wrapped plain over with sable tippets; Spanish hats in velvet, or cottage bonnets in black, grey, or scarlet cloth, or scarlet. in respect to the fashion for jewellery, all ornaments, whether rings, necklaces, ear. rings, brooches, buckles, &c. are worn much smaller. There are no colours worn but black, grey, er sarsuet. DIAMONDS. The value of diamonds have fluctuated with political events during the last quarter of a century. The emigrations from France, at the æra of the French revolution, occasioned a rapid and considerable reduction in the value of diamonds, from the immense number that was forced into the market by the necessity of the emigrants. The counter-revolution, effected by Bonaparte, has again raised the value of these precious articles of splendid luxBry. Such is the demand arising from the numerous rich presents required by etiquette, from the crowd of regal satellites revolving round their great centre, Bonaparte, that in the principal cities of the Continent, agents are actively employed in buying up jewels of every description, but diamonds in particular, In addition to the increase of demand, a dimiwution in supply adds to their scarcity; for neither from the Brazils, nor the East Indies, has there lately been received in Europe the customary supply. While diamonds of the first water are eagerly purchased in France, and the numerous Courts in Germany, stones of inferior value are readily taken off at Constantinople, where the luxury of the Mussulman rivals that of the ancient possessors of Byzantium. In no article of expence is the luxury of the day in London more brilliantly displayed, than in the superb ornament of cut glass, with which the mansions of wealth and fashion are decorated; but we are yet, as it should seem, but novices in splendid luxury, compared with the fashionables in Constantinople, where the girandoles by which they light their state apartments are oruanieated with jewels; and in the harams of the Grand Seignior, his Vizier, and the great officers of state-even with diamonds. This refinement in splendour, surpassing even the descriptions of Lady Mary Wortley Moutague, is, however, more rational than the infantine amusement of the Russian Prince Potemkin, who, to beguile the solitude of retirement, was accustomed to spread forth on a table covered with black velvet, the unrivalled collection of diamonds and other precious stones of which he was possessed. In the fanciful and varions arrange cents of these baubles, would this semi-barbarian pa-s whole evenings. A letter from Frankfort, of a recent date, quotes diamonds of the finest water, at more than 121. sterling per carat. MONTHLY MISCELLANY. INCLUDING VARIETIES, CRITICAL, LITERARY, AND HISTORICAL. THE STAGE. ESSAYS TO ILLUSTRATE THE PRESENT STATE OF THE DRAMA.-No. V. BEFORE we proceed to examine the Tragedy of Cato, it may be necessary to give our readers a precise idea of these three celebrated || Unities, which, according to the rules of Aristotle, and the confirmatory examples of the French writers, ought to be observed in every ¦¦ regular drama: namely, the unity of time, lace, and action. the ancients within the compass of the natnral day; and the reason assigned had its fougdation in the obvious necessity of producing a nearer resemblance of that which was feigned with that which was real. The time filled up by the representation of a play was its natural duration, and that play was deemed to be the most exact imitation of Nature, whose plot or action was coufined within the time of its performance. Now as the practice of the drama had jovariably prescribed, that a play The unity of time was comprehended by should be finished before the audience at one witting, so it was thought absurd, from its necessary incongruity, that the action should comprehend a longer portion of time than twenty-four hours. But as a play seldom detained an audience more than three or four hours, and as that portion of time might not be sufficient for the probability of the action, certain divisions in the Plot were invented, as pauses of the Table, and those intervals and inequalities of time, which were not explained or occupied on the Stage, were supposed to fall out between the Arts. The Aucien's were admirable observers of the Unity of Time in all their dramas; more particularly in their Tragedies, which is most difficult. In the commencement of their Plays, they fall immediately upon the main business; they start from the action without any this g prehminary or introductory; whatever of narrative is neccesary to the perfect comprehension of the plot, is given through the mouth of a chorus, which is a sort of substitute for the Port himself, and, though always on the Stage, is nevertheless independent of the characters who carry on the business of the Drama. By the second Unity, that of Place, we are to understand, that the scene ought to be continued through the play, in the same place in which it was laid in the beginning. The reason of the Unity is, that the Stage, being al ways the spot of ground in which the action is fixed, no matter what that spot of ground is called (Athens or Thebes), it is unuatural to conceive it in more places than oue, and those far distant from each other. We are not insi-ting, nor indeed shall we insist, on any intrinsic merit which criticism has discovered in this Unity of Time; we are only stating it. The ancients were very scrupulous in this Unity likewise they never changed a scene in the middle of an act. If the act began in a palace, it ended in a palace; if it began in a sacred grove, it likewise concluded there.| And that it might be known to be the same scene, the stage was so supplied with persons, that it was never suffered to be empty. He who entered second had business with him who was on before him; and before the second quitted the stage, a third appcared who had business with him. It is said by a great critic, to be the mark of a well contrived Play, when all the persons are known to each other; and every one of them has some affair with the rest. words:-Action is said to be that which is first in intention and last in execution; it is the main scope and end of the design; THAT, to which, as to its goal, every thing also tends; THAT, to the carrying on of which, all things in the Play, even the very embarrassments and impediments, are to be subscr vient. Two actions, say the critics, equally laboured and driven on by the same writer, will destroy the UNITY of the poem, aud produce two plays instead of one. Not but there may be many actions in a play, but they must all be subservient to some leading conduct; there may be an under-plot, but not two original, independent fables. There ought to be, says Corneille, but ONE action, which leaves the mind of the audience in a full repose, but this cannot be brought to pass without many other imperfect actions which conduce to it. Such is the critical notion of the Three Unities. The tragedy of Cato has been so frequently the subject of criticism, that it is difficult to sayany thing new upon it; but as it falls within the course of our examination, we cannot disniss it without remark. The Unities of the ancient drama are so strictly observed in this drama, that Cato holds his senate, and Syphar his conspiracy, almost in the same room. The author seems resolved to plunge into every absurdity, in order to avoid the imaginary one of breaking the Unities. He extends a mere rule of criticism beyond the utmost absurdity of poetic superstition, and requires sense and propriety to submit to a martyrdom to his dramatic orthodoxy. Thus far for the regularity of Cato. With respect to action, which is always the first ingredient in a tragedy, Cato has none. It is a perfect straight line of declamation from beginning to end. There is uo incident which fastens upon attention, or perplexes the diect path of the most simple natural progress. Cato begins with a resolution to die for his country's good, and through the five acts of the piece is only passing onwards to his first purpose. What is wanting in action is not made up by any delineation of character which lays hold upon the affections or judgment. There is, perhaps, some attempt at the rough and wily African in Syphar; but his conspiracy has nothing different from all the conspiracies of the Stage; Juba is merely an African educated at Rome. The two sous of Cato are naked characters; and, what is worse, though more The Unity of Action is defined in a few youthful than their father, are to be full as stoical and cold. Marcia "towers above. The Lover and his Mistress, in the French her sex," and none of her sex can feel any sympathy for her. As to Cato," the Gods take care of him;" and, in respect to the other characters, they are so out of human mature, and therefore so beyond human sympathy, that, however the Gods may care for them, man can only see them with wonder. With regard to the diction of the Play, it has a regular majesty not unworthy of the splendour and dignity of Rome.—It is a kind of rhetorical declamation; the excellence of which does not consist so much in the magnificence of imagery, as in the sublimity of virtue and morality-That in which it strikes the auditors, and forcibly impresses their reason, is its elevation of sentiment, a sacrifice of almost all the feelings, and the passions of our nature, to a strict, rigid, Roman duty. It was at this period that translations from foreign writers became frequent on the Stage, and the public ear was assailed and fatigued with the gravity and declamation of French Tragedy, more particularly with translations from Corneille and Racine. Ambrose Phillips led the way, and opened the mine of plagiarism, with his Distressed Mother, Play, translated, or rather imitated, from the Andromache of Racine. Philips was a writer of very middling genius; he possessed nothing of that pathos which could enable him to paint, with any chance of touching the feelings, the domestic action of Tragedy; and he was wholly inca pable of reaching passions which were elevated or loftyHe had collected from Addison some of the rules of writing, and as regularity is the common refuge of moderate talents, he endeavoured to compensate for the want of 1hose splendid powers of the Poet (which appeal to the imagination, and enlarge curiosity to wouder) by feeble elegance and quiet de Cornm. The French writers do not burthen themselves with much plot; they commonly make but one person considerable in a play, and in exalting ope character, they depress and neglect the rest. Their diction is for the most part rhetorical and declamatory. It is thus unsuitable to the language of passion, which should be vehement, abrupt, and colloquial. The French writers, moreover, whatever scenes they invented, or whatever characters they introduced, never forgot France, nor Frenchmen. Racine, though he had more nature, more knowledge of the ordinary cir cumstances, and real condition of things than Corneille, has painted only the French, and the manners of the age in which the lived. || Tragedies, are the Monsieur le Chevalier and the Mademoiselle of the polished circles of Paris-la short, by making love uniformly necessary as a master passion in every play, and elevating it to more importance than it really has in human life, the French tragedies generally disgust by insipid uniformity. The Distressed Mother, however, is one of those few pieces which, though a translation, keeps possession of the English Stage.-The tenderness of a mother is so well represented in Andromacke, that it raises compassion in a very high degree, and bears the nearest resemblance of any thing in the French tragedies to those admirable scenes of passion in Shakespeare and Otway -Hermoine is vehement and lofty, and her rage, proceeding from slighted love, and burning in the danghter of Helen, is suficiently heroic for the purpose. -Her death upon the body of Pyrrhus, a circumstance finely invented by the Poet, is touching, and not unnatural. Pyrrhus has ali the technical majesty, and, we must say, stupid composure, of the tyrant of the French Stage. But the character of Orestes is very nobly drawn-there is a poetical splendour in his madness not unworthy the genius of Eschylus-It is a very spirited copy of the Greek original. It is, perhaps, too much in the style of what the painters call Academic; but it has as much grace, and perhaps more uature, than the Orestes of the ancient Poets. (To be continued.) LYCEUM THEATRE-A new Comedy, called Lost and Found, was lately produced at this theatre. It is a comedy of the sentimental kind, but, nevertheless, is of no despicable pretensions. Its plot, indeed, is the usual Gipsy story of a lost child, and a father who has the good fortune to find him in the fifth act. These improbabilities of real life are unfit for Comedy, which is, or ought to be, a representation of those manners which pass under familiar observation, and are known to be just by a comparison with their living examples. The characters of this piece had no pretention to novelty. An old man, with the usual portion of testiness, and a young man with the customary allowance of generosity; a gay, forward gi., with more sentiments than decorum, and a tricking Agent, with nothing very original in his knavery; all these are characters which are certainly not uncommon en the Stage. Notwithstanding these subtractions from its merits, this play had fewer artifices of dis |