the imagination up to the highest pitch of interest, and sometimes of agony, without paying due previous regard to the circumstances which have the effect. His ideas of human nature seem often drawn from these two false conclusions; that a great mind cannot err, and that virtue is the inseparable companion of every great undertaking. This occurs more than once in his play of Venice Preserved, a performance replete with particular beauties, but fraught with general

errors.

The intention of this play evidently was, to hold up conspiracy and rebellion to general contempt and execration; and to effect this, the author has made Pierre, the hero, and every soul of the conspiracy, a man of unblemished character, of tried integrity, and of unrelenting firmness! Perhaps there is not to be found throughout the whole range of the drama, a hero more bold, more consistent, and less effeminate. Bent solely on one grand purpose, to which he attaches an irresistible propriety, (by painting in glowing and undenied colours the profligate vices of the Government) he is admired throughout as a champion in the cause of liberty, and, in the catastrophe, lamented as its martyr. Jaffier too, who is represented as impelled rather by his own private wrongs than a patriotic motive, arrests our admiration throughout; and though it is he who discovers the plot, and thereby preserves Venice, yet is persuaded so to do by the entreaties of his wife; and, instead of seeing the enormity of his offence, afterwards repents he has disclosed it, and will not survive the mischief he conceives he has done to his country and his friends by the discovery.

The only character among the conspirators, to whom even any moral vice is imputed, is Renault, a man superannuated, and insignificant in the enterprize.

Thus far, then, nothing occurs to promote the author's intention, except the immorality of Renault: but, on the other hand, our feelings are strongly excited to the contrary. Yet, all, this might have been defeated, and our interest in favour of the conspirators destroyed, had the author established the reputation of the Venetian Government, or evinced superior virtue in the Governors. Has he done this? No. We do not find one word in favour of the Consti tution; we do not find the charges of the conspirators repelled; nor is there more than one of the senators brought forward as at all a prominent character; and he, Priuli, by his antecedent cruelty towards his daughter and her husband, has rendered himself the object of our detestation.

These facts prove that the play has a tendency directly contrary to the intention avowed, both in the prologue and epilogue, and which has been fully confirmed, as well on a late revival at Drury Lane, as on several former occasions, when there is good reason to believe its representation has been (and with unquestionable propriety) officially suppressed.

Otway's attention to female characters surpasses that of Shakspeare; and that obviously from the want of actresses in the latter's time. Shakspeare's Queen Catherine, or Constance, are neither of them so forcibly drawn, or finely worked up, as Otway's Belvidera. In her we behold all the finest tints of virtue, and the boldest traits of passion, culled, as it were, from the rarest objects, and, by successive heightenings, bursting into madness. If any fault can be found with this character, it must be, that it is rather too great, and consequently improbable; for it seems somewhat so, that she should possess such astonishing foresight and stability, as to deter her husband from a pursuit, which his excessive love for her had made him a party in; and that the august senate of Venice should owe their deliverance to a woman, whose father being one of them, she had but little cause to reverence. On the other hand, if we view mankind as it ought to be, not, alas! as it is, very grand morals may be drawn from so rare and captivating an example.

Of this play, which is throughout written in the most luxuriant flow of language, the scenes between Jaffier and Pierre are evidently the best; though, perhaps, for richness of colouring and display of feeling, the last between Juffier and Belvidera has hardly ever been excelled.

It is always an error to have even a scene after the main catastrophe of a tragedy therefore, had Belvidera been brought on in search of her husband, and died by bis corpse, instead of expiring on being told of his death, it would have been better.

REMARKS ON SIR JOHN VANBURGH'S COMEƆY

OF

THE PROVOKED WIFE.

It has been often a point at issue between men of letters, whether tragedy or comedy be capable of producing the best impressions on the human heart and conduct; a difficulty which may, perhaps, be thus solved, that tragedy has the superiority over comedy in impressing

public principles, through means of the bold heroic virtues; and that comedy is, in its turn, triumphant, when the dramatist would display scenes in private life to influence domestic conduct. It happens that comedy is more acceptable to the age we live in than tragedy; which, though it is a circumstance which some make use of to prove the frivolity of the times, yet possesses too its favourable indications; for, surely, when public taste palls at the representation of tragic spectacle, we may reasonably infer, that the disgust originates in a national refinement which has humanity for its basis.

If the stage should, as it is generally conceived it ought to be, 'Virtutis veræ custos, rigidusque satelles,'

• the

what shall we say of a comedy, every character in which sets modesty of nature' at defiance? which administers poison through every scene, without one tittle of antidote to avert the danger of false impression? And that such is the Provoked Wife, we think, notwithstanding its former popularity, we can too easily prove; and in no clearer way than by comparing the author with himself, or, in other words, this play with his Provoked Husband.

That Sir John Brute, had there ever existed such a man, was more than sufficient to provoke the most faithful wife, cannot be denied; and that Lady Townly is equally calculated to incense the most patient husband, must likewise be admitted: but mark the difference between Lady Brute and Lord Townly, and we perceive the extent of the provocation; in her, bounded only by passion, while in him it is limited by strict principles of honour. This comparison is highly necessary; because the moral in each play depends as much on the active as the passive cause. Lady Brute is a woman of intrigue, who would rather laugh at her husband's enormities, and make them a cloak for excesses of her own, than endeavour, by conciliatory means, to reclaim him; and gives a loose herself, if not to vices, at least to imprudent concessions, disgraceful to a woman of character, and thereby essentially diminishes that pity towards herself, and the disgust we should entertain against her husband, if we beheld in her any symptoms of suffering virtue. Lord Townley's character is the very reverse of this. He possesses none of that spirit of retaliation so conspicuous in Lady Brute; but is a man of nice honour, possessing an ardent attachment to his wife, and using every means which affection can dictate to restore her to reason. Here rest the structures of these two plays; and from these causes originate the very different impressions which they must make on every feeling mind, establishing the preponderative demerits of the one, and the lasting fame of the other.

In Belinda we do not find a Lady Grace, nor in Heartfree a Manly. Had their passion formed a contrast to the other, the object of the drama would have been in part established, and we might have been induced, for the author's sake, to make some sexual apology for Lady Brute.

Constant, instead of being an honourable and injured lover, is a deceitful intruder, who, under the mask of friendship for the husband, endeavours to insult the chastity of the wife. But Constant's attachment might have received some colour, had the author rendered it in the event successful, by making Sir John, like Sullen in the Beaux Stratagem, consent to a divorce, the neglect of which, renders Archer in that comedy, with all his intrigue, a less dangerous character than Constant in this.

The reader will, perhaps, here stop to ask himself, how, with all. these faults, this comedy could ever have been a favourite with the town? This seeming paradox is easily dissolved. Sir John Brute, to use a modern phrase, is a lusus Nature. The improbability of his character, which is the main-spring of the whole, takes from it the means of serious impression, and renders the whole plot too outré to produce much mischief in the representation; though this argument loses the greater part of its weight in the closet, Garrick's Sir John Brute and Foote's Mrs. Cole were great treats upon the stage: but it does not, therefore, follow, that either the Provoked Wife or the Minor should be ever esteemed in the closet.

In point of strength and novelty of character, the Knight and Lady Fanciful are evidently the best drawn. She is as just a satire now as when first produced. None of the rest are above mediocrity.

A DEFENCE OF THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY:

SIR,

IN A LETTER TO THE EDITOR.*

THE HE writer who employs his talents in stemming the progress of errors which might prove injurious to the interests of religion, morality, and social order, deserves, no doubt, the highest commendation; but such a writer, however, in bringing charges against any particular description of people, should be peculiarly solicitous that his knowledge of facts be accurate, and his accusation true. I was led into this remark by a note to the Laputian in your last magazine, containing a reflection upon the Missionary Society, which I will venture to say is as illiberal as it is false. Though the general design of that paper of the Laputian meets with my sincerest approbation, I certainly suspect that the author has either been deceived, or prejudiced against that body of people. To accuse them of disseminating dangerous political principles, seems just as reasonable as to suppose that the Governors of an hospital are forming a confederacy for the overthrow of the existing government: both institu tions are founded upon principles of general philanthropy, and are equally unconnected with public affairs. Of the sentiment which the Laputian wishes to condemn, he has himself very confused ideas. He puts the following expression into the mouth of the methodist preacher: the French are pursuing their depredations as ministers of holy vengeance,' and then, in the note to which I allude, he apparently explains it, as meaning that the French are the inspired agents of the Supreme! whom it is unlawful to resist. But, Sir, does he not perceive a most essential difference between the two modes of expression? The first implies nothing more than that the French are the blind unconscious agents of the Supreme Being; and is a rational and sublime idea: the other supposes that the Almighty has inspired them to violate every principle of rectitude, and that there

This letter is intended as an answer to a note of our ingenious correspondent, the LAPUTIAN, in which he charges the Missionary Society with disseminating democratical doctrines. Impartial justice requires that we should state the defence as well as the attack. We doubt not that the LAPUTIAN will either retract his charge, if made hastily and without sufficient examination; or, if true, support it by proof.

May.1