to sour the humours of the people of most leisure, that they might be more apt to misemploy their vacant hours? It may be, there is not any where a people who should be less debarred of innocent diversions than the people of England. I will not argue this point, but I will strengthen my observations with one parallel to it, from Polybius. This excellent author, who always moralises in his history, and instructs as faithfully as he relates, attributes the ruin of Cynethia, by the Etolians, in plain terms, to the degeneracy from their Arcadian ancestors, in their neglect of theatrical and musical performances.

"The Cynethians," says he, "had their situation the farthest North of all Arcadia, they were subjected to an inclement and uncertain air, and were, for the most part, cold and melancholic; and for this reason, they, of all people, should last have parted with the innocent and wholesome remedies which the diversions of music administered to that sourness of temper, and sullenness of disposition, which, of necessity, they must partake of from the disposition and influence of the climate; for they no sooner fell to neglect these wholesome institutions, than they fell into dissensions and civil discord, and grew, at length, into such depravity of manners, that their crimes, in number and measure, surpassed all nations of Greeks besides."

Time has, in some degree, demonstrated the fallacy of the position on which the argument of Collier, for the total suppression of the stage, was founded, viz. the impossibility of effecting a reformation of its abuses; but the great and

immediate good which his book produced, in the purification of that which he had declared incapable of amendment, while it overthrows his deduction, does the highest honour to his zeal and to his talents; and he will ever be remembered as the great reformer of the English Stage, from the indecency and profaneness in which the wits of the reign of Charles the Second had involved it.

THE ENGLISH MYSTERIES IN GERMANY.

On the arrival of the Emperor Sigismund at the Council of Constance, in the year 1417, at which Council the English Ambassador was present, the English represented a sacred Drama before him, which was quite a novelty in Germany. It contained The Adoration of the Magi, and The Massacre of the Innocents, by Herod.

WYCHERLEY'S PECULIARITIES.

WYCHERLEY used to read himself asleep at night, either with Montaigne, Rochefoucault, Seneca, or Graciano; for these were his favourite authors. He would read one or other of them in the evening; and the next morning, perhaps, write a copy of verses on some subject similar to what he had been reading; and have all the

thoughts of his author, only expressed in a different mode, and that without knowing that he was obliged to any one for a single thought in the whole poem. Pope experienced this in him, several times, (for he visited him, for a whole winter, almost every evening and morning,) and looked upon it as one of the strangest phenomena that he ever observed in the human mind.

CIBBER'S COWARDICE.

To that passive valour, for which Colley Cibber was notorious, Lord Chesterfield ironically alludes, in a weekly paper called Common Sense, in the following words :-" Of all the Comedians who have appeared on the Stage, in my memory, no one has taken a kicking with such humour as our excellent Laureat."

An instance of this excessive timidity is given by Davies, on the authority of Victor, which shews that the players knew how to turn this failing of the manager to their own advantage. Bickerstaffe was a Comedian, whose benefit-play, Steele, with his customary good nature, recommended to the readers of the Tatler, on account of his being (nominally) his relation. This poor fellow had an income from the Theatre of

four pounds a week, of which Cibber, in one of his economical fits, probably brought on by the loss of a considerable sum at the gaming-table, to which he was passionately devoted, determined to retrench one half. The man, who had a family, was shocked at this sudden diminution of his allowance; but, knowing whence his misfortune was derived, he waited on Cibber, and plainly told him, that as he could not subsist on the small sum to which he had reduced his salary, he must call the author of his distress to an account, for that it would be better for him to lose his life in that way, than to starve. The affrighted manager assured him that he should receive an answer from him on the next Saturday; and Bickerstaffe found, on applying for his week's salary, that his usual income was continued.

GARRICK AND LORD MANSFIELD.

LORD Mansfield met Garrick at dinner, one day, in company with several others, upon county business:-his Lordship said to Garrick, that he had heard much of his performance of Macbeth, but had never seen him in that character, and begged he would favour the company with the dagger soliloquy. Garrick, with

out refusing, observed, " It would not be easy, my lord, to repeat that soliloquy by itself; the dagger scene is the most impassioned scene in all Shakspeare; and the mind must be elevated to a great degree before the spectator can sympathize with the actor. It must be remembered that Macbeth is a nobleman highly honoured; that he has just received great favours from the king; that he is bound by gratitude to protect him as his guest, and yet he is on the way to his chamber, for the purpose of murdering him. Is this a dagger, which I see before me?" "-continued the actor, sliding from his conversation into the way in which he usually pronounced the soliloquy, with an intention of giving it. "That's all very true," said Lord, Mansfield; "but, surely, you can give us a part of it."-" Impossible," answered Garrick. "Pray, my lord, when shall we hold our next meeting?"

DOGGET'S DRESSING OF A CHARACTER.

CIBBER says, that in dressing a character to the greatest exactness, Dogget was remarkably skilful; the least article of whatever habit he wore, seemed, in some degree, to speak and mark the different humours he represented.