minor criticks, in all ages, lament the dreadful famine in the regions of Fancy; and, hypocritically weeping over the alledged imbecility of the labourers in her fields, condemn them, in the gross, as unfit for work, with a sweeping groan of deploration, more barbarous, and far more lasting, than an Irish howl:—

1

They would not exult over the weak points of an author, to render bim disgusted, or despondent;-they would not overpower his deservings with his errors, in the fear of giving him encouragement ;-they would not substitute flippant periods of malicious censure, and dapper sneerings of bastard wit, for generous chastisement, and playful scholastick correction ;— they would not almost uniformly tell us that a successful author's last production is his worst ;-they would not, in any instance, criticise plays, and players, on those nights when the piece was not acted, and when the actor did not perform ;-they would

not...

In short, they would not do any thing like the DOINGS of almost all the DOERS, in the year of our Lord, one thousand, eight hundred, and eleven.

I am aware that there are exceptions to all rules. I am acquainted with a few journalists of great worth, and probity; but worth and probity do not constitute a critick:-and, I need not name (although it would tend little to tediousness) any living censor, whom I may fancy to possess more requisites for his calling than morality, and honour.

Although the meanest quality of an English cri

tick be a knowledge of his native tongue, still we are inform'd, by nine newspaper writers out of ten, that an actor's "personification" of Macbeth, Macheath, or Mac any thing, has been good, bad, or indifferent.

Alas! have these sapient Philologers, now, to learn that the term, thus applied, describes a figure in rhetorick, carried into corporeal practice; a substantial prosopopæia, exhibited before us on the stage, by which things, and their attributes, are embodied into dramatick characters? Must they, yet, be told (what every school-boy may teach them) that, when a performer acts Nestor, he personates a man who lived a long time; but, when he appears with wings, a bald pate, a forelock, a scythe, and an hourglass, he personifies Time itself?

And such men are the awful Judges of our Pieria! the diurnal Inquisitors of our English Helicon! With what reverence must we contemplate these Aristotles on poetry, ignorant of familiar words in prose; these Priscians on grammar, in want of a vocabulary!

In conclusion,-I can observe no critical Sylla, in the present republick of letters, with force and insinuation enough to arrogate the title of perpetual dictator; and, if, even, the republick should be converted into an empire, and we are to be govern'd, henceforward, by an EMPEROR OF REVIEWS, I supplicate the Domitian (as far as regards the present novel) to abstain from his amusement of torturing flies.

Prithee, Emperor, be quiet!-rather, on this occa

sion, if you have one drop of humanity left in your ink-bottle, dip your pen into it: write one kindly recommendation, (don't puff!) on the subject of a poor fellow who is now no more. Tear me piecemeal, if you please ;-I am used to it:-but serve, as far as you honestly can, the cause of an unhappy widow, whose situation I am, now, to explain.

IN detailing the misfortunes of Mrs. Palmer, something must be premised relative to her late husband, and his deceased father.

John Palmer, senior, was so well known to almost all the present frequenters of English theatres, and his memory so fresh on record among those who never beheld him, that it would be tedious to enumerate the merits which raised him to that celebrity, which he long, and justly deserved, from the publick.

No actor could be said more literally, or more awfully, to have died in the exercise of his profession; for, in August, 1798, he suddenly expired on the stage, at Liverpool, while acting the principal character in the play of the Stranger.

He long had labour'd under pecuniary difficulties; and, shortly after his death, two Benefits were given, (the first by the Haymarket theatre, the second by the theatre in Drury-lane,) for the relief of his orphan children from the receipts of these Benefits,

his son, John Palmer, neither was allow'd, nor had a thought of claiming, any emolument: for he had then an ostensible occupation, having been on the stage since the 20th June, 1791.

He made his first appearance, when a mere stripling, in the Haymarket theatre, under the auspices of his father, (during the second season of my management there,) in the character of the Prince of Wales, in the First Part of Henry the Fourth :-his father acted Falstaff.

Profits, which cannot be participated, may, often, be wanted; and young John Palmer, at his father's decease, was (and always was, alas!) too much in need of them. Young as he was, he had been married, for some time, to the lady who is now his widow : their support depended on his own exertions; and, although he possess'd many theatrical qualifications, and improved from year to year, he never evinced the superior abilities of his father: but he had, surely, very sufficient merit to have obtain'd him a respectable situation in the winter theatres; which (I know not why) he never procured. His own capabilities, and punctuality in his business, in addition to a certain esprit du corps felt by his employer, in reference to his father, insured him a regular summer engagement in the Haymarket, from his first appearance there, till his death. I wish, for the sake of his widow, the same esprit had manifested itself in Drury-lane, where his father so long flourish'd.

Be this as it may ;-he received, unavoidably, a

small salary in the Haymarket, for several seasons, and never a comparatively large one:—and for the remaining eight, generally nine, long months, he acted where he could, in provincial theatres, to support himself, and his wife.

This "skirring the country," for theatrical bread, when an actor is not a London Hero, is (to say the least of it) very unprofitable; and (to say the most of it) keeps body and soul together:-but, poor fellow! he had another body to preserve, beside his own, almost as dear to him as his own soul, and that was his wife-an excellent wife; but, unfortunately, of extreme ill health, a prey to the chronick torments of gout, and rheumatism ;-whom he was to clothe, to feed, to nurse, nay, even sometimes to carry in his arms, when accidents occurr'd on the road, in their travels, which, although expensive to them, were not always, of course, the most commodious:- -and all this from the little stipend his labours could raise from theatrical mockeries, while his bosom heaved with domestick anguish!

This is a gloomy part of a sketch from nature; but I can only quit it to deviate from one dark tint to another, and give melancholy it's varieties.

The younger Palmer appears to have possess'd much spirit, and little philosophy, to encounter the buffets of fortune. He resisted present evils by an impetuous movement; but he opposed them with no sedate plan, (perhaps it was out of his power,) to prevent their recurrence :-a case too frequent among men of ardent minds, who, from want of system in