Tom Gradus now thought he had mistaken his way by not applying to the professed patron of the Muses: he therefore proceeded to one of the theatres, and announced himself to the manager as a man of genius; who told him that the present were not times to employ men of geuius in the way of dramatic talent, unless he was completely skilled in music, machinery and pantomime. "Sir," replied Tom, the pantomimes of the ancients have been my particular study; they are"-"Not for my market!" hastily interrupted the acting manager, who just then bounced in, all besmoked from the rehearsal of a ghost and devil piece. "If, now, you can turn King Lear into an opera, or fit the part of Lady Macbeth to Catalani's alto and ad libitum, your genius may make your fortune: or if you could transpose Hamlet into a comic opera, with an oriental processionade."Sir," indignantly interrupted our scholar, "I venerate Shakspeare too much to even attempt the mummeries you describe, should I die breadless. I took the theatres for the living temples of the immortal bard, but I find his altars are overthrown, and those of flimsy emasculate sound are erected in their stead; and that his high-priest, in parish; and my spouse will also attend the reading bouts. Now if you mind your hits, may be, you'll be the dominy. But mind, I like your sonorous voices, and my spouse wants a deal of action; so mind, loud and sonorous, and plenty of mascular motion for my spouse! Move off, Sir, move off; I sees a customer; Sarvant Mawm." Flesh and blood could bear no more!-Repairing to ahuckster's stall, to relieve fainting nature, the good woman asked him why he was so melancholy?" I'm a man of genius." answered Toin. "Well, to be sure," replied the woman, "I likes all men of genius for the sake of my little Timothy, who was the surprisingest genius in the world; he read the Testament at fourteen, and in a very few years would have understood written hand but the wonder of the world is gone!" And so I fear, Mr. Editor, long ere this, is poor Tom Gradus; for never did he return to his wretched garret from this shop! Therefore let us all pray, that none of our children may be men of genius! Empromptus. "A Deacon write Epigrams?" Why should he not? stead of guiding public taste to nutritive ON A DEACON's WRITING EPIGRAMS. and sanative food, only pampers sickly appetites with mawkish sugared trifles!" He then quitted the conference in perfect contempt of Catalani's ad libitum !—He was next recommended to an eminent publishing bookseller. 66 So, Mr. Genius," exclaimed Vamp, "are you in the translation, the compilation, or the index way "—" Sir," replied Tom, "I aspire to be original." Original!" screams the Knight; " I have not touched a sheet these seven years; nor would I buy them by the pound-Mr. Genius, they won't sell,-no, no, my lad, I have no employment for you; I keep two great scholars already, who do more work than I can print-cut and paste-cut and paste, that's the authorship now!" A great name in the Church by so doing is got ; ON MITRE-COURT, FLEET-STEET. PROPER terms here are met-for, whatever our forte, There's no way to the Mitre, except through the Court! OF SNOW; It melts us into ruin with a smile! On reading in the Newspapers, that Sir JOSEP BANKS had, at the instance of the Parish, been fined for removing some Ashes from his hous in Soho-square. He next heard of a vacancy in a city ON A SUN BEAM PLAYING ON A MASS parish-school, and was instructed to apply to the churchwardens, one of whom was described as a man of great power, and said to be the first in his line in the three Kingdoms. Tom was somewhat surprised in tracing him to find-purveyor of sausages in gold letters over the door. His patron was reading a newspaper, which he threw down on mistaking Tom for a customer, —“ Servant, Sir,” said he, pulling down his greasy waistcoat. "I am coine, Sir," says Tom, "concerning the vacant schoolmastership!" Oh! there again," resumed the churchwarden! " why, you are the seventeenth feller that has been here to-day, plaguing me about this here vacasey. How do you read? you'll all have a trial before me and my brother representative for this Of Sir JOSEPH, indeed, "Tis a sad thing to read, And deserves many critical lashes; Claim a right of demanding his ashes. Literature. NIGHTMARE ABBEY.-The volume just published under this whimsical title, is by is the author of those excellent works, MELIN COURT, and HEADLONG HALL. The style much the same; it is therefore scarcely necessary to add, that whoever takes up NIGHTMARE ABBEY, in the hope of finding a novel of exquisite horror, and terrific mystery, will be disappointed. It is, in fact, a spirited satire upon the popular follies of the age, in which leading topics and varied opinions are discussed, in the form of dialogue, by the dramatis personæ. To derive entertainment from this performance, the reader should himself possess a strong turn for satire; a quick perception for the ridiculous; good sense to smile at folly, when justly, even though severely lashed; and good nature not to be offended, if by chance he should discern some features of resemblance to himself. Thus, according to the taste of the reader, may NIGHTMARE ABREY prove either a bonne bouche or a bitter morsel. The dialogues are all good in their way. The turn that is sometimes given to them is irresistibly comic, particularly in the person of Mr. TooBAD. The incident, or rather accident in which that personage is subsequently implicated, when Mr. ASTERIAS and his son are watching for a Mermaid, is quite too much for gravity. Some neat cuts are dealt with a sharp finetempered blade to those who rear their heads on high," in all " the pomp of woe;" but we fear they are invulnerable to shame, as a Rhinoceros to a bullet, or as ACHILLES was to an arrow, without even excepting the heel. The Rev. Mr. Laryn.r.-Most assuredly Miss O'CARROLL-for however reasoners may dispute about the summum bonum, none of them will deny that a very good dinner is a very good thing, and what is a good dinner without a good appetite? and whence is a good appetite but from good health? Now Cheltenham, Mr. LISTLESS, is famous for good appetites, The Hon. Mr. Listless.-The best piece of logic I ever heard. Mr. LARYNX, the very best I assure you. I have thought very seriously, and profoundly. I thought of it let me see-when did I think of it? (he rang again, and Fatout re-appeared.) F▲TOUT! when did Ithink of going to Cheltenham, and did not go? Fatout.-De Juillet twenty-one de last summer, Monsieur. (Fatout retired.) The Hon. Mr. Listless.-So it was. An invaluable fellow that, Mr. LARYNX—invaluable, Miss O'CARROLL. Marionetta.--So I should judge, indeed, He seems to serve you as a walking memory, and to be a living chronicle not of your actions only, but of your thoughts. The Hon. Mr. Listless.-An excellent definition of the fellow, Miss O'Carrollexcellent, upon my honour-Ha! ha! ha! Heigh ho! laughter is a pleasure, but the excrtion of it is too much for me. In the following fragment of dialogne, caeh individual speaks in his own peculiar character, Mr. Glowry. You are leaving England, Mr. CYPRESS. There is a delightful melancholy in saying farewell to an old ac quaintance, when the chances are twenty to one against ever meeting again. Ă proached the sofa, and proposed a game at smiling bumper to a sad parting, and let us all ་ Dilogue." The Rev. Mr. Larynx ap billiards. The Hon, Mr. Listless.-Billiards! really I should be very happy; but in my present exhausted state, I fear the exertion would be too much for me. I do not know when I have been equal to such an effort. (He rang for his valet, Fatout entered.)-Fatout, when did I play at billiards last? Fatout. De fourteenth December, de last year, Monsieur,-(Fatout bowed and retired.) The Hon. Mr. Listless.-So it was. Seven months ago. You see Mr. LARYNX, you see, Sir. My nerves, Miss O'Carroll, my nerves are shattered. I have been advised to try Bath. Some of the faculty recommend Cheltenham. I think of trying both, as the seasons don't clash. The season you know Mr. LARYNX-the season Miss O'CARROLL-the season is every thing. Marionetta. And health is something, p'estce pas, LARYNX? be unhappy together. Mr. Cypress (filling a bumper. )—This is the only social habit that the disappointed spirit never unlearns. The Rev. Mr. Larynx (filling).-It is the only piece of academical learning that the finished educatce retains. Mr. Flosky (filling).—It is the only objec tive fact which the sceptic can realise. Seythrop (filling).-It is the only styptic for a bleeding heart. The Hon. Mr. Listless (filling).-It is the only trouble that is very well worth taking. Mr. Asterias (filling).—It is the only key of conversational truth. Mr. Toobad (filling).—It is the only antidote of the great wrath of the devil. Mr. Hilary (filling.)—It is the only symbol of perfect life. The inscription Hic NoN BIEITUR will suit nothing but a tomb stone." Miscellanies. ORIGINAL LETTER FROM DR.GOLDSMITH, ΤΟ Robert Bryanton, Esq. Ballymahon, Ireland. Edinburgh, Sept. 26, 1753. MY DEAR BOB.-How many good excuses and you know I was ever a good one at an excuse) might I call up to vindicate my past shameful silence! I might tell you how I wrote a long letter at my first coming hither, and seem vastly angry at my not receiving an answer; I might allege that business (with business you know I was always pestered) had never given me time to finger a pen; but I suppress these, and twenty more equally plausible, and as easily invented, since they might be attended with the slight inconvenience of being known to be lies. Let me then speak truth; an hereditary indolence (I have it from the mother's side) has hitherto prevented my writing to you, and still prevents my writing at least twenty-five letters more, due to my friends in Ireland. No turnspit dog gets up into his wheel with more reluctance than I sit down to write; yet no dog ever loved the roast meat he turns better than I love him I now address. Yet what shall I say now I am entered; shall I tire you with a description of this unfruitful country, where I must lead you over their hills all brown with heath, or their vallies scarce able to feed a rabbit? Man alone seems to be the only creature who has arrived to the natural size in this poor soil. Every part of the country presents the same dismal landscape - no grove nor brook lend their music to a stranger, or make the inhabitants forget their poverty;-yet, with all these disadvantages to call him down to humility, a Scotchman is one of the proudest things alive. The poor have pride ever to relieve them:—if mankind should happen to despise them, they aremasters of their own admiration, and that they can plentifully bestow on themselves. From their pride and poverty, as I take it, results one advantage this country enjoys, namely, the gentlemen are much better bred than amongst us. No such character here as our fox-hunter; and they expressed great surprise when I informed thein that Some men in Ireland of 1000l. a-year, spend their whole lives in running after a hare, drinking to be drunk, and getting every girl that will let them with child; and truly, if such a being, equipped in his hunting dress, came among a circle of Scotch gentry, they would behold him with the same astonishment that a countryman would King George on horseback. The men here have generally high cheek bones, and are lean and swarthy, foud of action, dancing in parti cular. Though now I mention dancing, let me say something of their balls, which are very frequent here. When a stranger enters the dancing ball, he sees one end of the room taken up with the ladies, who sit dismally in a group by themselves; at the other end stand their pensive partners, that are to be; but no more intercourse between the sexes, than there is between two countries at war:-the ladies, indeed, may ogle, and the gentlemen sigh, but an embargo is laid on any closer commerce. At length, to interrupt hostilities, the lady directress, or intendant, or what you will, pitches on a lady and gentleman to walk a minuet, which they perform with a formality that approaches despondence. After five or six couple have thus walked the gauntlet, all stand up to country dances, each gentleman furnished with a partner from the aforesaid lady directress; so they dance much and say nothing, and thus concludes our assembly. I told a Scotch gentleman, that such profound silence resembled the ancient procession of the Roman matrons in honour of Ceres: and the Scotch gentleman told me (and, faith, I believe he was right) that I was a very great pedant for my pains. Now I'm come to the ladies, and to shew that I love Scotland, and every thing that belongs to so charming a country, I insist on it, and will give him leave to break my head that denies it, that the Scotch ladies are ten thousand times handsomer than the Irish:-to be sure now I see your sisters, Beity and Peggy, vastly surprised at my partiality, but tell them stoutly, I don't value them, or their fine skins, or eyes, or good sense, or apotatoe; for I say it, and will maintain it, and as a convincing proof (I'm in a very great passion) of what I assert, the Scotch ladies say it themselves. But, to be less serious, where will you find a language so prettily become a pretty mouth, as the broad Scotch? and the women here speak it in its highest purity; for instance, teach one of their young ladies to pronounce "Whoar wull I gong"-with a becoming wideness of mouth, and I'll lay my life they will wound every hearer. We have no such character here as a coquet; but, alas! how many envious prudes! Some days ago I walked into my Lord Kilcoubry's, (don't be surprised, my Lord is but a glover) when the Duchess of Hamilton (that fair who sacrificed her beauty to ambition, and her inward peace to a title and gilt equipage) passed by in her chariot; her battered husband, or, more properly tl e guardian of her charms, sat by her side.Strait envy began, in the shape of no less than three ladies, who sat with me, to find faults in her faultless form:"For my part," says the first, "I think, what I always thought, that the Duchess has too much red in her con plexion."—" Madam, I'm of your opinion" says the second, "and I think her "MARRIED-Mr. Nodiah Drew to Miss Dorothy face has a palish cast too much on the delicate order." And let me tell you," adds the third lady, whose mouth was puckered up, that the Duchess has fine lips, but she wants a mouth."-At this, every lady drew up her mouth as if she was going to pronounce the letter P. But how ill, my dear Bob, does it become me to ridicule women with whom I have no correspondence! There are, 'tis certain, handsome women here; and 'tis as certain, there are handsome men to keep them company. An ugly and a poor man is society for himself; and such society the world lets me enjoy in great abundance. Fortune has given you circumstances, and nature a person, to look charming in the eye of the fair world. Nor do I envy my dear Bob such blessings, while I may sit down and laugh at the world, and at myself, the most ridiculous object in it.— But I begin to grow splenetic; and perhaps the fit may continue till I receive an answer to this. I know you can't send news from B. Mahon, but, such as it is, send it all; every thing you write will be agreeable and entertaining to xie. Has George Conway put up a sign yet; or John Finecly left off drinking drams; or Tom Allen got a new wig? But I leave to your own choice what to write. While Oliver Goldsmith lives, know you have a friend! P.S. Give my sincerest regards (not compliments, do you mind) to your agreeable family; and give my service to my inother, if you see her, for, as you express it in Ireland, I have a sneaking kindness for her still. Direct to me- Student in Physic, in Edinburgh. OTHELLO, The Moor of Venice, is about to be produced as an equestrian pantomime at the Circus of M. Franconi, at aris!! There is a fitness of blundering about this proceeding, which reconciles us to its very absurdity. To strip Shakspeare's Othello of its eloquence, its poetry, its profundity of thought and passion, and to degrade it into a senseless exhibition of bodily contortions, may be forgiven to the ignorant writer who would make Venice an equestrian city! THE KALEIDOSCOPE.-There is a book, published in 1710, under the title of "New Improvements of Planting and Gardening, by RICHARD BRADLEY, F.R.S." which describes this instrument literally, as a "new invention for the more speedy designing of garden plats, whereby we may produce more variety of figures in an hour's time, than are to be found in all the modes of gardening now extant." PUN.-A worthy Deacon in the north of England, is much offended at some wag for the following announcement of his marriage: Andrew. Patriotism, or the love of one's Country, is certainly one of the most noble and virtuous passions, that can inhabit the breast of man. There are indeed persons, who, arrogating to themselves the swelling title of citizens of the world, affect to despise all local attachments, as contrary to philosophy, and a liberal and enlarged mind; and who stigmatize the love of one's country, as a partial, narrow, and vicious disposition.But a little consideration will shew, that speculations of this kind are as full of absurdity, as they are of disaffection and spleen. Attachment to the land that gave us birth, the scene of our infant tenderness and youthful sports, seems to be a feeling natural to the heart of man. The inhabitant of the torrid regions cleaves to his sultry abode, and forsakes not the fertile rays of a burning sun; while the Laplander, when transported from his dreary inhospitable clime, dies of the nostalgia, or the disease of longing to return. But it is sufficient to shew the unreasonableness of this principle, that affects to rise above the preference of a single country, and to love the world alike, by carrying it to its full extent. If all nations and men. are alike entitled to our esteem and kindness, why are our families and friends preferred to others? On the same ground that we abandon the love of our country, we ought to abandon the endearing names of husband, brother, father, and friend. But what has our country to give it such claims on our love? Not to enter into the fiery strife of political contention, we conceive that were it for nothing but its geographical advantages, OLD ENGLAND should be loved! It is surrounded by the ocean, that serves at once for its enrichment and defence: a stately and imperial fleet moves on this with a majesty and strength, that awes the distant world; while a thousand vessels issue from a thousand ports, and return with the produce of every clime. Its cliffs lift high their hoary summits, while their feet beat back the foaming billows. It is set as a precious stone in the silver sea. Though but an Island, it presents all the beautiful variety that can be found in the most extensive tracts of the globe. Its climate is temperate, at an equal distance from equatorial heat, and polar inclemency. It has rivers, mountains, fruitful lands. and crowded cities, that vie with the world. But our country has many other advantages, which perhaps a future day may serve to depict. In the mean time, we think the following lines-no matter where we found them, are worth attention:- Remote from France (the Channel flows between) White cliffs, tall towers, and glittering spires are seen; A lovely Isle adorns the subject seas, Fond of their laws, and willing to obey, Religion free from pomp, yet still divine, And with her love the willing people warms. Plenty and riches crown the smiling plains, war! Odes. TO WINTER. BY THOMAS CAMPBELL, ESQ. When first the fiery mantled SUN Round the Earth and Ocean blue His Children four (the Seasons) flew: Smil'd the SPRING with angel face; Rush'd into her Sire's einbrace- Or India's citron-cover'd Isles; The QUEEN OF VINTAGE bow'd before his throne: A rich Pomegranate gemm'd her crown, But howling WINTER fled afar To Hills that prop the Polar Star, Whirls to death the roaring Whale, Howls his War-song to the gale; Save when down the ravag'd globe He travels on his native Storm, Deflow'ring Nature's grassy robe. And trampling on her faded form; "Till Light's returning Lord assume The shaft that drives him to his Northern field, Of power to pierce his raven plume And chrystal-cover'd shield! O, Sire of Storms, whose savage ear Fast descending as thou art, |