making grimaces like the clown in a pantomime; and instead of producing horror, or the weighty impression which made Macbeth start, and seem to fear, they excite no sensation but bursts of laughter from the galleries, and indignant contempt from all the spectators who have common sense. Surely this might be managed better. Rites supposed to be supernatural should not be brought forward in too strong a light. Let the witches and their cauldron be at the bottom of the stage, and be just visible through a mist or cloud. Let their voices be heard, but their forms only dimly and imperfectly seen; there will then be some scope for the imagination, and the scenic allusion will not be so violently destroyed.

The same observations are applicable to the different apparitions which they shew to Macbeth, all which, to produce any effect on the mind, should be seen only in an imperfect and undefined manner; such, for instance, as the view of the haunted chamber in the popular opera of Bluebeard.

But still worse is the appearance of the ghost of Banquo managed. No stretch or power of fancy can make it seem supernatural. Brought forward in all the glare of light on the very front of the stage, with his whitened face, staring eyes, and bloody throat, it is impossible to suppose that the other guests do not see it as well as Macbeth.

G

The good sense of Garrick, I think, banished the airy dagger; and is not the ghost of Banquo the same? Had the poet any other meaning than to shew the power and influence of conscience on the mind? Why then should one be represented to the spectators more than the other? Surely the effect would be much more striking, if the chair which Macbeth fancies full were in reality left empty; for it would then plainly appear to be the effect only of his wounded conscience, which would give, as the poet designed, an awful and affecting lesson; whereas now the ghost excites more laughter than terror. If he must appear, let him at least be exiled to the bottom of the stage, and be hid in some degree by the table and the guests. Unless I mistake, his appearance was once omitted, and the gallery critics insisted on seeing their favourite again. Something must certainly be allowed to the populace; but Mr. Kemble's character is so high that he might resist such a disgrace to our national taste; and I think it also so firm that I may apply to him the lines of Horace,

"Nec sumit aut ponit secures

Arbitrio popularis auræ."

I am, &c. &c.

August 1, 1807.

SIR,

No XIII.

TO THE RUMINATOR.

EMBOLDENED by the example of your ingenious friend Mr. Random in a former Number of your LUCUBRATIONS, and still more by the candour which led you to insert his half serious, halfironical address, I too venture to offer you my advice. It will not be conveyed in terms of equal wit and humour, for I am, alas! the dullest of the dull, a prosing matter-of-fact fellow of the old school. Wit and humour are, indeed, fascinating and most engaging qualities, but they are neither in the power of every man, nor are they equally delightful to all. That ridicule is the test of truth, though long a favourite maxim, is at length completely exploded by the much more unerring test of good sense. Who now would wish to see it applied either to books or their authors? Who would desire to see an Addison changed to a Sterne, or the author of the Rambler even to "old Will Duncombe" himself, though certainly that respectable gentleman must be confessed to have been as perfectly innocent with regard to wit, as the facetious steward in the Drummer or the Haunted House."

But you are accused by your demo-critic correspondent of not abusing, or not pointing out the failings of those, of whose lives you give sketches. Now to apologise for vice, as Johnson did for the unfortunate Savage, is surely unbecoming a philosopher or a good man; but it cannot be necessary to display that vice to the world. Yourself an author and (not a writer of verses," but which is very different) a poet, in you it would seem like envy to disturb the ashes of the dead in search of their private faults, when your business with them, like ours, is only as public characters. The world is connected with an author only by his works: and, as you justly observe in your criticism on the Memoirs of Mrs. Carter, it is unworthy of a strong mind to be biassed in the opinion of a work by the private character, or rather what you conceive to be so, of the author. And this, Sir, naturally leads me to advise you-for what claim have you to escape the fate of your brother essayists?—rather to finish some of those poems which you have already begun, and of which parts are published in your CENSURA. By what right (if I may assume that angry tone) do you so tantalize the expectations of your readers? Month after month have we been expecting the conclusion of RETIREMENT, and the remaining VISITS of your WIZARD, to seats in your own county, consecrated by the his

toric Muse. If the bent of your genius does not at present take that direction, "try," to use your ingenious correspondent's words, "another chord of your many-stringed harp;" yet still exert your own talents, and instead of depending on such casual communications as the lively essay of Mr. Random, or the present contrast to it, give us more of your own original compositions. Strike the harp again, (though not in praise of Bragela;) unmask pretended patriotism; detect the empiricism of ministers; unlock the treasures of historic lore; pour out, on any subject, the fruits of a well-stored mind, and as your great predecessor says, write yourself out before you die.

Your Bath correspondent alludes to your juvenile production of Mary de Clifford. I have read that elegant and affecting tale more than once with renewed pleasure; but though I can say with Dryden,

"Old as I am, for ladies' love unfit,

The power

of beauty I remember yet,"

still I cannot wish that you should now employ your powers on a similar work. "To every thing," said the wisest of men, "there is a season," and that which became you in youth and was creditable to your early genius, would be a waste of the strength of your mind in maturity.