lance other inftances, wherein, from the difficulty of transfufion, or from clofenefs of attention, which may have deadened the niceness of a difengaged ear, the may have occafionally funken below what we wished. As a fpecimen of her fuccessful efforts, we fhall compare her verfion of the following fpeech, from the famed and celebrated Allan.' Act I. Scene II. PEGGY. I'll rin the risk, nor have I ony fear, Here Ramfay writes indeed like a canty callan*;' and makes Peggy express herself in rather too broad Scotch; which Mrs. T. thus polifhes, and fits for paffing the Tweed: I'll run the risk, nor have I any fear, That I deferv'd the heart he did beltow.' This is an elegant impreffion of the work, both as to print and paper; Ramiay's original on one page, and Mrs. Turner's verfion on the oppofite fide. Should a new edition be demanded, there is still room for a correcting hand; of which we shall point out an explanatory inftance or two, in the first scene. Here, Mrs. Turner writes, So might I fay; but 'tis not eas'ly done.' This is not easily, or at leaft pleafingly read. Ramfay writes. eafy done. Rumfay. For ilka fheep ye have, I'll number ten.' Ramfay. And downa eithly wi' your cunzie part.' Turner. It would have been clofer to the original, and rather more familiar, to have rendered this line-And cannot freely with your money part. Once more. Ramfay. Turner. doot! Till bris'd beneath the burden thou cry Till prefs'd beneath the burden, you may own, On the whole, we may here repeat what we formerly ob ferved, on a fimilar occafion*, that the paftoral drama of AllanRamfay is not likely to derive any increafed reputation from being done into English,' as Mr. Cornelius Vanderstop expreffed it. The dialect of the pieces is not yet fufficiently obfolete to require a tranflation; and its characteristic features are fometimes obliterated by the variation of the ftyle. ART. XIII. Memoirs of his own Life, by Tate Wilkinson, Patentee of the Theatres Royal, York and Hull. Izmo. 4 Vols. 145. fewed. Robinfons, &c. R. WILKINSON has been long known to the theatrical world, the world, we mean, of Great Britain and Ireland,] as an actor of fome eminence, and especially as a mimic of the higheft order. This kind of imitation is a talent that never fails to gain popularity: but Dr. Johnson denied that it was a talent: he, oddly enough, ftyled it a vice.-Those who wish to know by what arguments he fupported this idea, we refer to Mr. Bofwell's Life of Johnfon.-We are unwilling to grant the Doctor's pofition, for this, among other reafons, that it cannot be done without ftigmatizing honeft Mr. Wilkinfon as a very vicious man; for, in mimicry, we believe few, if any, [not Garrick himself,] have gone beyond him; perhaps they have not equalled him. His Whitefield, in particular, was certainly an unrivalled performance; it was IMITATION. Foote's Squintum, too, was tolerable: but his Mother Cole was nothing; it wanted a prototype. In thefe memoirs of his own life, Mr. Wilkinson fpeaks of himfelf, and particularly of his literary attainments, with becoming modefty: If, (fays he,) thefe memoirs and anecdotes obtain the compli ment of an hour's perufal, it is as much as I can hope or expect; for an HISTORY of any kind, I am not equal to, were it no more than that of Jack the Giant-killer; and I fear the refult will prove, after all, that I am really a poor poet, in the full fenfe of the word; and I may add, that no boy was ever fo weary of his tutor, no girl * See our account of Mr. Vanderftop's alteration of the Gentle Shepherd, Rev. vol. lvii. p. 82, of of her bib, no nun of doing penance, or old maid of being chafte, as I am with thirty-four years rolling about in a restless theatrical hemifphere. Indeed my broken leg, with conftant confinement, and indifferent health, has rendered this work partly a matter of amufement.-Praise I am too humble to expect, or think I by any ways deferve; and as to abufe for my writing, I fear it will be much below criticifm; but know the mode of the human mind full well to expect my being below ill-nature, contempt, or fcurility. If any pen of merit think thefe fheets worth an attack on my feeble and acknowledged ignorance, I will receive the dart as a noble, unexpected, and honourable estimation of a nothing.' It must be allowed, that as to the beauties of ftyle and language, Mr. W.'s pretenfions are, indeed, very fmall; yet it is but juftice to acknowlege, that his memoirs prefent us with a great part of the stage-history of his own times, enlivened with many anecdotes of Garrick, Foote, Rich, Woffington, and the other heroes and heroines of the bufkin and fock; befide the detail of his own particular adventures and revolutions of fortune, which are numerous, and often interefting. We do not say that his book is well written, like Colley Cibber's famous Apology; nor that the incidents and business of it will, in general, appear to be of equal importance in dramatic story :but it is, however, full of entertaining details, and characteristic sketches, not only of actors and actrèffes, but of perfons of fome eminence on the GREATER ftage of life. Among the many particulars relating to the lives and adventures of those who have been most distinguished among Mr. W.'s contemporaries of the drama, with which we have been amufed in the perufal of thefe volumes, we could not but obferve a strong confirmation of a report which we had often. heard, and never before thoroughly credited, of the famous Ned Shuter being a Methodist. The following circumstances will perhaps give, to the generality of our readers, a new idea of the private character of that truly comic genius : Speaking of the industry with which he ftudied Mr. Whitefield's manner, &c. our author fays, 'My attendance' [at the Tabernacle] had been conftant, with my friend Shuter; and as he actually was one of the new-born, and paid large fums to Whitefield, I was always permitted to stay with him; for he really was bewilder'd in his brain, more by withing to acquire imaginary grace, than by all his drinking: and whenever he was warm with the bottle, and with only a friend or two, like Maw-worm, he could not mind his fhop, becaufe he thought is a fin, and wifhed to go a preaching; for Shuter, like Maw-worm, believed he had had a call. I have gone with Shuter, at fix in the morning, on a Sunday, to Tottenham-court-road, then before ten to Mr. Welley's in Long-acre, at eleven again to Tot N 3 tenham tenham-court Tabernacle, dined near Bedlam in Moorfields, (a very proper place for us both,) with a party of the holy ones, went at three to Mr. Wefley's theatre * there, from thence to Mr. Whitefield's till eight, and then shut up to commune with the familycompact. Now, with all this practice and attention, I must have been a blockhead indeed not to have gleaned fome good things; and doubtless Mr. Whitefield was, at times, a good preacher, and truly excellent:-I therefore really obtained and exhibited a much stronger likeness as Dr. Squintum, than Mr. Foote did.'' Shoter was a lively, fpirited, fhrewd companion. Superior natural whim and humour furely never inhabited a human breaft; for what he faid and did was all his own, as it was with difficulty he could read the parts he had to play, and could not write at all: he had attained to fign an order, but no more. Nature could not have beftowed her gifts to greater advantage than on poor Ned, as what fhe gave he made fhine, not only confpicuously, but brilliantly, and that to the delight of all who knew him, on or off the ftage. He might be truly dubbed "the child of Nature." He was no man's enemy but his own. Peace, reft, and happiness, I hope he now poffeffes; for the poor, the friendlefs, and the ftranger, he often comforted; and when fometimes reduced by his follies, he never could fee a real object in mifery, and refift giving at least half he was worth to his diftreffed fellow-creature.' WHAT A SINGULAR COMPOSITION! If we do not rank Mr. W.'s performance, in point of literary merit, with Cibber's Apology before mentioned, nor even with Victor's nor Davies's dramatic hiftories,it will, at least, be allowed to comprehend a very confiderable mass of materials, which would be found ufetul, in conjunction with the other works here pointed out, toward the compilement of a general hiftory of the English stage, from the commencement of dramatic exhibitions in this country, to the prefent time; fuch a work, well executed, would no doubt meet with a favourable reception from the public.In regard to the authenticity of the anecdotes with which we are favoured by Mr. W. and the verifimilitude of the pictures and characters which he has fketched, as the principal of them relate to perfons and things within the recollection of many of his readers, they will, in course, be his proper judges, As to correctness of writing, and the regular arrangement of compofition, he is, we fee, too honeft to pretend to it. Nothing farther, therefore, in this refpect, can be faid for or against him, than that 66 None can compafs more than they intend." • The Foundery. Акт. ART. XIV. A Differtation on the English Verb; principally intended to ascertain the precife Meaning of its Tenfes, and point out the Tenfes of the Latin and French Verb which correfpond to them; in order to facilitate the Attainment of an accurate Knowledge of thofe three Languages, and difplay the fuperiorExcellence of the English Verb, with refpect to Simplicity, Copioufnefs, and Perfpicuity. To which is added, an Appendix, on French and Latin Participles. By James Pickbourn, Malter of a Boarding-fchool at Hackney. 8vo. pp. 284. 6s. Boards. Robinsons. GRA RAMMAR, which is one of the fciences moft generally neceffary, and now almoft univerfally taught, is likewife one most unsettled in its principles, and most arbitrary in its rules. In every language, its principles, if they be traced, must either be derived from the cafual combinations and irregular exertions of speech among the rudeft people; or must be deduced by analogy from other languages, which themselves are to be referred to the fame origin. The fubfequent rules or conclufions, as they are drawn from thefe principles, must partake in fome measure of their rude nature; and, in fact, they can poffefs little more ftability than what they gain from the common practice and good ufe of the most enlightened and polished fpeakers. If, from a long and careful obfervance of this practice and use, a system be deduced, it is a fyftem formed not fo much on reafon as on experience; and the labour of grammarians feems then to be properly exerted, when it is employed in fixing that which would otherwife be variable; and which is right, only because it becomes fixed. Afterward, if fomewhat of method and defign be introduced, if fomewhat of order and regularity be added, as ferving to connect the feparate parts with each other, and with the whole; these are improvements which we owe to the affiduity and address of the grammarian, and not to the skill and thinking faculties of the original speakers. It is evident, then, that in a fyftem thus formed, there will always be matter for controverfy; and that difputes will be multiplied in proportion to the difficulties that attend their decifion. Accordingly, we find Mr. Pickbourn diffenting from those who have preceded him; and we, on our parts, feel a fimilar difpofition occafionally to diffent from Mr. Pickbourn. Before we proceed to ftate our differences, it is but decent to offer our acknowlegements, in which all readers must agree, to the author, for the general merits and utility of his treatise. He has bestowed much thought on the fubject: he has not adopted the ideas of others without examination: he has not rejected their opinions without reafons: he has indeed judged for N 4 himfelf; |