THE MIRROR OF TASTE,

AND

DRAMATIC CENSOR.

Vol. I.        MAY, 1810.        No. 5.

Transcriber's Note: Minor typos have been corrected and footnotes moved to the end of the article. Table of contents has been created for the HTML version.

Contents

HISTORY OF THE STAGE.
BIOGRAPHY.
BIOGRAPHY—FOR THE MIRROR.
NOKES.
MISCELLANY.
SPORTING INTELLIGENCE.
DRAMATIC CENSOR.
ALFONSO, KING OF CASTILE:
        ACT I.
        ACT II.
        ACT III.
        ACT IV.
        ACT V.

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HISTORY OF THE STAGE.

CHAPTER V.

Conclusion of the Greek Drama.

MENANDER.

Menander, as has been said in the last chapter, once more rescued the stage of Greece from barbarism. In the death of Aristophanes was involved the death of "the middle comedy," which rapidly declined in the hands of his insufficient successors. The poets and wits that came after him, wanted either the talents, the malignity, or the courage to follow his example, to imitate him in his daring personalities, or to adopt his merciless satyrical style. They followed his steps, only in his feeble, pitiful paths, and contented themselves with writing contemptible buffoon caricature parodies of the writings of the greatest men. The new comedy never could have raised its head, had the middle comedy continued to be supported by a succession of such wits as Aristophanes, with new supplies of envenomed personal satire. Fortunately, however, the stage was pretty well cleared of that pernicious kind of writing when Menander, the amiable and the refined, came forth and claimed the bay.

This celebrated writer, who justly obtained the appellation of "prince of the new comedy," was a native of Athens, and was born three hundred and forty-five years before the birth of Christ. He was educated under the illustrious Theophrastus, from whom he learned philosophy and composition. While a brilliant genius directed him to comic poetry, his natural delicacy, his refined taste, his moral rectitude, and true philosophy controlled his fancy, imparted to his comedies a charm unknown before, and obtained for them the suffrage of the most enlightened, witty, and judicious men of his age, though for the same reason they were, as Hamlet says, caviere to the multitude, and never did please the corrupted and malicious multitude of Athens. With a wit as brilliant and acute as that of Aristophanes, and perhaps as capable of vitious coarseness and ribaldry, he kept it in correction, and scorned to disgrace his compositions with illiberal personal aspersions, or indecent, obscene, or satirical reflections; but endeavoured to make his comedies pictures of real life, replete with refined useful instruction, and sagacious observation, conveyed through the medium of natural elegant dialogue. His writings, though they did not draw the regards of the million with such irresistible and congenial attraction as those of Aristophanes, had the power in some measure to rescue comedy from the unbridled licentiousness and profligacy which, for fifty years before, had rendered it a public nuisance. The multitude, however, he could not, during his lifetime reclaim; for a miserable cotemporary of his, named Philemon, a coarse writer of broad farce, who afterwards died of a fit of laughter at seeing a jackass eat figs, continued by intrigues and his natural influence with the mob, to carry away some prizes from him; though he was so mean and contemptible a poet that his very name would have been forgotten, and long since sunk in eternal oblivion, if it had not been buoyed up by the simple fact of his entering the lists against Menander.

The honours which his corrupted countrymen denied him were conferred upon Menander by strangers; for we are informed by Pliny that the king of Egypt, and the king of Macedon, as a proof of their respect, and admiration of his rare qualities, sent ambassadors to invite him to their courts; and, not contented with that compliment, sent fleets to convey him: such was the fame accompanied with which his unexampled endowments, spread his name over the remotest nations of the east. Whether it was from local attachment to his native land, or from sound philosophical wisdom and disregard of such temptations, he declined those honours, cannot now be known, though the fact is beyond doubt that he never would leave Attica. It is, however, an honourable testimony of the perfect indifference with which he bore the stupid and unjust preference given by the Athenians to his contemptible rival. It was said that he drowned himself in consequence of Philemon's victory: but this report has never been credited, being at variance with all the accounts given by the best authorities, who, on the contrary, relate that so far from being affected at the success of the other, the only notice he ever took of it was, once to ask the victor, "Philemon! do you not blush to wear that laurel?"

Of the incomparable merit of this great man, the principal evidence now existing is the unanimous praise of some of the greatest men of antiquity, since of one hundred and eight comedies which he wrote, nothing but a few fragments remain in their original state. How much the world ought to deplore the loss of those valuable compositions may be collected from the admiration in which they were held by the Romans, who, as we are assured by the ancients, maintained that their favourite Terence was very much inferior to Menander. Terence borrowed six or at least four of his plays from this admirable Greek poet, and those though now

considered excellent are allowed by his countrymen to have lost much of the spirit of the great originals.

It cannot be doubted that he possessed to an astonishing fulness the talent so little known in the ancient world, and which has exalted our Shakspeare in lofty preeminence above the rest of mankind, of portraying nature in every condition of human life. We have heard of, and frequently read many terse and witty compliments to the genius of Shakspeare, on account of his intimacy with nature; but we know of none superior to that paid to Menander by the great Byzantian grammarian Aristophanes, who, on reading his comedies exclaimed in an ecstasy, "O Menander! O Nature! which of you have copied the works of the other?" Ovid held him in no less admiration; and Plutarch has been lavish in his praise: the old rhetoricians recommend his works as the true and perfect patterns of every thing beautiful and graceful in public speaking. Quintilian advises an orator to seek in Menander for copiousness of invention, for elegance of expression, and all that universal genius which is able to accommodate itself to persons, things, and affections: but that which appears to us more decisive than any other eulogy bestowed upon him, is the opinion of Cæsar, who, praising his favourite Terence, calls him a half-Menander, thereby leaving upon record his testimony that Menander had twice the merit of the greatest comic poet of Rome.

Such was the poet from whom the mob of Athens snatched the laurel to bestow it upon a mean and execrable scribbler, and to one hundred of whose comedies the prize was denied, while only eight of them were rewarded with it.

From the death of Menander which happened in his fifty-second year, not a dramatic poet arose, nor a circumstance occurred relating to the art in Greece, worthy of commemoration: here, therefore, history drops the dramatic poetry of that country, till in a future page the merits of the ancient and modern drama come to be viewed in comparison with each other, and proceeds to commemorate some of the Grecian actors.

"Poetry," says a celebrated French writer, "has almost always been prior to every other kind of learning, which is undoubtedly owing to its being the produce of sentiment and fancy, two faculties of the mind always employed before reason. Sensible minds are led by a kind of instinct to sing their pleasures, their happiness, the gods whom they adore, the heroes they admire, and the events they wish to have engraven on their memories; accordingly poetry has been cultivated in all savage nations. The warmth of the passions has been of great use in promoting this delightful art." It is not to be wondered at, then, that the Athenians, who, to use the words of the same writer, possessed a lively imagination, great fertility of genius, a rich harmonious language, and eminent abilities excited by the most ardent emulation, should be extravagantly fond of poetry, and no less partial to those who displayed a vigorous spirit of emulation in that art, and an ambition to excel in any of the employments that served to illustrate or give it effect. For these reasons they systematically honoured not only dramatic poets but actors.

How much the important concerns of mankind are swayed and pre-influenced by manners and habits is strongly illustrated in the discrepance which maintained between the taste, the amusements, and opinions of the lively Athenians, and those of the austere and exact people of Sparta, though they were in fact one people. In their amusements, and partly in their taste for literature, they differed essentially. The Athenians loved poetry and music; while the Spartans, whose schemes were founded on utility alone, rather rejected them as superfluous. Poets and musicians, however, who confined themselves to sober and simple subjects, and to grave and dignified expression, were not without admirers and supporters in the latter: and when the Spartans destroyed and sacked the city of Thebes, they spared the house that had been inhabited by Pindar, in respect to that great poet's memory. Terpander too, a lyric poet and musician is related by Ælian to have appeased a tumult at Sparta by the sweetness of his notes and the fire of his poetry. They would not, however, endure either poetry or music which did not breathe exalted sentiment, and produce a beneficial impression on the mind.

On the subject of dramatic poetry and its adjuncts, theatres and actors, the Spartans differed as essentially from the Athenians, as the puritans, methodists, quakers, and rigid presbyterians differ from the amateurs of the present day. During a reign of thirty-six years, Agesilaus who held the drama in contempt, discouraged and kept the actors in depression. This extreme austerity prevailed through all ranks of the rigid Lacedemonian people, who indeed carried it to a length equally absurd and cruel; for they punished with great severity a famous poet and musician, for adding three strings to the harp; grounding their sentence upon a principle universally assented to among them, that the softness of musical sounds produced effeminacy among the people. Of the truth of their proposition in the abstract, there can be little doubt; it is in the rigid application and extreme extension of it the fault lies. Music has certainly a powerful influence on the passions, and produces happy effects upon the human heart and mind when cultivated moderately: but when it becomes the general prevailing passion of a nation, or, as it were, gets dominion over them, it unquestionably produces not effeminacy merely, but a hateful depravity of manners. Whether the unexampled depravation of the modern Italians has been caused by their passionate devotion to music, or their passionate devotion to music by their monstrous depravity shall not be discussed in this place. But the closeness of the connexion between the two things, no matter which may be the cause or which the effect, will serve as an illustration of the subject.

It is related that once, when Callipedes a celebrated tragedian, offered his homage to Agesilaus, and for some time received no notice in return, he said to the king, "Do you not know me, sir?" To which the king replied, "You are Callipedes, the actor," and turned from him with contempt. This harshness and severity extended even to the slaves of the Spartans, some of whom, being taken prisoners of war by the Thebans, and ordered to sing the odes of Terpander for their captors, peremptorily refused to comply, because it was forbidden them by their old masters.

In all Greece, however, Sparta stands a solitary instance of this austerity; for the drama, poetry, and music were enthusiastically cultivated in Athens, and even in every country into which the Grecians penetrated. Players became in many instances the confidential friends, counsellors, and ministers of kings themselves; and Alexander the Great sent Thessalus, an actor, as an ambassador to Pexodorus, the Persian governor of Caria, to forbid a marriage intended by the governor between his daughter and Aridœus, an illegitimate son of the late king Philip. The proofs which that mighty conqueror has left on record of his partiality to celebrated professors of the histrionic art, are no less extraordinary than numerous, and in some instances, do no great credit to his judgment. Every general in his camp had along with him his poets, musicians, and declaimers. One time Alexander's favourite, Hephestion, accommodated his musician named Evius, with the quarters which belonged of right to Eumenes, the most worthy and renowned of all the Grecian generals. Eumenes boldly remonstrated, and told Alexander that he plainly saw the best way to

acquire promotion in his army would be to throw away arms, and learn to play upon the flute or turn actor.

At a contest of skill between Thessalus, Alexander's favourite actor, and another of the name of Athenodorus, the king, though in his heart deeply interested for the success of Thessalus, would not say a word in his favour, lest it should bias the judges, who actually proclaimed Athenodorus victor: the hero then exclaimed that the judges deserved commendation for what they had done, but that he would have given half his kingdom rather than see Thessalus overcome. This was certainly a striking instance of magnanimity. How unprejudiced and generous that great man's mind was may be collected from a subsequent act of his in a case that concerned that very Athenodorus. That performer being heavily fined by the Athenians for not appearing on the stage at the feast of Bacchus implored Alexander to intercede for him; the just and munificent monarch, however, refused to write in his favour, but, in order to relieve the man, paid the fine for him.

In Greece, declamation was regarded as the principal step to honour and advancement in public life. The greatest men practised it, and as they held action to be the criterion of oratory, made the best actors their models; nor was this a groundless opinion adopted by a few or superficial men; for Demosthenes having remarked with some asperity that the worst orators were heard in the rostrum in preference to him, the celebrated actor Satyrus, in order to show him how much grace, dignity, and action add to the celebrity of a public man, repeated to him several passages from Sophocles and Euripides, which so delighted and astonished Demosthenes that he always afterwards formed his elocution and action on the models of the most celebrated actors.

Having brought the history of the stage to the end of the Greek theatre, this chapter cannot be better concluded than with an extract from an admirable work lately published on the subject in England, to which this history is indebted for some of its materials.

"It remains now only to say, that from the parodies of the ancient writers, begun by Aristophanes, and awkwardly imitated by his contemporaries and successors, sprung mimes, farces, and the grossest buffoonery; and though the Grecian theatre still kept up an appearance of greatness, and there was often some brilliancy beamed across the heterogeneous mass which obscured truth and nature, to which the people were no longer sensible; yet the grandeur and magnificence of public exhibitions decreased; till, at length the fate of the stage too truly foretold the fate of the empire. So certain it is that where the arts are redundant they introduce luxury, and sap the foundation of a state."

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BIOGRAPHY.

For those readers who love biography, the editors of The Mirror have selected one of the most interesting memoirs to be found in the rich treasury of British literature. As a simple, yet animated picture of natural genius, forcing its way through the impediments which waylay early poverty, and breaking forth like the sun in meridian splendor after a morning of tempest, clouds, and darkness, it will be a fit companion for that of Hodgkinson. As a piece of composition, it is perhaps the very finest specimen to be found in any language of the unaffected, unadorned modest style that becomes a biographer, and particularly a writer of his own life.

This memoir first appeared prefixed to that author's translation of Juvenal.

LIFE OF WILLIAM GIFFORD, ESQ. AUTHOR OF THE BAEVIAD AND MAEVIAD, AND TRANSLATOR OF JUVENAL.

I am about to enter on a very uninteresting subject; but all my friends tell me that it is necessary to account for the long delay of the following work; and I can only do it by adverting to the circumstances of my life. Will this be accepted as an apology?

I know but little of my family, and that little is not very precise. My great-grandfather (the most remote of it, that I ever recollect to have heard mentioned) possessed considerable property at Halsworthy, a parish in the neighbourhood of Ashburton; but whether acquired or inherited, I never thought of asking, and do not know.

He was probably a native of Devonshire, for there he spent the last years of his life; spent them too, in some sort of consideration, for Mr. T. a very respectable surgeon of Ashburton, loved to repeat to me, when I first grew into notice, that he had frequently hunted with his hounds.

My grandfather was on ill terms with him: I believe not without sufficient reason, for he was extravagant and dissipated. My father never mentioned his name, but my mother would sometimes tell me that he had ruined the family. That he spent much I know; but I am inclined to think that his undutiful conduct occasioned my great-grandfather to bequeath a part of his property from him.

My father, I fear, revenged in some measure the cause of my great-grandfather. He was, as I have heard my mother say, "a very wild young man, who could be kept to nothing." He was sent to the grammar-school at Exeter; from which he made his escape, and entered on board a man of war. He was soon reclaimed from this situation by my grandfather, and left his school, a second time, to wander in some vagabond society.[A] He was now probably given up, for he was, on his return from this notable adventure, reduced to article himself to a plumber and glazier, with whom he luckily staid long enough to learn the business. I suppose his father was now dead, for he became possessed of two small estates, married my mother,[B] the daughter of a carpenter at Ashburton, and thought himself rich enough to set up for himself; which he did with some credit, at South Molton. Why he chose to fix there, I never inquired; but I learned from my mother, that after a residence of four or five years he was again thoughtless enough to engage in a dangerous frolic, which drove him once more to sea. This was an attempt to excite a riot in a methodist chapel; for which his companions were prosecuted, and he fled, as I have mentioned.

My father was a good seaman, and was soon made second in command in the Lyon, a large armed transport in the service of government: while my mother (then with child of me) returned to her native place, Ashburton, where I was born, in April, 1757.

The resources of my mother were very scanty. They arose from the rent of three or four small fields, which yet remained unsold. With these, however, she did what she could for me; and as soon as I was old enough to be trusted out of her sight, sent me to a school-mistress of the name of Parret, from whom I learned in due time to read. I cannot boast much of my acquisitions at this school; they consisted merely of the contents of the "Child's Spelling Book;" but from my mother, who had stored up the literature of a country town, which about half a century ago, amounted to little more than what was disseminated by itinerant ballad-singers, or rather, readers, I had acquired much curious knowledge of Catskin, and the Golden Bull, and the Bloody Gardener, and many other histories equally instructive and amusing.

My father returned from sea in 1764. He had been at the siege of the Havanna; and though he received more than a hundred pounds for prize money, and his wages were considerable; yet, as he had not

acquired any strict habits of economy, he brought home but a trifling sum. The little property yet left was therefore turned into money; a trifle more was got by agreeing to renounce all future pretensions to an estate at Totness;[C] and with this my father set up a second time as a glazier and house-painter. I was now about eight years old, and was put to the free-school, kept by Hugh Smerdon, to learn to read and write, and cypher. Here I continued about three years, making a most wretched progress, when my father fell sick and died. He had not acquired wisdom from his misfortunes, but continued wasting his time in unprofitable pursuits, to the great detriment of his business. He loved drink for the sake of society, and to this love he fell a martyr; dying of a decayed and ruined constitution before he was forty. The town's people thought him a shrewd and sensible man, and regretted his death. As for me, I never greatly loved him; I had not grown up with him; and he was too prone to repulse my little advances to familiarity, with coldness, or anger. He had certainly some reason to be displeased with me, for I learned little at school, and nothing at home, though he would now and then attempt to give me some insight into the business. As impressions of any kind are not very strong at the age of eleven or twelve, I did not long feel his loss; nor was it a subject of much sorrow to me, that my mother was doubtful of her ability to continue me at school, though I had by this time acquired a love for reading.

I never knew in what circumstances my mother was left; most probably they were inadequate to her support, without some kind of exertion, especially as she was now burthened with a second child, about six or eight months old. Unfortunately she determined to prosecute my father's business; for which purpose she engaged a couple of journeymen, who, finding her ignorant of every part of it, wasted her property, and embezzled her money. What the consequence of this double fraud would have been, there was no opportunity of knowing, as, in somewhat less than a twelvemonth, my poor mother followed my father to the grave. She was an excellent woman, bore my father's infirmities with patience and good humour, loved her children dearly, and died at last, exhausted with anxiety and grief more on their account than on her own.

I was not quite thirteen when this happened; my little brother was hardly two; and we had not a relation nor a friend in the world. Every thing that was left was seized by a person of the name of C——, for money advanced to my mother. It may be supposed that I could not dispute the justice of his claims; and as no one else interfered, he was suffered to do as he liked. My little brother was sent to the alms-house, whither his nurse followed him out of pure affection; and I was taken to the house of the person I have just mentioned, who was also my godfather. Respect for the opinion of the town, which, whether correct or not, was, that he had repaid himself by the sale of my mother's effects, induced him to send me again to school, where I was more diligent than before, and more successful. I grew fond of arithmetic, and my master began to distinguish me: but these golden days were over in less than three months. C——sickened at the expense; and, as the people were now indifferent to my fate, he looked round for an opportunity of ridding himself of a useless charge. He had previously attempted to engage me in the drudgery of husbandry. I drove the plough for one day to gratify him, but I left it with a firm resolution to do so no more, and in despite of his threats and promises, adhered to my determination. In this I was guided no less by necessity than will. During my father's life, in attempting to clamber up a table I had fallen backward, and drawn it after me: its edge fell upon my breast, and I never recovered the effects of the blow; of which I was made extremely sensible on any extraordinary exertion. Ploughing, therefore, was out of the question, and, as I have already said, I utterly refused to follow it.

As I could write and cypher, as the phrase is, C——next thought of sending me to Newfoundland, to assist in a store-house. For this purpose he negotiated with a Mr. Holdsworthy of Dartmouth, who agreed to fit me out. I left Ashburton with little expectation of seeing it again, and indeed with little care, and rode with my godfather to the dwelling of Mr. Holdsworthy. On seeing me, this great man observed with a look of pity and contempt, that I was "too small," and sent me away sufficiently mortified. I expected to be very ill received by my godfather, but he said nothing. He did not, however, choose to take me back himself, but sent me in the passage-boat to Totness, whence I was to walk home. On the passage, the boat was driven by a midnight storm on the rocks, and I escaped with life almost by a miracle.

My godfather had now humbler views for me, and I had little heart to resist any thing. He proposed to send me on board one of the Torbay fishing boats; I ventured, however, to remonstrate against this, and the matter was compromised by my consenting to go on board a coaster. A coaster was speedily found for me at Brixham, and thither I went when little more than thirteen.

My master, whose name was Full, though a gross and ignorant, was not an ill natured man; at least not to me: and my mistress used me with unvarying kindness; moved perhaps by my weakness and tender years. In return, I did what I could to requite her, and my good will was not overlooked.

Our vessel was not very large, nor our crew very numerous. On ordinary occasions, such as short trips, to Dartmouth, Plymouth, &c. it consisted only of my master, an apprentice nearly out of his time, and myself: when we had to go further, to Portsmouth for example, an additional hand was hired for the voyage.

In this vessel, the Two Brothers, I continued nearly a twelvemonth; and here I got acquainted with nautical terms, and contracted a love for the sea, which a lapse of thirty years has but little diminished.

It will easily be conceived that my life was a life of hardship. I was not only a "ship-boy on the high and giddy mast," but also in the cabin, where every menial office fell to my lot: yet if I was restless and discontented, I can safely say, it was not so much on account of this, as of my being precluded from all possibility of reading; as my master did not possess, nor do I recollect seeing during the whole time of my abode with him, a single book of any description except the Coasting Pilot.

As my lot seemed to be cast, however, I was not negligent in seeking such information as promised to be useful; and I therefore frequented, at my leisure hours, such vessels as dropt into Torbay. On attempting to get on board one of these, which I did at midnight, I missed my footing, and fell into the sea. The floating away of the boat alarmed the man on deck, who came to the ship's side just in time to see me sink. He immediately threw out several ropes, one of which providentially (for I was unconscious of it) entangled itself about me, and I was drawn up to the surface, till a boat could be got round. The usual methods were taken to recover me, and I awoke in bed the next morning, remembering nothing but the horror I felt when I first found myself unable to cry out for assistance.

This was not my only escape, but I forbear to speak of them. An escape of another kind was now preparing for me, which deserves all my notice, as it was decisive of my future fate.

On Christmas day, 1770, I was surprised by a message from my godfather, saying that

he had sent a man and horse to bring me to Ashburton; and desiring me to set out without delay. My master as well as myself, supposed it was to spend the holydays there; and he, therefore, made no objection to my going. We were, however, both mistaken.

Since I had lived at Brixham, I had broken off all connexion with Ashburton. I had no relation there but my poor brother,[D] who was yet too young for any kind of correspondence: and the conduct of my godfather towards me did not entitle him to any portion of my gratitude, or kind remembrance. I lived, therefore, in a sort of sullen independence on all I had formerly known, and thought without regret, of being abandoned by every one to my fate. But I had not been overlooked. The women of Brixham, who travelled to Ashburton twice a week with fish, and who had known my parents, did not see me without kind concern, running about the beach in ragged jacket and trowsers. They mentioned this to the people of Ashburton, and never without commiserating my change of condition. This tale often repeated, awakened at length the pity of their auditors, and, as the next step, their resentment against the man who had reduced me to such a state of wretchedness. In a large town, this would have little effect, but a place like Ashburton, where every report speedily becomes the common property of all the inhabitants, it raised a murmur which my godfather found himself either unable or unwilling to withstand: he therefore determined, as I have just observed, to recall me; which he could easily do, as I wanted some months of fourteen, and consequently was not yet bound.

All this I learned on my arrival; and my heart, which had been cruelly shut up, now opened to kinder sentiments, and fairer views.

After the holydays I returned to my darling pursuit, arithmetic: my progress was now so rapid, that in a few months I was at the head of the school, and qualified to assist my master (Mr. E. Furlong) on any extraordinary emergency. As he usually gave me a trifle on those occasions, it raised a thought in me, that by engaging with him as a regular assistant, and undertaking the instruction of a few evening scholars, I might, with a little additional aid, be enabled to support myself. God knows, my ideas of support at this time, were of no very extravagant nature. I had, besides, another object in view. Mr. Hugh Smerdon, my first master, was now grown old and infirm; it seemed unlikely that he should hold out above three or four years; and I fondly flattered myself that, notwithstanding my youth, I might possibly be appointed to succeed him. I was in my fifteenth year, when I built these castles: a storm, however, was collecting, which unexpectedly burst upon me, and swept them all away.

On mentioning my little plan to C——, he treated it with the utmost contempt; and told me, in his turn, that as I had learned enough, and more than enough, at school, he must be considered as having fairly discharged his duty (so indeed he had); he added, that he had been negotiating with his cousin, a shoemaker of some respectability; who had liberally agreed to take me without a fee, as an apprentice. I was so shocked at this intelligence, that I did not remonstrate; but went in sullenness and silence to my new master, to whom I was soon after bound[E] till I should attain the age of twenty-one.

The family consisted of four journeymen, two sons about my own age, and an apprentice somewhat older. In these there was nothing remarkable; but my master himself was the strangest creature! he was a presbyterian, whose reading was entirely confined to the small tracts published on the Exeter Controversy. As these (at least his portion of them) were all on one side, he entertained no doubt of their infallibility, and being noisy and disputatious, was sure to silence his opponents; and became, in consequence of it, intolerably arrogant and conceited. He was not, however, indebted solely to his knowledge of the subject for his triumph: he was possessed of Fenning's Dictionary, and he made a most singular use of it. His custom was to fix on any word in common use, and then to get by heart the synonym, or periphrasis by which it was explained in the book: this he constantly substituted for the other, and as his opponents were commonly ignorant of his meaning, his victory was complete.

With such a man I was not likely to add much to my stock of knowledge, small as it was; and indeed nothing could well be smaller. At this period I had read nothing but a black letter romance called Parismus and Parismenus, and a few loose magazines which my mother had brought from South Molton. The Bible, indeed, I was well acquainted with; it was the favourite study of my grandmother, and reading it frequently with her, had impressed it strongly on my mind; these then, with the Imitation of Thomas à Kempis, which I used to read to my mother on her death-bed, constituted the whole of my literary acquisitions.

As I hated my new profession with a perfect hatred, I made no progress in it; and was consequently little regarded in the family, of which I sunk by degrees into the common drudge: this did not much disquiet me, for my spirits were now humbled. I did not, however, quite resign the hope of one day succeeding to Mr. Hugh Smerdon, and therefore secretly prosecuted my favourite study at every interval of leisure.

These intervals were not very frequent; and when the use I made of them was found out, they were rendered still less so. I could not guess the motives for this at first; but at length I discovered that my master destined his youngest son for the situation to which I aspired.

I possessed at this time but one book in the world: it was a treatise on algebra, given to me by a young woman, who had found it in a lodging-house. I considered it as a treasure; but it was a treasure locked up: for it supposed the reader to be well acquainted with simple equation, and I knew nothing of the matter. My master's son had purchased Fenning's Introduction: this was precisely what I wanted; but he carefully concealed it from me, and I was indebted to chance alone for stumbling upon his hiding-place. I sat up for the greatest part of several nights successively, and, before he suspected that his treatise was discovered, had completely mastered it. I could now enter upon my own; and that carried me pretty far into the science.

This was not done without difficulty. I had not a farthing on earth, nor a friend to give me one; pen, ink, and paper, therefore, in despite of the flippant remark of lord Orford, were, for the most part, as completely out of my reach, as a crown and sceptre. There was, indeed, a resource; but the utmost caution and secrecy were necessary in applying to it. I beat out pieces of leather as smooth as possible, and wrought my problems on them with a blunted awl; for the rest my memory was tenacious, and I could multiply and divide by it to a great extent.

Hitherto I had not so much as dreamt of poetry: indeed I scarce knew it by name; and, whatever may be said of the force of nature, I certainly never "lisp'd in numbers." I recollect the occasion of my first attempt: it is, like all the rest of my non-adventures, of so unimportant a nature, that I should blush to call the attention of the idlest reader to it, but for the reason alleged in the introductory paragraph. A person, whose name escapes me, had undertaken to paint a sign for an alehouse: it was to be a

lion, but the unfortunate artist produced a dog. On this awkward affair one of my acquaintance wrote a copy of what we called verse; I liked it, but fancied I could compose something more to the purpose: I tried, and by the unanimous suffrage of my shop-mates was allowed to have succeeded. Notwithstanding this encouragement, I thought no more of verse, till another occurrence, as trifling as the former, furnished me with a fresh subject; and so I went on, till I had got together about a dozen of them. Certainly nothing on earth was ever so deplorable: such as they were, however, they were talked of in my little circle, and I was sometimes invited to repeat them, even out of it. I never committed a line to paper for two reasons; first, because I had no paper; and secondly—perhaps I might be excused from going further; but in truth I was afraid, for my master had already threatened me, for inadvertently hitching the name of one of his customers into a rhyme.

(To be concluded in our next.)

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BIOGRAPHY—FOR THE MIRROR.

SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF THE LATE MR. HODGKINSON.

(Continued from page 297.)

The regulations of society, and the accidents of life too often thwart the intentions of nature. Multitudes of human beings are in every age poured forth from her inexhaustible stores, with inherent powers to rise to distinction in the highest provinces of art and science, who yet are condemned by the obstructions which worldly circumstance throws in their way, to languish in obscurity—to live dejected and to die unknown. Some whose natural endowments would, under less unpropitious circumstances, qualify them to reach the summit of fame, are fettered by want of patronage and pecuniary distress, while others are cramped in their efforts by a complexional sensibility which they cannot overcome, and checked in enterprise by diffidence and timidity, the natural offspring of a refined and delicate structure.

If genius were always associated with physical force and constitutional vigour, we should have had the dignities of the world more appropriately filled than they are, and many who lord it would be found with their necks bent in humiliation.

Where mental and constitutional force are combined, and extraordinary talents are sustained by resolution, confidence, vigorous animal spirits, and the perseverance and indefatigable industry, supplied by corporal strength, the obstructions must be numerous and great that can prevent the possessor from rising. In Hodgkinson those requisites were united in an eminent degree. No adversity could crush his energies, no prosperity impair his industry. It was but a few months before his death that old Mr. Whitlock under whose management Hodgkinson had early in life played in the north of England, said to this writer, "John had as much work in him as any two players I ever knew—he's the same in that respect now, and will be the same to the end of the chapter."

Something of this the reader may have already perceived in the specimens afforded by H's boyish adventures. His forcing his way to the notice of one of the most respectable managers in England, and obtaining a footing upon the stage, when not fifteen years of age, would appear incredible if it were not so much a matter of notoriety as to be subject to demonstrative proof. Intimately as the writer thought himself acquainted with the minutest circumstances of H's first adventures at Bristol, he finds that there was one which either he had forgotten, or H. had neglected to mention to him. Though it be of no very great moment, yet as it serves to thicken the circumstances which elucidate the boy's character, it is introduced in this place. Since the publication of the last number of The Mirror, the editor received the following letter directed to "the biographer of Mr. Hodgkinson."