spirited rogue this is! Why, my Lord of York commends the plot, and the general course of the action. By this hand, if I were now by this rascal, I could brain him with his lady's fan. Is there not my father, my uncle, and myself? Lord Edmund Mortimer, my Lord of York, and Owen Glendower? Is there not, besides, the Douglas? Have I not all their letters to meet me in arms by the ninth of next month? and are there not some of them set forward already? What a pagan rascal is this? an infidel!-Ha! you shall see now, in very sincerity of fear and cold heart, will he to the King, and lay open all our proceedings. Oh! I could divide myself, and go to buffets, for moving such a dish of skim-milk with so honourable an action. Hang him! let him tell the King. We are prepared, I will set forward to-night.

II. ON CRITICISM.

AND how did Garrick speak the soliloquy last night? Oh, against all rule, my lord. -most ungrammatically! Betwixt the substantive and the adjective, which should agree together in number, case, and gender, he made a breach thus- -stopping as if the point wanted settling; and betwixt the nominative case, which your lordship knows should govern the verb, he suspended his voice in the epilogue a dozen times, three seconds and three-fifths, by a stop-watch, my lord, each time. Admirable grammarian!

But in suspending his voice, was the sense suspended likewise? did no expression of attitude or countenance fill up the chasm? Was the eye silent? Did you narrowly look? I looked only at the stop-watch, my lord. Excellent observer!

And what of this new book the whole world makes such a rout about? Oh, 'tis out of all plumb, my lord—quite an irregular thing; not one of the angles at the four corners was a right angle. I had my rule and compasses, &c., lord, in my pocket. Excellent critic!

my

And for the epic poem your lordship bid me look at ; upon

taking the length, breadth, height, and depth of it, and trying them at home upon an exact scale of Bossu's, 'tis out, my lord, in every one of its dimensions. Admirable connoisseur!

And did you step in, to look at the grand picture in your way back? 'Tis a melancholy daub! my lord; not one principle of the pyramid in any one group! and what a price! for there is nothing of the colouring of Titian, the expression of Rubens, the grace of Raphael, the purity of Dominichino, the corregiescity of Corregio, the learning of the Poussins, the airs of Guido, the taste of the Carrachis, or the grand contour of Angelo.

Grant me patience, just heaven! Of all the cants which are canted in this canting world—though the cant of hypocrisy may be the worst, the cant of criticism is the most tormenting!

I would go fifty miles on foot to kiss the hand of that man, whose generous heart will give up the reins of his imagination into his author's hands, be pleased he knows not why, and cares not wherefore.

III.-LIBERTY AND SLAVERY.

DISGUISE thyself as thou wilt, still, Slavery! still thou art a bitter draught; and though thousands in all ages have been made to drink of thee, thou art no less bitter on that account. It is thou, Liberty! thrice sweet and gracious goddess, whom all in public or in private worship, whose taste is grateful and ever will be so, till Nature herself shall change-No tint of words can spot thy snowy mantle, or chemic power turn thy sceptre into iron—with thee to smile upon him as he eats his crust the swain is happier than his monarch, from whose court thou art exiled. Gracious Heaven! grant me but health, thou great Bestower of it, and give me but this fair goddess as my companion; and shower down thy mitres, if it seems good unto thy divine providence, upon those heads which are aching for them.

Pursuing these ideas, I sat down close by my table, and leaning my head upon my hand, I began to figure to myself the miseries of confinement. I was in a right frame for it, and so I gave full scope to my imagination.

I was going to begin with the millions of my fellowcreatures born to no inheritance but slavery; but finding, however affecting the picture was, that I could not bring it near me, and that the multitude of sad groups in it did but distract me

I took a single captive, and having first shut him up in his dungeon, I then looked through the twilight of his grated door to take his picture.

I beheld his body half wasted away with long expectation and confinement, and felt what kind of sickness of the heart it was which arises from hope deferred. Upon looking nearer I saw him pale and feverish: in thirty years the western breeze had not once fanned his blood-he had seen no sun, no moon, in all that time-nor had the voice of friend or kinsman breathed through his lattice. His children

But here my heart began to bleed—and I was forced to go on with another part of the portrait.

He was sitting upon the ground upon a little straw, in the farthest corner of his dungeon, which was alternately his chair and bed; a little calendar of small sticks was laid at the head, notched all over with the dismal days and nights he had passed there he had one of those little sticks in his hand, and with a rusty nail he was etching another day of misery to add to the heap. As I darkened the little light he had, he lifted up a hopeless eye towards the door, then cast it down-shook his head, and went on with his work of affliction. I heard his chains upon his legs as he turned his body to lay his little stick upon the bundle-He gave a deep sigh-I saw the iron enter into his soul-I burst into tearsI could not sustain the picture of confinement which my fancy had drawn.

IV. BURKE'S EULOGIUM ON HOWARD.

I CANNOT name this gentleman without remarking that his labours and writings have done much to open the eyes and hearts of mankind. He has visited all Europe, not to survey the sumptuousness of palaces, or the stateliness of temples; not to make accurate measurements of the remains of ancient grandeur; or to form a scale of the curiosity of modern art; not to collect medals, or collate manuscriptsbut to dive into the depths of dungeons; to plunge into the infections of hospitals; to survey the mansions of sorrow and pain; to take the gauge and dimensions of misery, depression, and contempt; to remember the forgotten, to attend to the neglected, to visit the forsaken, and to compare and collate the distresses of all men in all countries. His plan is original; and it is as full of genius as it is of humanity. It was a voyage of discovery, a circumnavigation of charity. Already the benefit of his labour is felt more or less in every country: I hope he will anticipate his final reward, by seeing all its effects fully realized in his own. He will receive, not by retail, but in gross, the reward of those who visit the prisoner; and he has so forestalled and monopolized this branch of charity, that there will be, I trust, little room to merit by such acts of benevolence hereafter.

V.—HENRY THE FOURTH'S SOLILOQUY ON SLEEP.
How many thousands of my poorest subjects
Are at this hour asleep! O gentle Sleep!
Nature's soft nurse! how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?
Why rather, Sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,

And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,
Than in the perfum'd chambers of the great,

Under the canopies of costly state,

And lull'd with sounds of sweetest melody?

O thou dull god! why liest thou with the vile
In loathsome beds, and leav'st the kingly couch
A watch-case or a common larum bell?
Wilt thou, upon the high and giddy mast,
Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude imperious surge;
And, in the visitation of the winds,

Who take the ruffian billows by the top,

Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them
With deafening clamours in the slippery shrouds,
That, with the hurly, Death itself awakes?
Canst thou, O partial Sleep! give thy repose
To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude?
And, in the calmest and the stillest night,

With all appliances and means to boot,

Deny it to a king? Then, happy lowly clown!Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

VI.-ON LIFE AND DEATH.

Duke. Reason thus with life,

If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing

That none but fools would keep: a breath thou art, (Servile to all the skiey influences,)

That dost this habitation, where thou keep'st,
Hourly afflict: merely thou art death's fool;
For him thou labour'st by thy flight to shun,

And yet run'st tow'rd him still. Thou art not noble;
For all the accommodations, that thou bear'st,

Are nursed by baseness: thou'rt by no means valiant; For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork

Of a poor worm. Thy best of rest is sleep,

And that thou oft provok'st; yet grossly fear'st

Thy death, which is no more.

Thou'rt not thyself;