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on, therefore little more is necessary than to observe, that though there does not appear much call for capital merit, yet several first-rate actresses have made but a languid figure in representing her.

Notwithstanding Mrs. WOFFINGTON was extremely well received, and really did the part as well as her deplorable tragedy voice would admit; we must place Mrs. PRITCHARD foremost; who made a very just distinction, in the scene where Banquo's ghost appears; between reproving Macbeth's behaviour with passion, or the anxiety of apprehenfion, lest he should betray his guilt; this latter method she happily pursued, and here, as well as in the sleeping scene, gained manifest superiority. Mrs. YATES, at present, comes nearest the point of praise, but certainly displays no very confpicuous merit in the character; and to mention Mrs. BARRY would be to injure her, as it certainly does not at all coincide with her capabilities,

The witches I should take no notice of, but for a supposed amendment in speaking and dressing those characters at Covent Garden; as beings out of the course of nature, SHAKESPEARE furnished them with a peculiarity of style, why then should we not suppose he meant a peculiarity of deportment and utterance? He certainly did, as much as for Caliban; a languid propriety of natural expression destroys in them, pleasing and characteristic oddity-as to dressing them in the Sybillic taste, it makes them rather Roman than Scots witches, and sacrifices established national ideas, at the shrine of false decorum, for

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did appearance, ugly features, and advanced age, dubbed any female a witch in the times of credulity; even now, a very disagreeable woman, bent with age, and wrapped in filthiness, is stigmatized with that title, though not so seriously, north of the Tweed; nay, Macbeth himself stiles them filthy hags, most certainly alluding to personal appearance. If an alteration of dress is to take place in this play, I could wish the characters were drefssed in habits of the times, which would be pleasing, and we apprehend necessary.

Macbeth, for its boldness of fentiment, strength of versification, variety of paffions and preternatural beings, deserves to be esteemed a first rate tragedy, containing a number of beauties never exceeded, and many blemishes very cenfurable; dangerous in representation, as has been faid, to weak minds; unintelligible to moderate conceptions in many places, upon perusal; therefore, chiefly calculated for foundunderstanding, and established resolution of principles, eitheron the stage or in the study.

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THE BEGGAR's OPERA.
Written by Gay.

Notwithstanding we confefs a partiality for mu

fic when it is composed of sweet, significant and perfuafive sounds, yet the Opera, serious or comic, but especially the former, is a species of the drama not at all defensible; it carries absurdity in its front, and absolutely puts nature out of countenance; to prove this would be superfluous, as we cannot pay any reader so bad compliment as to suppose that a single hint does not bear fatisfactory conviction.

Shocked as every man of real taste, feeling and genius must be, at the predominance of those dear-bought, unessential exotics, Italian operas, Gay had a mind to exercise his unbounded talent of fatire against them; and that good sense, a little embittered, might go down with a more fashionable gout, as apothecaries gild pills, he called in music to his aid, and such music too as was relishable by, not caviare to the million; thus, as I have read of fome army, who defeated their enemies by shooting back upon them their own arrows, so he struck deep wounds into the emaciated fignori of that time, by shewing such sterling wit and humour as they were unacquainted with, decorated with the reigning taste of the day the thought was happy, the execution equal to the design, and the fuccefs fuitable to both.

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Beggar's Opera.
In the very name of this piece, the author seems
to have issued a keen shaft of ridicule, and making
the author a beggar is a noble sarcasm on fortune
and public taste, which have suffered most excel.
lent talents to pine under a thousand disadvantages,
of unmerited penury and even contempt: no one
knew better than Gay the neglect which too com-
monly attends literary merit; he knew, felt, and
with great poignancy of expression declared it.

This piece opens with Jonathan Wild, the reigning thief-maker and thief-taker of that time, under the title of Peachum, perusing his tyburn-register; his song, in eight lines, contains more of the spirit of truth and fatire than would animate some poems of eight score; the fucceding scene with Filch exhibits many excellent remarks, and his account of the gang when looking out for proper facrifices, is not only an admirable, but a very useful picture to the profligate; Mrs. Peachum's expressions of pleafure, that there has been no murder committed for some time recommend her to favour; and Peachum's reply, shewing what money will do in criminal prosecutions, is, I am afraid, too just; mention of Macheath naturally falls in, and we are prepared to receive him, at least, as an agreeable highwayman: his attachment to Polly comes aptly into the conversation, and the plot very properly begins to dawn.-Speaking of Polly's being in love, Peachum discovers a very suitable selfishness, and where he remarks of what service she may be to him, by acting on political principles, the exprefsion, as well as some preceding ones, glows with fatiric

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Beggar's Opera. fatiric meaning" My daughter to me should be, " like a court-lady to a minifter of state, a key to "the whole gang."

Mrs. Peachum's scene with Filch has nothing but some strokes of low humour to recommend it, yet in that light is very fatisfactory, and always works a very laughable effect.

Polly is introduced by her father under fuch circumstances as engage favour; her mother's vio-. lent entrance is much in character; the fainting too, and the remedy for it, are powerful burlesque on fimilar incidents to be met in graver pieces; the daughter's filence on her marriage being discovered, is a very probable effect of confufion and apprehenfion, nor does a word of the consequent dialogue fail of due influence; the impatience of the parents, one through pride, the other through interest, give a fine opening for Polly's delicate, interesting apology of a fincere paffion for the man she has married; and Peachum's design of taking

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off his new fon-in-law, feems the growth of a

mind fortified against any feelings of humanity.

It is matter of wonder how several of our gay ladies and fine gentlemen can hear the following speech without blushing confcious guilt; " If she " had had only an intrigue with the fellow, why "the very best families have excused and huddled

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up an affair of that fort; 'tis marriage, huf"band, that makes it a blemish." What Peachum replies has a luxuriancy of merit, "But money, wife, is the true fuller's earth for reputa.

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" tions; there is not a spot or stain but what it can

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