a performer is capital, another inferior—that one has outdone his usual outdoings, and that another has outdone the outdoings of every body else. Such phrases being so many degrees of comparison, convey no information, because they are comparisons with a something in the author's head which he does not state in plain terms.

Complaining the other day of these difficulties to my worthy friend, JONATHAN LLOYD, Esq. of The Stock Exchange, he put me upon a scheme which I think worth communicating to you, and I hope to see it soon adopted as the only infallible way to render dramatic criticism explicit and intelligible. I shall give it nearly as possible in the words of my friend, who is one of the most precise men in the world.

"Your complaint, my dear DANGLE, is strictly just, but so it is, and ever will be, unless critics and speakers in general will consent to adopt the terms of the consolidated funds. At our house no man is at a loss to comprehend another. Were one of us to say that omnium had risen considerably in the course of the day, he would be laughed at as an incorrigible blockhead, and nobody would understand him-but when he says it left off at 74, it is plain how the case stands. Now, my dear friend, let these critics only adopt our scale, and you will find the merits of a play or player placed on the most distinct and intelligible ground. For example-instead of representing the progress of a performer by the vulgar degrees of comparison-goodbetter-best-say at once, that MACREADY began at 384, and rose to 75-that the critics did KEAN in Richard, at 79, but that he sunk in Sir Pertinax Macsycophant to 57-that another performer, by various reports from the country, had been raised to 70, but that he fell in one day no less than 8 per cent. ;-that a comedy had begun at 624, fluctuated very much in the course of the evening, and left off at 50. You see, my dear DANGLE, how plain all this is. You might likewise consider a manager who announces by extravagant puffing, a new piece as a treat, who pretends to sell what he is not possessed of, and is obliged frequently to waddle out at a great loss-his delightful comedy of 70 being often reduced as low as a farce of 49. Viewing matters in this light, I flatter myself that I have a more

correct idea of dramatic merit than the most critics, and am often enabled to detect false have frequently been told of a performer rising when to my certain knowledge he never got and very few clappers at that. There are som turesome fellows among them who affect to hav cerns, and yet egad! are seldom able to pay the ment. Dramatic dealers in nominal stock are lucky as with us but let that pass. This is judging plays and players, and I know of no other Were it once introduced, we should understand better. It is nonsense to talk of rising and falli is no rising and falling but at the Stock Exchan be clearly understood. When I am told that Y two per cent. in the fourth act of Hamlet, I kn what is meant, as he left off at 793 in " To be or But some actors, I am sorry to say, manage the badly, that in the course of the season they do n eighth per cent. and generally leave off just w began. I have only to add, that this ratio would service at the end of a season, to the holders which I have often seen hawked about the Garde of ten or twelve per cent."

My friend JONATHAN having explained his particularly, I do not think it necessary to add ments of my own, but submit it to the better ju your readers, and am

Nov. 13, 1822.

Mr. DRAMA,

Yours, &c.

CHECK TICKETS.

In the 22d Number of your excellent little wo serve this question by your correspondent C. G. C "Whether a person who pays for admission to a and leaves it during the time of performance, has undoubted right to transfer to any one he think ticket he receives fhhk-taker-and

fer, be justified in refusing admission to that person to whom it has been given."

In answer to the first clause, I give it as my opinion, that a person paying for admission to a theatre pays for himself alone, and therefore has no right whatever to transfer to another such check as he receives upon leaving the theatre. To the second clause, I should answer, a check-taker, who would pass a person, knowing that person to have received the check which he presents from another, would be guilty of a gross direlection of duty, and deserves not to be placed in an important situation.

The play-bills, I believe, generally have at the bottom"No Money returned"-If a person receives a check, and passes it to another, it would be the same thing as returning his money, if that check were permitted to pass such a one into the theatre.

Having given an answer to, or rather my opinion on the. question, I beg leave to say a word on what I think of any man who would transfer his check to another,

Every one knows when he goes to the theatre, that the price of admission is 7s. to the boxes, which sum is demanded if you stay one hour or the whole of the entertainment; and therefore no one could expect, (if he leaves the house) that two persons could be admitted for that sum. And I must say, most decidedly, no gentleman would take another person's check, and no gentleman would insult another so much as to offer one.

Your correspondent, I have no doubt, is actuated by motives quite pure, merely intending to set at rest the question, which he says, has been so often argued ;—and I, thinking it a subject which required little or no comment, have taken a very short method, and have given my decided opinion upon it without fear of contradiction.

Dec. 5, 1822.

I am, &c.

PHILO KEAN.

D

SHAKSPERIANA.

No. XI.

Consisting of Anecdotes, Fragments, Vestiges, marks relative to SHAKSPEARE, collected and re from various authentic sources.

The arch of heaven, and thunders rock the gro
When furious whirlwinds rend the howling air,
And ocean, groaning from his lowest bed,
Heaves his tempestuous billows to the sky;
Amid the mighty uproar, while below

The nations tremble, SHAKSPEARE looks abroad
From some high cliff superior, and enjoys
The elemental war.' ""

A

SHAKSPEARE AND SIR WALTER RALEIGH.

SHAKSPEARE has a thought in "Hamlet" where gives advice to his son so strikingly like a passag WALTER RALEIGH's instructions to his son, that th only be quoted, to show the similarity. The passa the poet is as follows:

66

-Beware

Of entrance to a quarrel;-but being in, Bear't, that the opposed may beware of thee." "Hamlet" A

The historian thus proceeds

"Thou shalt be in as much danger in contending brawler in a private quarrel as in a battle, where mayest get honour to thyself, and safety to thy pri country; but if thou be once engaged, carry thyself b that they may fear thee."

That this analogy of sentiment should exist between the two distinguished characters in question, is to be accounted for by the friendship that existed between them; and it is evident that Sir WALTER was in this instance the plagiarist -probably in compliment to SHAKSPEARE, as Hamlet was played in 1598, and Sir W. RALEIGH's son was then only five years old; consequently the instructions were written some years after. It is here not out of season to observe, that the youth to whom they were addressed, was killed in a gallant attack on St. Thome, on the coast of Guinea; an expedition undertaken with the concurrence of JAMES I., but which that perfidious prince afterwards disavowed to the court of Spain. G. C.

"In imagination, invention, jollity, and gay humour, SHAKSPEARE has unlimited dominion. Bold and impetuous, he rejoices, like a giant, to run his course through all the mountains and wilds of nature and fancy. The fire and invention of SHAKSPEAKE, are in an instant shot into your soul, and enlighten and cheer the most indolent mind. with their spirit and lustre. The compositions of SHAKSPEARE are like magnificent castles, not perfectly finished or regular, but adorned with such bold and splendid designs, that they at once delight you with their beauty and grandeur."

MACBETH.

MORRIS.

The arguments, says JOHNSON, by which Lady Macbeth persuades her husband to the murder of Duncan, afford a striking proof of SHAKSPEARE'S knowledge of human nature. She urges the excellence and dignity of courage, a glittering idea, which has dazzled mankind from age to age, and animated, sometimes the housebreaker, and sometimes the conqueror, but this sophism Macbeth has for ever destroyed in a line and a half, of which it may almost be said that they ought to bestow immortality on the author, though all his other productions had been lost

"I dare do all that may become a man ;
Who dares do more is none.