fpeeches.' In this fhe has certainly done well, and if he had fhortened more, fhe would have done better: the performance is ftill too much a French play to please an English audience, or even an English reader, except his taste has been vitiated by French criticism.

The whole first act, and part of the fecond, are mere narrative, and what the audience have once been told in a dialogue between fome of the dramatic characters, they are told again in a dialogue between others: the 3d fcene of the 3d act, in particular, is a narrative by Aldamon to Tancred, of the fame facts which make part of the dramatic action already paft, or rather which have been related in the preceding dialogue. It confifts more of stage tricks than exhibitions of nature. A lady is in love with a banished hero: he believes her false; she flies to him in rapture, he coldly repreffes her: the refents his believing his fenfes, and, in a fit of fury, renounces him: he is too late convinced he was miftaken; the forgives him, and, juft as all matters are coming right, he dies of a wound, and the goes diftracted. It is indeed true, that all dramatic distress may be made ridiculous by a certain manner of relating it: we shall not therefore incur the charge of unjuft feverity to this piece by a farther representation of the incidents; but we cannot difcharge our duty to literature and the public, without obferving that the whole action is founded upon an abfurdity.

When fingle combats held the place of legal decifions, they were, like legal decifions, always founded upon a question, or matter of doubt: one party alledged a right, which the other party denied; or one party accufed another of a crime, of which the accused declared themselves to be innocent. If the right was admitted, or the crime acknowledged, there was no more foundation for a combat, than for a law-fuit. There was no combat to determine whether a perfon who acknowledged the crime of which he was accufed fhould be punished, or whether a right which was admitted fhould take place. But the foundation of the dramatic action in queftion, is a single combat, not between the accufer and the accufed, or the champions of both, or either, to determine whether the accufation was true or falfe, but between two persons who supposed themfelves to have been equally betrayed by the fame woman, in order to determine whether that woman fhould die for a crime of which the acknowledged herself to be guilty!

The cafe is this, Syracufe being befieged by the Saracens, under the command of Solyman, it is determined by the government that a law which doom'd to fhameful and immediate death

Whoever dar'd to hold a fecret commerce
Fatal to Syracufa with the foe,"

fhould be rigorously put in execution;

'As lenity ill tim'd makes traitors bolder,

Let neither fex nor age engage our pity;'

fo faid one of the knights in council, and fo it is univerfally agreed.

Tancred is in exile, Almida is fecretly contracted to him is marriage, the hears that he is not far diftant in disguise, and fends him a letter, by a trufty meffenger, in which, among others, are these words,

May you acknowledg'd reign in Syracuse
As in this heart you reign.'

But fearing that if the letter fhould be intercepted, and known to be written to Tancred, the difcovery might be fatal to him, the carefully avoided naming him, and trufted her messenger with a verbal direction only to whom it was to be delivered.

This letter is intercepted, and brought to the council of Syracufe. They knowing nothing of Almida's connection with Tancred, nor of Tancred's being within the reach of her mesfenger, fuppofe it to be written to Solyman: fhe, fearing to endanger Tancred by disclosing the truth, acquiefces in the mistake, and takes the crime which the council has just determined to punish with death, not regarding either age or fex, upon herself.

In this fituation, there is no queftion which combat, in the days of chivalry, was to determine: How abfurd then is the exclamation of one of the council which had condemned Almida, Where is the knight, who, for this guilty fair,

Will deign the ancient custom to fulfil
And risk his life or glory in her cause ?'

Where was the knight at any time, who, for a guilty fair, a woman who acknowledged herfelf to be guilty of the crime laid to her charge, would risk, or thought himfelf obliged by the laws of honour to rifk, his life or glory?

But if fuch a knight were to be found, it may well be asked, in the prefent cafe, with whom is he to fight? By the laws of chivalry a general challenge was fuppofed to be given by the accufer, if the charge was denied; but in this cafe there was no fuch accufer; and upon what pretence could any one be challenged to prove a crime which the party had already confeffed ? She glories in her crime, fays her father, thus not a knight will ftir to fave her. What follows is confufion worse cons founded:

Though with deep regret

They fign'd unanimous the deadly fentence,
In fpight of our most ancient folemn law,
Which grants the fair, when injur'd or accus'd,
A knight, whofe gen'rous arm, in fingle combat,
Her caufe may fight, and, if victorious, clear her.'

A

She

She who was detected in a crime which it had been determined to punish with death, by a letter under her own hand, and had acquiefced in the fenfe put upon that letter, fo as to glory in her crime, had neither been injured nor accufed, how can the then be fentenced to die in fpight of thofe laws, which, when a woman had been injured or accufed, granted her a knight to prove the charge falfe and injurious, by the combat?

The crime for which the is condemned is fimply that of correfponding with the enemy; yet the affects to fuppofe herself punished for fomething elfe. Her father had determined that the fhould marry Orbaffan, and she makes her difobedience to this ordination the ground of her punishment:

Tis true I fcorn'd your laws, nay, more, I broke them, Tyrannical they had no power to bind me:

A father would have forc'd my hand unwilling,

I disobey'd him: Orbaffan I flighted;

Haughty and rude, he thought to bend me to him:
These are my crimes; if they are worthy death

Strike'

But, with fubmiffion to the fair Almida, these were not her crimes: fhe might have difobeyed her father, and flighted Orbaffan with impunity, at least without becoming obnoxious to punishment from the state. And it does by no means appear that the law to punish capitally any who should correspond with an enemy, then at the walls, was tyrannical, and therefore not binding.

Tancred at length arrives in difguife: he hears that his miftrefs is false; that he has written to Solyman, wishing that he might reign in Syracufe as he does in her heart; that fhe avows it, and glories in it; that she was therefore condemned to die. He renounces and execrates her, yet ftands forth as her champion. As her champion for what? To prove her innocence? No, he has gloried in her guilt. To determine whether being guilty the fhall fuffer? No, that is contrary to all the laws by which combat is appointed. But, fays Tancred, 'her defolated father

Avows my arm to innocence propitious.'

But whence rofe the father's difgrace? Not from the punishment of his child, but from her guilt; as it was therefore impoffible to prove her innocent against her own confeffion, it was impoffible to fave him from difgrace; and there would be no end of faving criminals, if none was to suffer but those whom none would lament.

But if Tancred is to fight, right or wrong, who is to be his antagonist? As there is no queftioned accufation, there is no accufer who is to be oppofed as guilty of malice or falfchood;

but,

but, according to the cant of the theatre, a fine fituation was to be produced, by a combat between the deftined husband and the lover. Tancred therefore fingles out Orbaffan, and the beft reafon that is given for it is, that he was appointed to keep off the mob at the execution:

My place and rig'rous duty here detain me
To keep in bounds a giddy daring people.'

Who is answerable for all this complicated abfurdity, Voltaire or his Tranflator, we do not pretend to know, nor is it worth our while to enquire: our business is not with the Author but the performance.

As to the language, it is not remarkable either for beauty or defect in general, however, it is rather that of the epic than the drama: in particular parts the verfification is defective, and the metaphors are often incongruously mixed.

The drama requires a natural and eafy conftruction, with which the fublime beauties of poetry are perfectly confiftent, the adjective therefore fhould not be placed after the noun, as in this paffage :

'the task

Arduous to govern, afks a firmer hand.' One inftance is fufficient to illuftrate our remark.

There is one paffage in which the fair Author was betrayed into an expreffion contrary to her meaning, by the negative particle un. When Tancred, having been rendered careless of life by the fuppofed infidelity of Almida, is mortally wounded, the confiders his dying under that mistake, fo injurious to her honour, as an aggravation of her misfortune; upon which the is made to exclaim,

He dies-and undeceived.”

The meaning certainly is just contrary to the words. To exprefs the Author's idea, and Almida's fentiment, another negative particle must be added; un-undeceived, if there had been fuch a word, would have done, and the Author conceived the idea which that word expreffes, under the word fhe has ufed, which conveys an idea directly oppofite.

The verfification is imperfect in the following among other inftances:

By my order fhe here advances'

My foul's best love! fhall I then be vile'

He once in fecret figh'd for her at Byzantium'

Live happy-whilft I feek death-farewell'

Mixed metaphors fhould not be too feverely cenfured in dramatic compofitions: paffion naturally flows in metaphorical language, yet the extemporaneous effufions of paffion do not ad

mit

mit of critical exactness in the figures: it is enough if they have a general fitness, and a common propriety referred to their object, without perfect congruity when compared with each other; yet even with this licence the following paffage is not to be defended.

How fhort, alas! is human comprehenfion!
Prefumptuous judges! in our erring balance
Blindly we weigh the life, the fate of mortals,
By the weak guidance of fallacious prudence,
Bewilder'd into cruelty.'

In this paffage a mistake is produced first by the error of the balance, then by the blindness of one who fufpends it, then by a weak guidance, by the weak guidance of fallacious prudence bewildered into cruelty!

Other faults there are which we fhould be ill employed to point out. Upon the whole we are of opinion, that nothing could have fupported this piece upon the ftage, but the very great theatrical abilities of Mrs. Barry. It is not however the only piece that keeps its ground merely by the excellence of a favourite performer in a particular scene; and it must be confeffed that to give great abilities an opportunity to display themfelves, is to give honour to merit, and pleasure to the public.

HA

ART. X. An Enquiry into the general Effects of Heat; with Obfervations on the Theories of Mixture. In Two Parts. Illuftrated with a Variety of Experiments, tending to explain and deduce from Principles, fome of the most common Appearances in Nature. With an Appendix on the Form and Use of the princi pal Veffels containing the Subjects on which the Effects of Heat and Mixture are to be produced. 8vo. 2 s. Nourse. 1770.

HIS Effay appears to be the production of fome ingenious academic, who has been lately engaged in the ftudy of chemistry.

The general effects of heat, as enumerated by this enquirer, are, expanfion, fluidity, vapour, ignition, and inflammability. There is fomething new and curious in what is advanced concerning latent heat; a doctrine, which our Author claims not as his own, but candidly attributes to the ingenious Dr. Black, Profeffor of Chemistry in the Univerfity of Edinburgh.

I faid that fluidity is occafioned by the prefence of heat. Yet is it fcarce credible that a quantity of fenfible heat which affects the thermometer fo little, fhould be productive of fo extraordinary an effect. Is it not rather to be believed, that bodies absorb degrees of heat, which, in certain circumstances, remains latent and unobferved? and that fluids contain a great quantity of this latent heat, which, though it does not act

fenfibly,