There's many a breeze, almost too faint to turn That shakes a thousand friends off." Towards the close of the first act, Benducar is exhorting Alonzo to meet with firmness the false accusations preferred against him : Benducar.-Trust to your cause and character; if they Alonzo.-What is that? Benducar. The sentence of posterity. They, too, To weigh the memories of men departed. Alonzo.-Let faction do its worst; I will look forward, Benducar.-Ay; forward and within." Durazzo justifies the assumption of haughtiness on his being created a noble in the following fine lines: Do we not go arm'd Into the field of arms; and shall we not Tread proudly in the palaces of pride? I come amongst you a competitor, To answer taunts with tauntings. When the wind Scolds at the sea, the sea rebukes the wind With lips of foam; and when a comet starts That the bright multitude of stars turu pale The tranquillity of night is sweetly painted : -There is a chill damp air Abroad, which, through the senses, comes upon The inmost soul with dews of melancholy. How awful is this wide repose! No sound In the tragedy itself the above passage acquires an additional charm from its position, which is immediately preceeding a scene of furious quarrel, terminating in blood. Death is the natural end of all things; and, therefore, with the following spirited and soldierly description of death we will close our brief extracts from "Durazzo." Death's a formal thing In jails, on scaffolds, or on beds of down; Ancient Mysteries described, espe- HOWEVER determined and zealous we may be in support of the religious institutions of the country, and however it may behove every person to reprobate levity and indecorum, or even frequent and unnecessary enquiries into the truth and authenticity of revealed religion, we must confess that more harm than good is done to the cause of religion by those who display anger or resentment at sceptical enquiries into its pretensions, and still more injury does the cause receive from those who are always betraying a sort of a splenetic irritability upon all occasions when they conceive its truth to be indirectly questioned or covertly denied. For our parts, we conceive that sincerity and rational confidence beget a spirit of equani mity, of moderation, and forbear ance, with an indifference both to the power of the attack itself, and to the mode in which that attack may be conducted, whilst a febrile fear of assault with a spirit of acrimony and vituperation against a supposed, or even real assailant, betrays a latent uneasy conciousness of a weak cause. We took up the volume now before us with some little of expectation that its contents might be of a scep tical nature, and were therefore determined to criticise its contents; but, finding our expectations groundless, we gave way to the admiration which its erudition and general merits are calculated to excite in every reader of sound judgment. We cannot but confess that Mr. Hone is deserving of a high degree of praise for having selected a fund of curious matter from black letter and other sources, which seldom have much charms for persons in his rank of life, and which are not often resorted to but Eur. Mag. Aug., 1823, by the laborious and disciplined scholar, The work is not all polemical, or assailant, but consists of an amusing and instructive selection of antiquarian matter, drawn from the Coventry manuscript, and other old MSS. now in the British Museum. There are few persons who have access to black letter MSS. or to the antiquarian literature of our country, and as such depositories of the learning of the middle ages are known to contain much of amusement and of information, and as they moreover elucidate the page of history and paint the manners of our forefathers, any judicious selection from such valuable stores of learning cannot fail to be acceptable to the general class of well-informed readers. Those who have ever read the dissertations upon Thespis and the rise of the Greek stage, will find many points of resemblance between the dramas and the rude and vagrant actors of that early age, and the mysteries or religious plays and performers of the middle ages in the west of Europe. These mysteries in fact are the modern theatre of Europe in its earliest state of existence, and in this point of view alone must form an object of interest with men of letters. It is in vain to argue against the publishing of such matter, on the apprehension of injury which religion may sustain by exposing the folly and imposition with which she stood in close connexion for the first fifteen hundred years of her existence. There was more stedfast faith in revelation during the period of such exhibitions than there has been since their abolition, and if the actual representation of mysteries did not awaken sceptical trains of thought, how little is really to be appre hended from a mere perusal of them in an age like the present, We may further observe that, according to the letters of Spence, the most exfravagant and absurd of these mys W teries were in the highest estimation on the Continent at the begin ning of the last century, and even at its close they were far from being in disrepute; and, if concurring reports are to be relied on, many of the highest church dignitaries, as well as princes and legitimate monarchs, have seriously thought upon encouraging their revival within these few years. Thus we conceive that persons the most sensitively alive to the secarity of orthodox doctrines may, without fear of danger or offence, peruse the volume now before us, and draw from its pages a copious stream of amusement and of knowledge. This volume contains only eight mysteries, occupying seventy-two pages; the remainder of the work consisting of miscellaneous antiquarian extracts, connected with the religious ceremonies, habits, and customs of our forefathers. The first play or mystery relates to "the modyr of mercy," and the drama is conducted on the following plan: Enter Joakim and Ann, (parents of the Virgin Mary).—Joakim calls himself "a substancyall man," and declares that he distributes his goods between the temple, the pylg'mys, and his household, observing that So shulde every curat, in this werde wyde Geve a part to his chauncel, I wys, A part to his parocheners, that to povert slyde The thyrd part to kepe for hy' and his. The morality of which is less objectionable than the poetry. Joachim and Ann are forbidden to sacrifice on account of their having no progeny, and in the midst of their grief an angel descendeth and tells Joachim that God "by making barrenness, shews his myth and his mercye bothe;" and concludes, after alluding to Sarah and Rachael, by saying "And in lyke wyse, Ann, thy blyssyd wyff Sche schal ber a childe schal hygth Mary Whic'h shall be blyssyd in her body and have joys ffyff." That schal be savyo' unto al man kende." And the angel prophecies that Joachim shall meet Ann "at the gyldyd gate of Jerusalem," and then repairing to Ann directs her to meet her husband at that spot, foretelling that she shall have a child whose destiny he acquaints her with, and then Her goeth the aungel agen to hefore."-Joachim and Ann meet, of course, at the "gyldyd gate at Jerusalem," and where Joachim gives her a "Kusse of clennesse," and they both depart home "To thank God, that sytt in tron' That thus hath sent us his grace." This mystery is the eighth pageant in the Cotton MS. and the subject is closely copied from the Apocryphal New Testament. We have given the outline of this mystery in order to afford our readers an idea of the nature of these religious amusements of our forefathers. But we must observe, that many of these mysteries are chosen from passages, and the dramas themselves conducted in a way, which the refinement of modern manners would deem to be highly objectionable, and in the southern parts of Europe the warmer fancies and more impassioned feelings of the people have far from decreased the grounds of such objections. Following the eight mysteries contained in this volume, the compiler has given us many black letter verse and prose selections, some of which are extremely curious and entertaining. In a chapter upon Christmas Carols, Mr. Hone says, “the admiration of my earlier days, for some lines in the Cherry Carol still remains, nor can I help thinking that the reader will see some what of cause for it." We must confess that we are less pervious to such impressions; for, in our opinion, except that such Carols may associate in our minds with fancied scenes of the olden times, they are puerile in the extreme. For instance, we think that few men will allow that there is either poetry, nature, or sense, or piety, in such Carols as the following: "How Christ was in a manger born, And God dwelt in a bush of thorn, Which bush of thorn appears to be The same that yields best Peko-tea." The Carol from which the above extract is made, was printed in quarto in 1491. In a Carol respecting Dives and Lazarus, there are the two following verses: "As it fell out upon a day, Rich Dives sickened and died, There came two serpents out of Hell;, His soul therein to guide. "Rise up, rise up, brother Dives, And come along with me; For you've a place provided in Hell, To sit upon a serpent's knee." Now although such doggrel and absurdities were mistaken by our ancestors as aids to religion; and although the reformation was directed to be promoted and advanced by "Gude and godly ballates changed out of prophaine songs, for avoiding of sinne and harlotrie," we can conceive no rational person at present to feel any admiration of them, except as features or records of ages gone by. In chapter five upon the Coventry and Chester Mysteries of the Descent into Hell, we regret that the compiler has not given us specimens of the old engravings which ornamented them. A fac-simile of the celebrated wood engraving of "Christ bursting Hell-gates, a devil throwing stones at him from the battlement" would have been invaluable, as shewing the composition and style of engraving before the time of Wolgemuth. It is curious to reflect upon the alterations effected by time in the opinions of Christian Europe respecting plays; the fathers denied baptism to any one concerned in a theatre, and declared it "a shame that any one should listen to a comedian with the same ears as they hear an evangelical preacher;" and Tertullian, alluding to the high heels worn by the tragedians, exclaims that "the devil sets them upon their high pantofles to give Christ the le, who said, nobody can add one cubit to his statue;" and "St. Austin begs God pardon for having read Virgil with delight in his graver years. But the whole chapter, commencing at page 148, is full of such instructive matter relative to the erroneous zeal, the "zeal without knowledge" of former times, and it gives us an entertaining and succinct History of the Feast of Fools, the Feast of the Ass, the Boy Bishop, and numerous other such Mysteries and Ceremonies of the early ages. We have a very long historical and descriptive account of the Ceremony of the Boy Bishop, but the chapter is too discursive and void of classification. We have next an account of the Ceremony of the Lord Mayor's Show, with its former accompaniments and ancient mode of celebration. Mr. Hone betrays what all men betray when writing upon favourite subjects. We mean to say thathe is some time prolix and discursive, and often gives us at too great length what is scarcely of sufficient importance to merit any extraordinary attention. But the general compilation, if it do not evince the most profound and intimate acquaintance with antiquarian literature, at least displays much of natural sagacity and of judgment. There are many highly useful works that may be perverted to mischievous purposes by ill-disposed persons, but if this be amongst such a class of books, we do not see that it is in. this respect more objectionable than many that are of permitted currency amongst our youth of both sexes. It is a volume calculated to afford both knowledge and entertainment to the learned as well as to the desultory reader; and we have derived more than ordinary satisfaction in its perusal. A Letter to the Mistresses of Families on the cruelty of employing children in the odious, dangerous, and often fatal task of Sweeping Chimnies. By J. C. Hudson. We have perused this sensible little pamphlet with considerable satis- faction, and cordially wish, while we recommend it to universal attention, that the humane endeavours of the author may not be frustrated. We have often famented the inattention of ladies in general, and particularly those who have children, to the cruelty of employing climbing boys in sweeping chimnies, for the work may in general be far more effectually performed by the use of a very simple machine, capable of being made by every hedge-carpenter in the kingdom. Mr. Hudson has very properly inserted in his pamphlet extracts from the evidence given before a Committee of the House of Commons, when this interesting subject was under parliamentary investigation. These extracts are confined to the ten following points on which the witnesses were examined; he recites the questions and answers relative to them, which fully prove how heavy and grievous is the load of affliction that presses on this pitiable portion of human beings. 1. The tender age at which children are put to this employment. 2. The modes of procuring chil dren. 3. The methods of tuition. 4. Their habits of living, dirtiness, and bad lodging. 5. Ill-treatment and over-work by the journeymen. 6. Their separation from society and want of education. 7. The constant dangers to which they are exposed from various accidents. 8. The custom of sending up climbing boys to extinguish fires in chimnies. 9. Their deformity. 10. The difficulty of the boys get ting employment when they have outgrown their fitness for ascending chimnies, and their consequent illhabits and final ruin. On all these points the evidence was so conclusive, that we are led to wonder at the inhumanity of our nature, that could for a moment longer suffer such a barbarous practice to exist; especially as it might be immediately removed by the introduction of an easily constructed machine, which Mr. Hudson describes as 66 a large brush made of a number of whalebone sticks fastened into a round ball of wood, and extending in most cases to a diameter of two feet; this brush is thrust up the chimney by means of short hollow sticks, fitting in one to another like the joints of a fishing rod, and with a long cord running through them all; it is worked up and down as every fresh joint is added, until it reaches the top, and is then in the same manner pulled down and worked." This machine is applicable to at least nine-tenths of the chimnies in all modern built houses, and to more than three-fourths of all the chimnies in the metropolis; a small alteration in the machine might adapt it to the construction of those chimnies, which at present might not admit of its use. If it is impossible to rouse the feelings of humanity in behalf of this poor, degraded, outcast race of hu man beings, still observance ought to be paid to the statute of the 28 George III. c. 48. which probibits the binding of any child to this trade under eight years of age.Every housekeeper might by attention to this circumstance prevent a large proportion of the evil complained of by informing against any master-sweep, who employed children under that age; for it is notorious that they are apprenticed to this degrading and cruel employment, even at so early an age as four years and a half. This pamphlet is very properly dedicated to the Mistresses of Families, whose peculiar province it is to remove this stain on civilized society. To this end would not the formation of female societies in populous places be highly beneficial? And could the best sympathies of the female heart be called forth in a better cause; one more congenial with their nature, or more appropriate to their situation as mothers? Why should they extend their exertions in behalf of the African slave, and suffer the still more miserable slave of their own country to pine in this wretched degradation? Here is a great practical good that may be attained very easily; and we should have a much higher opinion of the woman who refused to employ a climbing boy, than of one who gave alms to importunate beggars, who would shed the sickly tear over a novel, |