statement and explanation, for which we could not possibly make room. Mr. Grenfell was a member of the bullion committee, and enjoyed the friendship of Mr. Horner. In a letter written lately to a correspondent in this place, he says, "the sanction of his great authority, and his unvaried countenance and approbation of my humble exertions in this cause, inspired me with a confidence as to the correctness of my own views, which has been most essential to me." We knew, ourselves, enough of that most excellent person, to perceive that this is a great deal for any man to say. The privileges and advantages which it implies can only be equalled by intercourse with one of the most original and inventive writers on political economy since the time of Adam Smith;* whose speculations on the great subjects of human interest with which that science is especially connected, have much of the strictness and severity of mathematical demonstration; and who bids fair to give to its most practical deductions more shape and certainty than they have received from any writer of his day. ART. X.-Curiosities of Literature, vol. 3.-by Mr. D'Israeli. OF THE PANTOMIMICAL CHARACTERS. F the mimi and the pantomimi of the Romans, the following notices enter into our present researches: The mimi were an impudent race of buffoons, who excelled in mimicry, and, like our domestic fools, admitted into convivial parties, to entertain the guests; from them we derive the term, mimetic art. Their powers enabled them to perform a more extraordinary office, for they appear to have been introduced into funerals, to mimic the person, and even the language of the deceased. Suetonius describes an archimimus accompanying the funeral of Vespasian. This archmime performed his part admirably, not only representing the person, but imitating, according to custom, ut est mos, the manners and language of the living emperor. He contrived a happy stroke at the prevailing foible of Vespasian, when he inquired the cost of all this funeral pomp? 'Ten millions of sesterces!' On this he observed, that, if they would give him but a hundred thousand, they might throw his body into the Tiber. The pantomimi were of a different class. They were tragic actors, usually mute; they combined with the arts of gesture, music and dances of the most impressive character. Their silent language has often drawn tears, by the pathetic emotions they excited: Their very nod speaks, their hands talk, and their fingers have a voice,' says one of their admirers. Seneca, the father, grave as was his profession, confessed his taste for pantomimes * Mr. Ricardo, who is the friend of Mr. Grenfell, seconded his resolutions proposed to the court of proprietors at the bank, 23d May 1816, and speaks with respect of his exertions for the public. See proposals for an economical and secure currency, p. 42. had become a passion; and by the decree of the senate that 'the Roman knights should not attend the pantomimic players in the streets,' it is evident that the performers were greatly honoured. Lucian has composed a curious treatise on pantomimes. These pantomimics seem to have been held in great honour; many were children of the graces and the virtues! The tragic and the common masks were among the ornaments of the sepulchral monuments of an archmime and a pantomime. Montfaucon conjectures that they formed a select fraternity. The parti-coloured hero, with every part of his dress, has been drawn out of the greatest wardrobe of antiquity; he was a Roman mimi: Harlequin is described with his shaven head, rasis capitibus; his sooty face, fuligine faciem obducti; his flat unshod feet, planipedes: and his patched coat of many colours; mimi centunculo. Even Pullicinella, whom we familiarly call Punch, may receive, like other personages of no greater importance, all his dignity from antiquity; one of his Roman ancestors having appeared to an antiquary's visionary eye in a bronze statue: more than one erudite dissertation authenticates the family likeness; the nose long, prominent, and hooked; the staring goggle eyes; the hump at his back and at his breast; in a word, all the character which so strongly marks the Punch-race, as distinctly as whole dynasties have been featured by the Austrian lip and the Bourbon nose. The genealogy of the whole family is confirmed by the general term, which includes them all; for our Zany, in Italian Zanni, comes direct from Sannio, a buffoon; and a passage in Cicero, de oratore, paints harlequin and his brother-gesticulators after the life; the perpetual trembling motion of their limbs, their ludicrous and flexible gestures, and all the mimicry of their faces. Quid enim potest tam ridiculum quam Sannio esse? Qui ore, vultu, imitandis motibus, voce, denique corpore ridetur ipso. Lib. II. § 51. For what has more of the ludicrous than Sannio? who, with his mouth, his face, imitating every motion, with his voice, and, indeed, with all his body, provokes laughter. The harlequin in the Italian theatre has passed through all the vicissitudes of fortune. At first he was a true representative of the ancient Mime, but during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries he degenerated into a booby and a gourmand, the perpetual butt for a sharp-witted fellow, his companion, called Brighella, the knife and the whetstone. Harlequin, under the reforming hand of Goldoni, became a child of nature, the delight of his country; and he has commemorated the historical character of the great Harlequin Sacchi. AUDLEY THE USURER. A person whose history will serve as a canvas to exhibit some scenes of the arts of the money-trader, was one AUDLEY, a lawyer, and a great practical philosopher, who concentrated his vigorous ulties in the science of the relative value of money. He flou rished through the reigns of James I, Charles I, and held a lucrative office in the court of wards,' till that singular court was abolished at the time of the restoration. In his own times he was called 'the great Audley,' an epithet so often abused, and here applied to the creation of enormous wealth. But there are minds of great capacity, concealed by the nature of their pursuits; and the wealth of Audley may be considered as the cloudy medium through which a bright genius shone, who, had it been thrown into a nobler sphere of action, the 'greatness' would have been less ambiguous. This genius of thirty per cent. first had proved the decided vigour of his mind, by his enthusiastic devotion to his law-studies; deprived of his leisure for study through his busy day, he stole the hours from his late nights and his early mornings; and without the means to procure a law-library, he invented a method to possess one without the cost; as fast as he learned, he taught; and, by publishing some useful tracts on temporary occasions, he was enabled to purchase a library. He appears never to have read a book without its furnishing him with some new practical design, and he probably studied too much for his own particular advantage. Such devoted studies was the way to become a lord chancellor; but the science of the law was here subordinate to that of a money-trader. When yet but a clerk to the clerk in the counter, frequent opportunities occurred, which Audley knew how to improve. He became a money-trader as he had become a law-writer, and the fears and follies of mankind were to furnish him with a trading capital. The fertility of his genius appeared in expedients and in quick contrivances. He was sure to be the friend of all men falling out. He took a deep concern in the affairs of his master's clients, and often much more than they were aware of. No man 'so ready at procuring bail or compounding debts. This was a considerable traffic then, as now. They hired themselves out for bail, swore what was required, and contrived to give false addresses. It seems they dressed themselves out for the occasion: a great seal-ring flamed on the finger, which, however, was pure copper, gilt, and often assumed the name of some person of good credit. Savings, and small presents for gratuitous opinions, often afterwards discovered to be very fallacious ones, enabled him to purchase annuities of easy landholders, with their treble amount secured on their estates. The improvident owners, or the careless heirs, were entangled in the usurer's nets; and after the receipt of a few years, the annuity, by some latent quibble, or some irregularity in the payments, usually ended in Audley's obtaining the treble forfeiture. He could at all times out-knave a knave. One of these incidents has been preserved. A draper, of no honest repuation, being arrested by a merchant for a debt of 2001., Audley bought the debt at forty pounds, for which the draper immediately offered him fifty. But Audley would not consent, 422 ART. XI.-Report of the National Schools The following account of the progress of education at Hayti is extremely interesting, because it promises to communicate by riority of intellect has more generally been taken for granted than proved. We have not the least doubt, but mental degeneracy may be prodegrees, useful instruction to a part of the human species, whose infepagated as well as bodily defect: and that a series of generations wherein education and instruction have been neglected, will produce a much inferior, being at the last term of the series, than the first. For like in Hayti, founded and maintained by the king. reason, where mental improvement has been seduously attended to for several generations, the capacity of the individuals will by this means be gradually improved, and the last offspring will rank higher in the scale of being, than the first member of the family. Heartily wishing success to every means of improving the black as well as the white portion of the human race, we present the following short but interestEDIT. ing account to our readers. Cape Henry, Hayti, 19th Sept. 1817. the forms of the church of England, every Sunday morning, by one of One of Mr. Gulliver's scholars, a son of the baron Ferrier, has form- been allotted to him, in which he instructs several of his young companions in the intervals between school hours. A school room is building at Sans Souci, designed for the reception of one thousand scholars. At these National Schools instruction is gratuitous. The number of Mr. Gulliver's scholars will be shortly increased to two hundred. Besides these National Schools, founded and maintained by the munificence of the king, the town of the Cape is filled with small elementary schools for the poorer classes, who cannot all be accommodated at present in the National Schools, and are compelled under a heavy penalty, to send their children to school as soon as they attain a sufficient age. The price of education, at these schools, where the children are taught reading, writing, and ciphering, is extremely moderate. Quarterly reports of the state and progress of the National Schools will be hereafter officially published in the Haytian Gazettes. the Haytian Gazettes. 423 ART. XII.-Notoria; or Miscellaneous Articles of Philosophy, Literature and Politics. From the Gentleman's Magazine. Mr. URBAN,-You have doubtless heard of Waterloo Waltzes, Waterloo Bonnets, Waterloo Shoes, &c. but not yet perhaps of Waterloo Literature. By this term, is meant a narratory style, which resembles the pell-mell of the Battle, and consists in bulls, erroneous dates, and writing history, without collation of the incidents, or examination of opposing authorities. Its general principle is, to give exparte evidence a grand display, that the reader may have the pleasure of finding it contradicted as he proceeds. The intention of this essay being a jeu d'esprit, the names of the authors will not ill-naturedly be given: but the reader may be assured that the passages really exist. The Battle commenced by the famous attack upon the villa called here Hougomont. The Literature also begins with a misoner: for it is allowed upon all sides that Goumont is the true appellation. A Paddy, who was an eye-witness of this gallant affair, after an elegant pleonasm, informing us that the inhabitants fled to the forest of Soignes for security, "and in the hopes of saving their lives," says, that "our troops retiring into the garden did not yield one inch of their ground." The same writer speaking of the fruitless efforts of the enemy, uses these words, "at no period, during the day, notwithstanding the heavy masses of infantry and cavalry which were advanced against our centre, time after time, he was never able to force our position." I proceed from hence to a concentrated account by an author, who with peculiar felicity distinguishes the ExEmperor by the elegant appellation of the Corsican. The first thing I shall notice is an anarchy of dates and incidents, very similar to the bull before quoted. It is a letter of the Marquis of Anglesea, in exculpation of his regiment, the 7th Hussars. This letter is dated Brussels, June 2, 1815, above a fortnight before the battle alluded to: and, notwithstanding, speaks of the 17th and 18th of that month; as well as bears the signature of Anglesea, not of Uxbridge. Now as every body knows that the battles of Quartre-bras and Waterloo were fought upon the 16th and 18th of June, we are, I presume, to consider this letter as sent before it was written, or some such extraordinary event, far beyond the common course of things. We are next told that Bonaparte ascended the Observatory, though it is plain that there were no means of se doing, and that the report of his guide disproves the fact. Napoleon put himself at the head of his guard, consisting of fifteen hundred men: to which the enemy, greatly diminished in numbers, could offer no effectual resistance. As the guards amounted to fifteen thousand, the Cumpiler proves also to be a dealer in diminuation of numbers, and in a large way. In defiance of the guide's account, Bonaparte is made to escape in his carriage, which is described as "a complete office, bedchamber, dressing-room eating-room, and kitchen." This Iliad in a nutshell is thus converted into an impossibility. Though Fielding says that stage-coachmen consider human beings only as baggage, whom, without regard to variations of size, by squeezing, they compress into the most portable form, to avoid waste of room; yet they would scratch their ingenious heads for a resolution of this wonderful convenience. The fact is, it only contained packages for various services, which were taken out and in, wherever Bonaparte stopped, as they were wanted; and were very ingeniously stowed in the carriage, like a dressing-case. In a French account of the battle, mention is made of the ricochet shots of the English artillery. Ricochet shots mean those which bound along the ground like the duck and drake sport of boys upon ponds. The learned Compiler has converted ricochet into rocket, as the correct reading, and accordingly made quite a different material of the implement of war intended by the French writer. The following anecdote will illustrate the ingenuity of this conversion. It is usual at the Universities, upon matriculation of a student, to put down the father's profession. A great lawyer, upon bis entrance, was required to state the calling of his fa 1 |