was buried. In the same drama is introduced a Sir Richard Lee, of St. Alban's this character the Editor probably considered as fictitious; but it is curious, that a Sir Richard Lee received a grant of part of the lands belonging to St. Alban's Abbey, at Sopwell, in the immediate vicinity of that place. Whether his son was murdered, as appears in the Play, I have not seen; he died in 1575, leaving two daughters co-heiresses.

Shakspeare was in the habit of gleaning incidents wherever he travelled; he took, as we learn from Aubrey, the humour of the constable, in "Midsummer Night's Dream," at Grendon in Bucks; lying there on Midsummer night; the constable was living there about 1642. "Mr. Jos. Howe* is of that parish,

and knew him."

Sept. 1. FTER so much has been written

It is not easy to assign the reason why this injunction is now so almost entirely disregarded. "Sigismund" has endeavoured to solve this; but had he omitted his 3d and 4th reasons (see vol. LXXXIX. Part i. p. 312), he would at least have shown himself more friendly to the cause of the Church, than he now appears to be, for I do not wish to doubt be wrote from the purest motives; yet it is confessedly a bad sign of a good intention, to charge the Clergy with the neglect of a duty, because they might sometimes be marked out as objects for the contemptible ridicule of ignorance. But when he charges "the Bishops and Archdeacons with inattention and negligence," I hesi- . tate not to say, that it is a most illiberal and undeserved attack upon that venerable and pious body—the pillars the ornaments of our Holy Church. But let me not under-rate the other parts of "Sigismund's" Letters; I refer the Reader to them with pleasure: he will find there many good things well said.

I have no doubt myself but that the inconvenience and expence of adopting the full Clerical Dress have weighed somewhat to the neglect of the desirable distinction. With deference then 1 ask, whether

the Clerical Dress, you will perhaps be surprised that another Correspondent should venture to offer his thoughts; but I cannot forbear troubling you with a few remarks, and at the same time I beg to offer you an idea, which I do not think has been suggested in any of the Letters on this subject.

Your Correspondent "Sigismund" (see vol. LXXXIX. i. p. 226) very judiciously quotes the Canon in which a distinct dress is prescribed to the Clergy:"The general purport of this Canon is to enjoin a distinction, and a gravity in the dress of the Clergy, whereby they may be known to all people to be of that order, and be sufficiently distinguished from the laity at all times, and on all occasions, whether in their journeys abroad, in their abode at home, or in their common conversation in their neighbourhood."

* Josias Howe, an eminent loyalist and ejected Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford.

spirit of the Canon, and be appro priately distinguished as Ministers of God, if they always wore their "Bands," and never appeared out of doors but with a Clerical Hat, and the rose of satin placed in the front as an ornament. Many a Clergyman has on occasions wished that he had borne some holy badge to check the volatile foolishness (to use no barsher terms) and indecent remarks, which his prudence thought better to bear, than to interrupt. The great body of the Clergy would, I am convinced, be willing and even desirous to adopt these marks of their sacerdotal function-so easily assumed-so con veniently worn. It is quite needless for me to add more. I will beg leave to adopt the concluding remarks of "Sigismund's" Letter: "I trust this humble essay will stimulate some abler pen to take up the subject, that it may not be suffered to rest only in this Repository of Antiquarian, Literary, and Scientific Research; but may be brought forward before the

world

troversy with the odds so much against me, nor do I wish it, if I felt ever so confident of my own ability, I shall therefore proceed to the point at once, which I think requires but little occasion for argument, and may soon be dismissed where no disposition for controversy prevails.

There appears certainly to have been some foundation in fact for the assertion repeated in the Epitaphs above alluded to, namely, that Mrs. Young was a descendant of the house of Chandos-niece of Thomas Lord Chandos she is never styled, but his grand-daughter, though it is not attempted to be denied that a discrepancy exists in the verbal construction of the two inscriptions, and that one or other of them is erroneous. It does not, however, follow that the error" is easily capable of being proved," nor has this assumption of your Correspondent been established any further than that there was no Thomas Baron Chandos summoned to Parliament. Deeply read as he evidently is, in the genealogy of the Brydges Family, he can probably, by an explicit detail of the lineage of Mrs. Young, and her father William Brydges, show the true connexion that subsisted between them and the noble house of Chandos, and thus remove the veil of obscurity that at present envelopes them.

To one so well qualified to appreciate the value of genealogical evidence as your friend is, it would be superfluous, Mr. Urban, to dwell upon the importance of an antient monumental inscription in proof of descent; and I think he will not go so far as to insist that a falsehood, certain of detection at the era of its promulgation, would have been attempted in the instance before us; or that people, strangers in blood to a noble race then in prime vigour, would have dared to claim affinity to it without just cause and pretension.

I shall make no remark on the inquiry, "Why these female relatives should be objects of research when the title was entailed on the male line?" save that I did not advert to such a subject, in requesting an explanation of the Epitaphs. Yet it affords a curious example of the morbid acuteness of perception in your "Thirty-five years Correspondent," who has conjured up an imagi

whether of the Creator, or mau, our first curiosity is excited to inquire— how it was made-ro WHAT END-of what materials-and who was the maker. I would ask what principle is the prompter of this ?

The principle of custom and habit are obviously historical. Habit is the dexterity produced by the customary performance of prescribed exercises. Hence all discipline, virtue, talent, affection, and aversion, are mere historical habits: taking different names. But frequency of acts are not sufficient without length of time: place too, with its associa tions, has great influence. Habits may be general or specific. Uniform reiteration in gratifying the same passion, or taste, upon different objects, produces at length a generic habit. Indifferent and even disagreeable things become agreeable and necessary by custom: this is turned to advantage, in all good-and to abuse in all bad, education. Though custom augments our sense of moderate pleasures, and blunts that of intense ones, it incessantly takes off the edge of all pain. The final cause of this is obvious-violent passions cannot co-exist with habit of any sort; they burn out, or are extinguished, consuming often the possessor along with them. Hence, party-violence is incompatible with steady patriotism-as are all suddenness, excess, and ferocity, with progress in a continued course of study, as well as with any regular conduct of life-and all composition in the fine arts. It is needless to repeat that the principle of novelty and unexpectedness, as well as the marvellous, are historical. And we have noticed congruity and propriety as parts of historic character, truth, and nature, regulated by the historical usage of social order.

"Regularity and simplicity respect

the

the whole; uniformity, order, proportion, the parts of any subject:" or any entire subject, considered as the part of a greater whole. We have before spoken of intrinsic beauty: as distinguished from relative BEAUTY. It is nothing more than an inference by study of proportions historically noticed. It pre-supposes many comparisons of things in their kind. Inequality is essential to proportion, and all harmony; which last is only the beauty of sounds. Simplicity of composition, whether by art, or nature, is necessary to afford the spectator a readiness of apprehension: for multiplicity of parts distract the attention. But choice, separation, selection, and exclusion, are includedoperations which, though they suppose a process of calculation, yet this process becomes, by rote, intuitive. As for relative beauty, this is as extensive as the historic relation itself: which delights us, just as any theorem does, by its simplicity and universality of application to an infinite variety of

cases.

:

Beauty in the human form is rather the attribute of adult, as GRACE is of adolescent natures-And GRACE seems essentially feminine. For the male sex has too much vigour and severity while infancy has not disposeableness enough, expression, and selfcommand. There is a becoming bashfulness, and even awkwardness, below the age of adolescency, that is not so much grace as an excuse for it. But it is at the age of adolescency that grace appears in woman-seldom afterwards. (This is the proper and exclusive age for love, or the elegant passion. After this it is esteem, affection-but grace, or the appearance of it, is the proper object of love.) Grace. supposes an eternal youth and chastity, purity of mind, a something spiritual in the contour of the form, in the play of the features, and movement-in the flexibility and rythm of the voice-the furthest removed from those worldly, sharp, and sordid air and tones derived from the accidents and occupations of human condition. It supposes as essential, innocence (or the appearance of it), candour, courtesy, sprightliness, and a heavenly serenity of disposition-which characters, the wisdom of the antients has fixed in the names of the three Graces: AGLAIA, EU

PHROSYNE, and THALIA. With such forms we clothe our conceptions of Angels, Cherubs, and Seraphs, divine history having informed us of such beings; and we exalt our conceptions, by dropping, as much as we can, every thing too particular, gross or earthly, and thus attain A SECOND species of the ideal beauty.

The

DIGNITY is the attribute of acknowledged worth, whether personal or of rank, and political station. The highest degree of this is MAJESTY. Majesty, like GRACE, is more connected with feminine natures. JUNO of the ancients by her rank, the consort of JUPITER, was the queen of majesty her head is decked with a tiara, the form of which is the emblem of this attribute, and is therefore consecrated to religion. The robes of senators, judges, and kings, but, above all, the costume of the POPE (which, in the pictures of RAPHAEL, is unique for its expression of grace and majesty), are feminine.

:

GRANDEUR is the attribute of power, whether divine or human, whether physical or mental, whether of human stature, or of inanimate nature. It is perhaps composed and quiescent-not easily moved – hence the idea of magnanimity.

The SUBLIME is the action of grandeur-its highest energy, called forth on a sudden. The mind of the percipient is awed, without being terrified, but rather encouraged and elevated. It swells, in order to comprebend it; but it is in thought onlyfor the action is gone by. It is not only a passing effect, but it is ever unexpected-it strikes us, as it were, by a glimpse a flash-but the mind of the spectator inly" pants with influence divine." If it were of long continuance, the human frame could not sustain it. But how could BURKE imagine terror essential to the sublime? The mind is ever delighted under its influence. In the first chapter of Genesis, the creation of light is without terror: so, perhaps, is the history, in the Song of Moses, of Pharaoh's hosts overwhelmed in the Red Sea. History divests a fact of its terrors: we contemplate it as a nation does it own artillery and armaments by sea and land—as a matter of glory and security-not terror; and whenever passion is represented, (whether in its greatest intensity

during which time it is silent, or upon its finding words to vent itself, when it utters the capital sentiments only, and speaks by fits)—the sublime here is not passion merely, but sentiment or passion tempered with grace or dignity: this is the selection of the poet-turning our attention not so much to the passion, but to the powerful and energetic cause and controul of such perturbation. BURKE here mistakes an accidental accompaniment-a circumstance-(if it ever do accompany it, which I cannot understand) for an essential property. Besides, terror is a passion; and all passion is incompatible with the emotions of taste, whether in the actor or the spectator. But a proportion, an awful beauty, certainly PROPORTION, is an essential component of the sublime.

The definition by LONGINUS is more just and consonant to nature. The highest beauty, grace, and sublimity affect the mind equally, and in a manner not to be distinguished. Undoubtedly that grace or beauty, (provided only it were virtuous, chaste, and celestial,) that so inspired SAPPHO, was sublime. Longinus even adds to his definition of the sublime, "that the mind swelled with transport and pride, imagines the ACT DONE or the power exhibited, to be its own." I mention this, because such is precisely the definition of what LORD KAIMES has entitled "the

sympathetic emotion of virtue." This emotion we experience at the aspect of all beauty and truth. This it is that accompanies the exertion, and the recital, of all worth, all the energies of genius and goodness: this it is that fills the eyes with tears-no unmanly ones—the tears of martyrs, of heroes triumphant, in the moment of death, over mortal nature. YORICK.

(To be concluded in our next.)

Mr. URBAN, Sept. 8. N the "Beauties of England and Wales,

the following:

"According to the tradition which accompanies the quaint distich,

Tring, Wing, and Ivinghoe, did go, For striking the Black Prince a blow.' Those places were formerly in the possession of the Hampden family, but what degree of credit is to be attached to these lines we know not; for the particulars of

the circumstance to which they relate have eluded our enquiries."

Tradition says, that Edward III. and his son, the Black Prince, once honoured Lord Hampden with a visit at his seat at Great Hampden, now Wendover, in Bucks, for many generations the property of this antient family: and that whilst the Prince and his host were exercising themselves in feats of arms, a quarrel rose between them, in which Lord Hampden gave the Prince a blow on the face; the King, in consequence of this outrage, quitted the place in great wrath, and punished Lord Hampden's misbehaviour by seizing on some of his most valuable manors, which gave rise to the following impromptu by some of the court wits:

"Pring, Wing, and Ivinghoe,
Hampden did forego,
For striking of a blow,

And glad he did escape so."
Britannia," adds,
Mr. Lysons, however, in his "Magna

"This tradition, like many other of a like nature, will not bear the test of exa. mination; for it appears by record, that neither the manors of Tring, Wing, or Ivinghoe, ever were in the Hampden family."

Queen-sq. Bloomsbury, Sept. 9.

THE following account of the ori

gin of Cards, translated from the French, may be worthy a place in your Magazine.

About the year 1390 cards were invented, to divert Charles VI. then King of France, who was fallen into a melancholy disposition.

That they were not in use before, appears highly probable. 1st. Because no cards are to be seen in any painting, sculpture, tapestry, &c. more antient than the preceding period, but are represented in many works of ingenuity since that age.

2dly. No prohibitions relative to cards, by the King's edicts, are mentioned, although some few years before, a most severe one was published, forbidding by name, all manner of sports and pastimes, in order that the subjects might exercise themselves in shooting with bows and arrows, and be in a condition to oppose the English. Now it is not to be presumed,

that