the first appearance of Hamlet.--Here, then, we must suppose a clapping
of hands, and a cry of hats off--down--down--you will therefore fancy to
yourself a young gentleman, arrayed in black velvet, with a plume of
sable feathers in his bonnet, big enough for the fore-horse of Ophelia's
hearse. But as in a certain assembly, if a member, however elevated in
rank, rise to speak late in the evening, he sets his hearers coughing,
there being no pectoral lozenge equal to an early harangue; and, as
touching the Lord Hamlet in that manner, would be touching the honour of
a prince, I shall keep his royal highness as a _bonne bouche_ to open my
next dissertation.

(_To be Continued._)

* * * * *

DR. JOHN HILL, an author, who to great learning, judgment, sagacity, and
luminous fancy, joined unparalleled industry, gratified the British
public for a long time with a diurnal paper wholly from his own pen,
called "the Inspector." In the course of this work he gave some of the
most admirable strictures upon the plays and players of his day. From
that work we intend to give some select passages. The following is
deserving of particular attention for the truth and accuracy of the
parallels it presents to our view.

While I admire in Barry the quick conception, the strong expression, and
the fine taste of Julio Romano; while I hang upon the expression of his
eyes, when tenderness is the passion to be described by them, and while
in the several parts of a history, or through the varied scenes of an
interesting tragedy, I am at once surprised and charmed with the choice
of attitudes in both, I cannot be blind to the defects that stain as
well the painting as the scene: there was always what the judges call a
dryness, a hardness in the painter, and the same foible now and then
discloses itself in the less guarded moments of the player: neither the
one nor the other seem to have been perfect masters of the doctrine of
lights and shadows, and both are therefore sometimes extravagant, and
not always graceful: this happy difference, however, appears between
them, that while the arrogance of the painter esteemed his faults as
excellencies, the player, equally capable of giving advice to himself,
and of receiving it from others, will soon scandalize all criticism by
annihilating the foibles that gave it origin.

The genius, the soul of Titian, is revived in Garrick; both give us not
resemblances, but realities