1 other's fame and character, in a more savage way than the heroes at Broughton's amphitheatre bruised their bodies. Among Macklin's papers have been found specimens of Lectures which he intended for delivery, On the Art and Duty of an Actor. On Acting. On Newspapers. On Garrick-Bane. These his biographer has inserted in the Life:-but we think that the last should have been suppressed as it will do no honour to the writer's heart, nor to either his professional or literary abilities. In a few months, poor Macklin became a bankrupt; and, after having honestly surrendered his effects, and paid twenty shillings in the pound, he retired from the Tavern, with the loss of some thousands of pounds.' His British Inquisition closed fifteen days previous to his failure, and he was reduced once more to the necessity of looking towards the Theatre for a support.' About the beginning of the year 1756, in spite of experience in the failure of new projects, Mr. M. entered on a plan with Barry for erecting a new theatre in Dublin, against Sheridan, who was at that time sole manager of the two existing theatres in that city. Mr. Sheridan offered them very advantageous terms to desist :-but " men would be angels, angels would be gods;" and these two aspiring actors, ambitious of becoming managers, and like the two kings of Brentford, "smelling to one nosegay," obstinately persisted; went to England to engage performers; and, returning to Ireland in June 1758, pursued with great pertinacity and expence their new plan. Sheridan petitioned Parliament against them; which produced from Macklin a pamphlet filled with the most virulent and personal abuse of Sheridan, that the wildest of all wild Irishmen could commit to paper. This favourite plan, however, failed. Macklin soon quarrelled with his colleague Mr. Barry, and, withdrawing himself from the management, returned to England. The eternal warfare and frequent miscarriages of this strange man seem to have shortened the life of poor Mrs. Macklin, who was an excellent wife, as well as a good actress. To what a severe purgatory must the turbulent and vindictive temper of such a mate have condemned the existence of a worthy woman!-She died in 1758. In 1759, came out Macklin's Love à la Mode, a Farce of great merit, and his first drama that was crowned with full success. The satire is kcen and spiteful; and the humour of national propensities in the several characters is comic and amusing, though not new. In speaking of Mrs. Woffington, (who died in 1760,) Mr. Kirkman seems not to have done justice to the beauty of that excellent 8 excellent actress, which by many was not deemed inferior to that of the celebrated Miss Gunnings; and the symmetry of her figure in man's apparel was such, that plays were written and revived on purpose to exhibit her person in that dress. Her declamation was accurate, and her action was extremely graceful but her voice was so unpleasant, that it might be said, in colloquial language, to be cracked. In the part of Portia, in the Merchant of Venice, in which she appeared to great advantge, when (Act v. Sc. 1.) Lorenzo says, "That is the voice, Or I am much deceiv'd, of Portia ;" and Portia says: "He knows me as the blind man knows the cuckow, the audience often laughed; and she, knowing her infirmity, frequently joined in the joke. About this time (1760), notwithstanding the late quarrel, Mr. M. entered into an engagement with Barry in Dublin; and, in his way thither, he dried his tears for the loss of Mrs. M. by a new matrimonial engagement with a young lady, (the bridegroom then 70 years old,) Miss Eliz. Jones, who to great elegance of form, and many polite accomplishments, joined the more amiable virtues of the mind.' This ceremony was performed at Chester; after which the happy husband went to Ireland, and joined Messrs. Barry and Woodward, who had defeated Sheridan, and driven him off the field. This company was perhaps the most formidable that was ever mustered in Dublin: Barry, Mossop, Macklin, Woodward, and Foote, were on the roll. After having acted with this party a certain number of nights, Mac returned to England, to play for his daughter's benefit. We now come to a long and malevolent complaint against Mr. Garrick for wishing to have Love à la Mode performed at Drury-Lane; all built on a correspondence of the manager of the Theatres at York and Hull, with those of D. L. It appears that this gentleman did not decline the proposal of the manager of Drury-Lane on account of the injury which might result to Macklin, but because the terms which he had himself proposed were not granted. In 1761, a comedy written by Macklin, called The Married Libertine, was brought on the stage at Govent-Garden; which with some difficulty, extended its existence to the 9th night .' We do not recollect any instance of stronger expressions of disappro bation, from an English audience, (short of an absolute riot,) than those which were given on the first night of this picce.-The Married Libertine was much reformed on the next day. Though Though it has no connection with the subject of the work, Mr. Kirkman has stept aside to complain of Garrick's representation of the ceremony of the coronation, as being inferior in splendor to that which was exhibited at Covent-Garden.— He next volunteers an Episode on the subject of Miss Bellamy's first appearance on the stage: but, as the narration is totally unconnected with his principal subject, we shall pass to the year 1762, when Mr. Macklin went again to Ireland. A tedious account of theatrical feuds in Dublin, at this distance of time, can afford little gratification to the reader of the life of Macklin. He agreed to join Mossop's company for the winter of 1763-4; and at this time he brought out a Farce of his own, called, The True-born Irishman, which, according to his biographer, met with unbounded applause.' 、 We have now the episodic biography of Miss Catley, whose talents and adventures are well known. Having received no new interest from the liveliness of the present narrator, we shall return to our hero; whose performance for Mossop at the Smock-Alley Theatre had been extremely productive but Mossop's extravagance and infatuated love of play put him out of the reach of all assistance in his finances. Macklin instituted a suit against him for the performance of his contract: but, though he gained his cause, he lost his money; for the defendant was not worth a guinea. On returning to London, in 1764, he assisted with his counsel and instructions, in getting up the plays that were performed at the Duke of Richmond's private theatre, in Privy Gardens; which were allowed, by the most intelligent and experienced judges, to equal in accuracy and effect those that were most admired in a public theatre. He went again to Ireland in the ensuing year, and brought on the stage his Comedy of The Man of the World, under the original title of The True-born Scotchman. This play has been universally allowed to possess great merit. He returned to London in 1766: a year marked by calamity in the annals of the British Theatre; which lost in the death of that exquisite actress, Mrs. CIBBER, and the meritorious QUIN, who was equally original as an actor and a wit, two of its chief ornaments and supports during the middle of the present century. I he deprivation of Mrs. Cibber's touching voice, elegant figure, force, energy, and tenderness; and of Quin's tragic dignity, comic powers, sententious and peculiar wit and pleasantry; was a national loss, still felt by those who remember these admirable performers, in the zenith of their well-earned favour. Having now arrived at the end of the first volume of this work, we must reserve our account of the second for another month. [To be continued.] DB....y. ART. XIV. Athenian Letters; or the Epistolary Correspondence of an Agent of the King of Persia, residing at Athens during the Peloponnesian War. A New Edition; to which is prefixed a Geographical Index. 4to. 2 Vols. Illustrated with Engravings, and a Map of Antient Greece. 21. 2s. Boards. Cadell jun. and Davies. 1798. T 'HESE very elegant and valuable letters have been known to the world by name and character for a considerable number of years, though until now they cannot properly be said to have been published. So long since as the year 1789, we incidentally noticed the work, in reviewing the celebrated Travels of Anacharsis into Greece, by M. Barthélemi*; who treats of the same subject, and in very nearly the same way. We at that time stated, generally, the nature of the performance; that it consisted of letters supposed to have been written by contemporaries of Socrates, Pericles, and Plato, but which were really composed by a society of members of the University of Cambridge, who in this mode communicated to each other the result of their researches into antient history; that, to prevent the trou ble of transcribing them for the use of the society, a few copies were printed by Bettenham, in 1741; that in 1782, the Earl of Hardwicke, who was one of the authors, reprinted the Letters at his own expence, in a handsome quarto volume, of which however not more than one hundred copies were taken off; and that in course, notwithstanding these two impressions, this literary curiosity yet remained locked up from the eyes of the public at large. We are now happy in saying that this work is at length published in an elegant, correct, and authenticated form. It comes forwards under the auspices of the Earl of Hardwicke, as editor; who, in an advertisement prefixed to the 1st vol. attributes its having been so long kept from the public to an ingenuous diffidence, which forbad the authors of it, most of them extremely young, to obtrude on the notice of the world what they had considered merely as a preparatory trial of their strength, and as the best method of imprinting on their own minds some of the immediate subjects of their academical studies. This cause no longer subsists; and in consequence of * Vide Appendix to Monthly Review, the S1st volume of the Old Scries. repeated repeated applications, the work is now offered to the public, it lustrated with engravings, a map of Antient Greece, and a geographical index.' With this advertisement, we have here also the original preface which was given with the edition of 1741; and which supposes the letters to be a translation from an old Arabic manuscript. We have also Lord Hardwicke's preface to the edition of 1782, in which, to use his Lordship's words, the illusion vanishes-the masquerade is closed; the fancy-dresses and the dominos are returned to their respective wardrobes; the company walk about in their proper habits, and return to their ordinary occupations in life.'-To these prefaces are added a French letter of the late Lord Dover, addressed to the Abbé Barthélemi, with a copy of the Athenian Letters; and the Abbé's answer is subjoined, in which he obviates, by a positive declaration, a supposition that might otherwise have been naturally entertained that the Athenian Letters suggested the idea of the Travels of Anacharsis. He says, "I heard for the first time of this work last summer :--had I known of it earlier, I either would not have begun mine, or I would have endeavoured to render it an imitation of this beautiful model." A very minute analysis of a production with which the public have been acquainted, more or less, above 50 years, would not now perhaps be acceptable. We shall therefore content ourselves with a general sketch of its contents, and with a few observations on the manner of its execution. The history of Greece, during the Peloponnesian war, has been an object of contemplation and delight in every age and country in which genius, valour, and an ardent love of liberty have been esteemed. Whether it be that human nature, under the fostering auspices of an emulation in freedom among the principal states of which Greece was then composed, rose to a higher level, and assumed a prouder form, than any combination of circumstances has since suffered it to do;--or whether it be that the genius and eloquence of the historians, who have transmitted to pesterity the accounts of that period, have exhibited human nature in colours which are rather the creation of their own powers than the real attributes of the persons whom they immortalize, and of the events which they commemorate; it is certain that the hero and the sage, the legislator and the statesman, have uniformly looked to that brilliant epoch for models to study and to imitate.-Youth has been taught to reverence, and manhood to admire and emulate, the men who fought and fell in the generous conflict between the rival states; while those who endeavoured to raise the character or increase the power of their respective countries, by political wisdom, |