they can no more convey to you a complete and perfect idea of these wonderful scenes, than if I were to aim at giving you some notion of the pictures of Raphael and Corregio, by telling you, they are composed of paint and canvas.

• Meyringen is a large neat village, being the capital burgh of this land of Hafli: a district which enjoys confiderable privileges. In this district there are about 6000 men capable of bearing arms, and about 20,000 fouls.

• The inhabitants are a very fine race of people: the men in general remarkably strong, lufty, and well made; the women tall and handsome. The latter have an elegant manner of wearing their hair, which is commonly of a beautiful * colour: it is parted from the top of the forehead, from thence brought round and joined to the locks behind; which either hang down their back in long tresses, braided with ribband, or are woven round the head in a simple plait. But the other part of the dress does not in the leaft correspond with this elegance; as their shapes, naturally fine, are spoiled by an abfurd fashion of wearing their petticoats so high, that they all appear as if they were round shouldered and big-bellied.

Meyringen is situated near the Aar, in a very romantic valley; furrounded by meadows of a most luxuriant verdure, sprinkled with cottages, which are occafionally feparated from each other by huge intervening slones and deep channels, the remaining effects of storms and torrents... Close to the village, the Alp-bach, a torrent so called, falls from the mountain Houfli, in two beautiful perpendicular cafcades, but with so much violence, and in so large a body of water, as to caufe frequent inundations: indeed the burgh itself has been in danger of being overwhelmed and destroyed by its repeated ravages; against which, however, it is now protected, by a wall of confiderable height and folidity. Near this torrent is another fall of water, that glides gently down the bare rock, which is there more floping; and, farther on, a third glistened as it descended through a hanging grove of pines, that feather the fides of the mountain.

The following is the ordinary price of provifions throughout the mountainous parts of Swisserland: I have reduced the price to the value of our money.

Pays de Vaud wine

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By this you will perceive, that, in proportion, bread is much dearer than the other articles, and the reason is obvious: for, all these mountainous parts confiit almost entirely of patturages, and

* With fabmission to this ingenious Writer, beautiful colour is not description We are not told whether black, red, or brown hair is honoured with Mr. Coxe's preference.

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produce Produce little corn. The peasants of Swisserland (I mean those who inhabit the mountainous districts) live chiefly upon milk, and what refults from it, together with potatoes, which are here much cultivated. According to the price of provisions in England, the above lift will appear exceedingly cheap: but then it ought at the same time to be considered, that money is very scarce in these parts. Nor indeed is it so much necessary in a country, where there is no luxury; where all the peasantry have, within themselves, more than fufficient for their own consumption; and are tolerably well provided with every necessary of life from their own little demesnes. I had, to-day, a long conversation with one of the lads, who came with us from Altdorf, and takes care of the horses. He lives upon the mountains of Uri; and, as their winter lasts near eight months of the year, during some part of which time there can be little communication between the several cottages, every family is of course obliged to lay in their provifion for the whole winter. His own, it seems, confifts of seven perfons, and is provided with the following stores: seven cheeses, each weighing twenty-five pounds; an hundred and eight pounds of hard bread, twenty-five baskets of potatoes, each weighing about forty pounds; seven goats, and three cows, one of which they kill. The cows and horses (if they keep any) are fed with bay, and the goats with the boughs of firs; which, in a scarcity of hay, they give also to their other cattle. During this dreary season the family are employed in making linen, shirts, &c. fufficient for their own use: and, for this purpose, a small patch of the little piece of ground belonging to every cottage, is generally sown with flax. The cultivation of the latter has been much attended to, and with increasing success, in these mountainous parts of Swisserland.

• The houses are generally built of wood; and it was a natural remark of one of our servants, as we passed through such a continued chain of rocks; that as there was stone enough to build all the cottages in the country, it was wonderful they should use nothing but wood for that purpose: a remark that has been made by many travellers. But it should feem, that these wooden houses are much fooner constructed, and are easily repaired; that they are built in so solid and compact a manner (the rooms small, and the ceilings low) as to be sufficiently warm even for so cold a climate. The chief objection to them arises from the danger of fire; as the flames must rage with great rapidity, and communicate easily from one to the other. This inconvenience, however, is in a great measure obviated by the method of building their cottages apart; all their villages confifting of detached and scattered hamlets. This observation, however, does not hold with respect to some of their largest burghs: and these must consequently be exposed to the ravages of this most dreadful of all calamities. I am, &c.'

The Author gives a summary account of the Helvetic Union, or confederacy, which presents us with a pleasing view of political connexion, on the best of all principles, that of reciprocal support and benefit. We wished to extract this part of the work, for the information of fuch of our Readers as have no adequate

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adequate idea of the possible advantages of confederated, national society; but the present Article is already of sufficient extent.

The human passions operate alike in all parts of the world, in proportion to the opportunities of exertion; hence Providence seems to intend human felicity for the rudest situations, where the temptations are few. These mountainous spots are secluded from more favourable regions by natural barriers. To live comfortably there, requires an habitual industry; to live fecurely there, requires friendship and fortitude. They are difficult of access by individuals, and much less accessible by multitudes; confequently, they cannot be invaded so eafily as they can repulse an attack, where the very elements are their auxiliaries: and what is perhaps more in their favour than all the rest, they are not, to other states, worth the cost and dangers of subjection; since those virtues on which their political existence depends, would expire under the iron hand of foreign power,like flowers torn from their natural roots, and put in water for the tranfient decoration of a palace !

ART. VII. Lucius Junius Brutus; or, the Expulsion of the Tarquins: An historical Play. By Hugh Downman. 8vo. 3s. Wilkie, &c.

1779

To this very fingular play is

prefixed the following short preface, containing, in a narrow compass, much matter, well worth the attention of all who admire, or cultivate, the drama:

• To those who judge of dramatic merit from the Greek models, the rules of French critics, or the examples of modern writers, a justification of the following piece would be attempted in vain. They would call it a motley performance, deficient in almost every article which constitutes a true and proper tragedy. If the Author was to allege, that he never meant to compose a tragedy, according to their acceptation of the word, but that his intention was to fill up a picture of real life, in a certain given time, the outlines of which were taken from historical facts, his reason would be deemed unsatiffactory.

Regardless of the end proposed, they would continue to exclaim, that the unities were neglected, that the grave was intermingled with the ludicrous; that the business of the drama frequently food still; that the dialogue was too familiar, and the metre little better than measured profe.

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How far fome of these objections may be valid, and how many more might, perhaps, with reason be urged against particular pafsages, the Author would not determine. The force of others of them he would endeavour to diminish, by answering, that they militate equally against human life itself; and that while he should be forry to have this denominated an artificial poem, he would flatter himself, it cannot be jullly thought an unnatural one.

Dr.

• Dr. Johnson indeed, in the preface to his edition of Shakespeare, seems to have sufficiently vindicated this particular species of writing, to which, those who please, may (instead of tragedy) give the more fimple name of history. Neither are there wanting many good judges of composition, who wish that the less studied diction, and more plain and level metre of the school of that immortal poet, (which seems to have ended with Southern) had been continued to the prefent time. Even this performance, with all its imputed irregularities and deficiencies, will, perhaps, be preferred by them, to those translated tragedies or imitations, which of late years have, through novelty, lived their nine nights on the stage, and been damned for ever after in the closet: though they had been corrected and metamorphosed by managers, calculated to afford to favourite actors or actresses opportunities of shining, and curtailed by lord chamberlains.

• A diversification of characters hath been attempted in this piece; and to give to every character the mode of sentiment and expression, peculiarly suited to it. It is not at all difficult for a man of a very middling genius, to contrive a regular plot, to pen down a certain number of foundi

founding lines; and though his Dramatis Personæ are diftinguished by particular names, to put his own sentiments in their mouths throughout five acts. Had the Author been solicitous of adapting his plan to the stage, or wished to conciliate the favour of the indiscriminating multitude, he might probably have followed the fame method.

• However it may appear to us, when we are reading, no fmall attention is requifite in written dialogue of any kind, for an author entirely to cast off self. This was the characteristic of Shakespeare; and perhaps after all, the Author of this play hath deceived himself, and it may with reason be applied to him,

Aufus idem.'

Sudet multum frustraq; laboret

That the Reader may, in some measure, judge how far the Author has effected his own purpose, we shall next lay before him some part of the first Act, not as the most advantageous or unfavourable specimen of the whole, but as a passage more eafily detached from the rest:

SCENE II. The Camp before Ardea.
TITUS, ARUNS.

Titus. Why, Aruns, in what corner fits the wind ?
What! not a word to say! quite down i' th' mouth!

Aruns. I am, and stranger cannot guess the cause,
Unless 'tis living in inaction thus.

I would I was in Rome, or Rome was here,
Or that these coop'd up Ardeats would but fight.
I wonder that our father fits contented
Lounging in's camp. Plague on their petty sallies!
Why doth he not attack the nest at once
With fire and sword, and rouse up all the swarm?
It was not thus he triumph'd o'er the Sabines,
Or wrested from the warlike Volsci's hands
Suessa Pometia, with whose glorious spoils

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Turning

Turning religious all at once, he built
The temple in the capitol to Jupiter.
Though had he afk'd of me, I could have told him
A better way of laying out his money.

Titus. I do believe thee, Aruns, well I know

To what divinity thou would'st have rear'd
Thy golden altars.

Aruns.

Aye, and wisely too.

Pleasure's my deity, my Jupiter,
My Juno, and Minerva. Titus too,
If I mistake not, is no Atheist there,
But worships with as warm enthusiasm
As any votary of them all; 'tis true
He wears a graver brow, and commits fin
With a more serious philosophic face:
There's all the difference between me and thee,
A touch of feature only, in our hearts
We are most cordially alike.

Titus.

Alike!

Why now indeed thy airy spirits dance,
Sparkling in either eye; but when I met thee,
What wert thou then? Inwrapp'd in discontent.
What wilt thou be anon? Chiding at straws
For lying in thy path; then quick, by th' sparks
Of angry paflion, kindled into flame;
Still varying like the wind - Thy heart like mine!
When didst thou find my skittish temper start,
And fly like thine from one to t'other fide?

Aruns. Well, be it so, heaven speed us both! But Sextus!
I envy that same Sextus; for his genius
Soars o'er us both, and robs us of our birthright.
Not that I think, we halt behind him much
In our design'd intentions; but fuccess
Befriends him farther, one would swear he kept
Fortune in pay, and that the blind eyed goddess
Accepted bribes from him. There's not a woman
He looks on with defire but he possesses;
He says but to an enemy, Fall down,
And down he falls. Hah! say'st thou, is he not
A son of Tarquin, and a glorious villain?

Titus. Glorious I grant, but not a villain, Aruns.
Pshaw! that's a name may fuit a vulgar mouth,
A tradesman talking of his brother knave;
But rank and station sanctify men's deeds;
A king fuccefsful, cannot be a tyrant,
Nor a king's son deserve a title less

Than that of prince.

Aruns.

Thou reason'st well, by Mars!

When I want oracles to be delivered,

I need not go to Delphos. - Out! Alas!
My blood's again obstructed, and I feel

A pain here in my head, or in my heart,

A fort