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Still break the benches, Henley! with thy strain, While SHERLOCK, HARE and GIBSON preach in vain.

Oh great restorer of the good old stage,
Preacher at once, and zany of thy age,
Oh worthy thou, of Egypt's wise abodes,

A decent priest, where monkeys were the gods !
But fate with butchers plac'd thy priestly stall,
Meek modern faith to murder, hack, and mawl;
And bade thee live, to crown Britannia's praise,
In TOLAND'S, TINDAL'S, and in WOLSTON's days.
DUNCIAD. b. iii. v. 190, &c.

BROMLEY, in his catalogue of Engraved Portraits, mentions four of orator Henley: two of which are inscribed: one by Worlidge The Orator of Newport Market; another (without engraver's name) A Rationalist.'

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Royal Institution.

Mr. DAVY's twelfth lecture on the chemical phenomena of nature, was on the his

* He once set up his Oratory in Newport Market, Butcher's Row.

tory of the discoveries made concerning air. The ancients, according to Mr. Davy, had no knowledge on this subject. Van Helmont, in the sixteenth century obscurely announced several different elastic fluids; but the great development of this part of chemistry is within the last fifty years, in consequence of the labours of Black, Cavendish, Priestley, Scheele, Lavoisier; and the early labours of the British chemists have been proved by the latest investigations to have afforded the most certain indications of the true composition of the atmosphere.

Mr. CROWE's twelfth lecture on dramatic poetry was a continuation of his subject of English comedies. He animadverted on those which were brought on the stage, and encouraged by the court of Charles II. and he asserted that no English publications exceeded the dramas of that age in obscenity, immorality and profaneness. He excepted from this charge the pieces of Sir George Etheridge, and a neglected play, composed

by Cowley (Cutter of Coleman Street) Mr. Crowe then proceeded to the comedies written in the end of that century, he gave a character of Congreve, and touched upon the controversy between him and Collier: Some information of the stage followed upon this; which he exemplified in the plays of Cibber and his contemporary writers. The plots of those dramatists, he observed, were sometimes defective, in being founded upon foreign subjects; but that, since their time, our comic authors have been more careful to avoid such an impropriety, and by taking domestic stories, to give more interesting representations of life and

manners.

The thirteenth lecture was upon the subject of FARCE. He described this species of the drama, and shewed, that the earlier Greek comedy was of this nature. He spoke of the difference between farce and comedy, and instanced in the pieces of Foote. He gave a character of that writer, and spoke of the reprehensible

means which he sometimes took to give a stronger resemblance of the persons whom he brought on the scene. In this, the lecturer observed, that Foote was not singular; for Moliere had recourse to similar practices.

THE remaining part of the lecture contained some observations on masques and pastoral dramas, and concluded with a high commendation, of Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess.'

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THE fourteenth lecture treated of those theatrical compositions which have been translated into English. Mr. CROWE spoke of the different styles of translation, and shewed which were adapted to the closet, and which to the stage. He then characterized the English translations, of Eschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Plautus, and Terence; and noted some of the English dramatists who have borrowed from them. He proceeded to the moderns; the Italian, Spanish, French, and German theatres; and mentioned what our authors had brought from thence. The

lecture concluded with observations. upon the difficulty of bringing foreign comedies upon the stage with success, and pointed out the causes of failure, in some of the attempts which have been inade.

Published by LONGMAN, HURST, REES, and ORME, Paternoster Row; J. HATCHARD, Bookseller to Her Majesty, 190, Piccadilly; and WILLIAM MILLER, Albemarle Street.

William Savage, Printer, Bedford Bury,

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