"Temp. So solemn that! and yet if in the stead

Of Saviour, I were to say Providence,

It would sound true

p. 170.

The creed of the Sultan appears, from a variety of passages, to be equally liberal and accommodating.

The diction and composition of this piece are not, as we have already observed, altogether so magnificent or ambitious as those of the modern German theatre. It aims rather at a great simplicity and aptness. The dialogue is the most familiar and natural imaginable, and the metaphors and figures which are introduced the most humble and homely. There is a vein of innocent jocularity which runs through the whole drama ; and the Sultan and his ministers gibe and play upon each other, in the very same style of infantine raillery and impatience, which prevails between the young Jewess and her governante. The personages are all very quick and snappish, withal, without ever subjecting themselves to the agitations of the greater passions; and the author has contrived most ingeniously to produce a drama, which has all the levity of comedy, without its wit or vivacity, and all the extravagance of tragedy, without its passion or poetry.

The translator, we think, has done great justice to his original; except that his partiality for the German idiom has induced him to stick to it occasionally, to the manifest prejudice of his English: his notions of metrical harmony are probably borrowed from the same source. The following is part of the first dialogue that passes between the lovers.

"Recha. Where have you been? where you perhaps ought

Now I shall learn for certain, if 'tis true

Temp. What! If the spot may yet be seen where Moses, Stood before God; when first

Recha.

No, no; not that.

Where'er he stood, 'twas before God. Of this

I know enough already. Is it true,

I wish to learn from you, that-that it is not
By far so troublesome to climb this mountain

As to get down-for on all mountains else,

That I have seen, quite the reverese obtains." P. 128-29.

The following soliloquy of the wise Nathan, when the Sultan leaves him to ponder on his query about the three religions, is in a loftier style, and is in the best and most sententious manner of the author.

"Nath. I came prepar'd with cash-he asks truth. Truth?

As if truth too were cash-a coin disus'd

That goes by weight-indeed 'tis some such thing

But a new coin, known by the stamp at once,

Το be flung down and told upon the counter,
It is not that. Like gold in bags tied up,
So truth lies hoarded in the wise man's head
To be brought out--Which now in this transaction,
Which of us plays the Jew? he asks for truth,
Is truth what he requires, his aim, his end?
That this is but the glue to lime a snare
Ought not to be suspected, 'twere too little,
Yet what is found too little for the great-
In fact, thro' hedge and pale to stalk at once
Into one's field beseems not-friends look round,
Seek for the path, ask leave to pass the gate-
I must be cautious. Yet to damp him back
And be the stubborn Jew is not the thing;
And wholly to throw off the Jew, still less.
For if no Jew he might with right inquire-
Why not a Mussulman ?-

P. 145--46.

We suspect our readers have enough now; yet there are many phrases and images to be culled. Nathan, reproving pride, says, "The iron pot would with a silver prong

Be lifted from the fire."

choice

The fair Recha comparing the truth of Christianity to weeds sown in her mind, says,

"Yet I must acknowledge

I feel as if they had a sour sweet odour,

That makes me giddy-that half suffocates me."

And her handmaid, observing the agitation of her lover, observes with much elegance,

"Something passes in him.

It boils-but it must not boil over. Leave him

The same personage conceiving Nathan to be somewhat severe in his sarcasms, replies to him with great spirit, by first saying, "Hit off," and then exclaiming, "you are on the bite." We suspect, however, that we are indebted to the taste of the translator for the dignity of these two repartees,

There is one other phrase to which he seems particularly partial, and which has a very singular effect on his composition. He can by no chance be prevailed upon to use the verb " to find," without coupling it with the particle "up" thus, he says, "We'll find thee up a staff;"-"go find me up the Jew ;"-" Will no one find me the

Dervis up"" I wish to find him up that may convert her," &c.&c. The phrase occurs at least twenty times; and whether it be borrowed from the idiom of the original, or invented by the translator, must cer tainly be allowed to possess singular grace and animation.

We have now exhibited enough, we conceive, of this drama, to satisfy the greater part of our readers, that, in spite of some late alarming symptoms, there is good reason for holding, that there is still a considerable difference between the national taste of Germany and of this country. The piece before us, has not only been a favourite acting play for these six and twenty years, but it is considered as one of the best productions of their celebrated Lessing, who is vaunted as the purest and most elegant of their dramatick writers, and has long been the idol of all those who cry down Schiller and Kotzebue as caricaturists. The translation is from the pen of Mr. Taylor of Norwich, whose admirable versions of Lenore, and of the Iphigenia in Tauris, have placed him at the head of all translators from that language.

WHATEVER importance may generally have been attached to crit icisms on dramatical performances, it is certain that the interest which such compositions excite, is not only lively in itself, but, from its reference to local circumstances and characters is increased almost in proportion to the personality with which it is attended. The conductors of the Theatrical Department in the ORDEAL, while they do not feel themselves bound under any restraint in speaking of the exhibitions of the stage, do certainly consider those remarks which attach to players in general to be nugatory in their effects, unless they are caused by uncommon merit, or dictated by peculiar circumstances of demerit, in the performer. The common player is either incorrigible from dulness, dead to ambition from severity of censure, or incapable of a correct personation of character by reason of the innumerable difficulties he is obliged to encounter from rivalship of parts

in other performers, managerial intolerance, or limitation of time necessary to acquire a competent recollection of his author. Such arguments lose their force, however, when referred to eminent actors, and have no weight whatever, when the plays and not the players are the subjects of investigation. Accordingly our remarks will be directed to the apparent taste of the publick, and the merits of the compositions rather than to the defects of men and women, whose secondary intellects and capricousness of passion would reduce the dignity of criticism to the clamorous ebullitions of frivolous garrulity. ‹

BOSTON THEATRE.

AMONG those plays which most unequivocally demand the process of analysis, those which are native, and born in the country, though in themselves unimportant compositions, should most decidedly receive the earliest attention. Nothing of this nature had occurred during the whole of the present season, until THE PILGRIMS, made its appearance a few weeks ago. But before we enter minutely into the discussion of its particular merits, it is necessary to make some few remarks on the nature of that theatrical mania, or passion for the monstrous, by which the present age of the English theatre is so disgracefully distinguished. The French theatre has had the merit within the' last ten years of introducing the melo-drama, or a union of pantomime and dialogue, as the English theatre had about a century and a half ago, of beginning the more natural entertainment of tragi-comedy. The English, however, have adopted the melo-drama in its fullest latitude, and they have not only translated all the French and German compositions of any celebrity; but have preposterously turned their own tragedies as well as story-books and novels into works of the saine heterogeneous texture.

If there are to be no disputes about propriety of taste, we must give up all' pretensions to assert the necessity of truth and good sense in our amusements. But if there is such a thing as taste inhering in the human mind, we can only account for the permission of the melodrama on the stage, on some such principles as should lead a white man to prefer for his companion the sable beauty of the coast of Africa, to the American female, glowing with healthfulness and youth, and filled with

"The bloom of young desire and purple light of love.” o' dost That taste has an existence, however, and is governed by some rules, is only denied by a few visionary minds; and in that particular branch of the subject, which implies the power of discrimination în t the fine arts and associate feelings, it exists more evidently than in any other. It is here that good sense is the principal requisite in the formation of a

good taste, and though there may be disputes as to the becoming appearance of long waists or naked elbows, there is no doubt that Dryden was a fine poet, and Lord Chatham an eloquent statesman. But this desire for the monstrous is a crime against all reason, sense and propriety in nature. Tell a woman at this day that a wide hooped petticoat, or an extreme long waist, would much improve her exterior, and she would laugh in your face; yet these absurd fashions, were formerly universal, and had enthusiastick admirers. But the melo-drama, confounding all propriety in confusion, and nature in absurdity, can have no defence even in the moment of its full career. Palpably deviating from the only principles of taste which are supposed to have any governing influence on the mind, people of understandings the most obtuse as well as those of refined intellect, acknowledge the absurdity; and yet persevere in encouraging it. We shall improve another occasion to scout the monster from our stage, and to endeavour to unite all persons in one general exclamation against such preposterous violations of genuine good sense, and such dangerous attempts absolutely to pervert the taste of the community.

With this opinion of the melo-drama in general, it cannot be expected that we should view "The Pilgrims" with very favourable sentiments, however successfully it might have been composed, under the operation of the principles which govern such compositions. "The Pilgrims," however, is not entitled to respect from any consideration; though from its disgracing one of the most shining events which adorns our national annals it demands the most decided reprehension. It is a composition singularly absurd; it has neither confor mity of character to historical fact, truth of relation, propriety of incident, nor interest of fable, to recommend it. We are sensible that this summary condemnation can be pronounced by any critick, however ignorant, on any play however meritorious, and therefore is entitled to no consideration unless it be supported by proof. While there. fore we confess we have a strong partiality to the story, on which this mis-called drama is founded, we will proceed to account for the contempt which it has produced in our minds.

The fable is shortly this. First, Winslow and Juliana are desperately in love with each other, and two servants among the pilgrims are equally enamoured of her. In this state of things the landing of our forefathers takes place, which only involves a few aberrations from history, such as their discovering the natives immediately on their landing, which did not occur until three months afterwards, and the confusion occasioned by confounding the real character of Samoset in Squanto. After the landing, Watson, one of the servants, makes a most impudent declaration of his affection to Juliana, telling her that though he was her inferior in England, in the wilds of America he is her equal,