respected veteran, had just repeated the benedictory words,

"Be witness for me, ye celestial hosts, Such mercy, and such pardon, as my soul Accords to thee, and begs of Heaven to shew thee;

May such befall me, at my latest hour-" when he fell down on the stage, and instantly expired. The performance, of course, immediately closed. For some time, Mr Cummins (the circumstances of whose death so nearly resemble those of Mr Palmer) had laboured under that alarming malady designated by the name of ossification of the heart, or a change from the membraneous into a boney substance; and to this circumstance, added to the strength of his feelings in the mimic scene, his death is to be attributed.-21. George Leith, Esq. of Overhall, co. Aberdeen, and Bladud's Buildings, Bath. He was paying a morning visit at the house of Robert Aberdein, Esq. when he fell from his chair and instantly expired.-23. At Edinburgh, Patrick Orr, Ksq. of Bridgeston.-At London, the Right Hon. Dowager Viscountess Hereford. At London, Mr Samuel Horracks of Bread Street, aged 35.-24. At Edinburgh, Mrs Jean Sommerville, relict of William Donald, Esq. late merchant in Greenock.25. At Ayr, Mrs Campbell, wife of Dugald Campbell, Esq. of Skerrington, and daughter of the late Hon. William Baillie of Polkemmet.-26. At West Calder, Mrs Muckersy, wife of the Rev. John Muckersy, minister of that parish.-27. At Deal, Mr Alexander Henry Hamilton of his Majesty's ship Severn, eldest son of Daniel Hamilton, Esq. of Gilkerscleugh.. -30. At Inveresk House, Dame Henrietta Johnstone, wife of Sir James Gardiner Baird of Saughtonhall, Bart.-At Flemington Mill, James Murray, Esq. of Craigend.

Lately-At Clifton, Lady Cosby, wife of Lt.-Gen. Sir H. Cosby of Barnesville Park, Gloucestershire, daughter of the late S. El liot, Esq. of Antigua, and eldest sister of the late Countess of Errol, the present Lady Le Despenser, and Mrs Cambden Cope.At Brookehill, Woolwich, (at the house of his brother, Captain Napier, R. A.) Vernon Napier, Esq. youngest son of the late J. Napier, Esq. of Tintonhall, Somerset.-Mary, the wife of Gen. J. Leveson Gower, second daughter of the late P. Broke of Broke's Hall in Nacton, and sister to Sir P. B. V. Broke, Bart. captain of the Shannon. In York Place, Baker Street, in his 73d year, William Lewis, Esq. formerly of the East India company's civil service, and member of the Council at Bombay. At Brancepath Castle, Durham, in his 83d year, W. Russel, Esq. whose mild and amiable qualities had not less endeared him to his family and friends, than his genuine benevolence and public spirit had entitled him to universal respect and es

teem. Among the many instances of his well-directed munificence and patriotism, may be mentioned an hospital, which he founded and liberally endowed some years ago in the county of Durham, for a considerable number of aged persons, with a school attached for a large establishment of boys and girls. In 1795, Mr Russel was prominently instrumental in raising a large body of infantry in the county of Durham, to the expense of which he mainly contributed; and subsequently, at the cost of several thousand pounds, entirely borne by himself, he raised and equipped a numerous corps of sharp-shooters, esteemed one of the most complete in the kingdom. During the late distresses, and up to the moment of his death, he received and maintained the poor, coming from all quarters, in barracks constructed for the purpose, where every requisite comfort and accommodation was provided for them, while he kept alive their habits of industry, by employing such as were able in various works upon his extensive estates. In short, it appeared that the chief gratification arising to him from the immense possessions which the honourable application of his talents had accumulated, was the power they bestowed of more completely discharging the duties of a good subject and a practical Christian. He has left a widow, the daughter of the late Admiral Milbanke; one son, Mat. Russel, Esq. M. P. for Saltash; and two daughters, one of whom is married to Lieut.-Col. Banbury, and the other to LieutGen. Sir Gordon Drummond, G. C. B.In St Giles's Workhouse, Thomas Wicham Kent, a very interesting old man, whose hard fate has for several years past excited the commiseration of many persons connected with the arts, from believing him to be the natural son of a Peer, the grandfather of a Duke. He used to say he was born at Bradwell, near Tideswell in Derbyshire, in 1744; had a good education given him; and at a proper age was articled to Mr Joseph Wilton, a celebrated statuary of the day; and having acquired proficiency in this art, went to Rome to complete his studies. For many years afterwards he was employed in the shops of several of our first artists; but this employment somewhat failing him, and being a proficient in music, about the year 1795 he entered into the band of the 101st regiment, in which he remained till about 1800; after which, for a short time, he kept a plaster figure shop in Whetstone Park, near Holborn. About a year ago he became too infirm to make his accustomed calls on the private benefactors, by whom he has for some years been chiefly supported, and some of whom are believed to have tried every effort to get him provided for in a more appropriate way than in the common workhouse; but at last starvation drove him thereto.

« Macbeth and King Richard III. an Essay, in Answer to Remarks on some of the Characters of Shakspeare; by J. P. Kemble."

MR EDITOR,

THOUGH arrived at that time of life when men are supposed partial to past times, I will fairly own the superior powers of my countrymen, of the present times, in writing and composition. Yet I may be allowed to remark, that the confidence of publication is at least equal to the abilities, in point of writing, possessed by the present generation. Authorship, formerly a rare and envied distinction, is now so common as to lift a man (I should say a person, for it is now as much a female as a male quality) but little above the mass of men around him; and if we cannot say, with quite as much justice as formerly, "Scribimus indocti doctique,"-for I will own there is more literature among us than our fathers and mothers possessed,may at least say, that every thing is published which is written, whether altogether worthy of publication or

not.

-we

I am sorry that, in my opinion, the present volume may be classed among those which it might be held unnecessary to publish, because our respect for the author would incline us to wish, that nothing should come from his pen which the public should think unworthy of him. It is indeed an answer to another book or pamphlet of Mr Whately, sanctioned by an editor of eminence, Mr Steevens. But if

the former book was 66 idle and unprofitable," that affords but an inadequate apology for multiplying the offence, by writing another of the same

kind.

I am aware, however, that on the subject of which this little volume treats, a book may claim the attention of the public on slighter grounds than on any other topic. SHAKSPEARE is so much the god of British idolatry, that every work relating to him is popular. Hence the numberless critics and commentators who have been read with avidity, not from their own merits, either of learning or of taste, but merely because they criticised or commented on Shakspeare, and, like the scholiasts on Homer, have borrowed an importance from their illustrious subject, with little intrinsic value in their own productions. The works of Shakspeare are, not to speak it profanely," the Bible of the drama to us. Their commentators, like those of that sacred book, are received with an interest which their subject only could confer on sometimes very dull and frivolous productions. One author of considerable eminence produced an Essay, very similar to Mr Kemble's, to prove the valour of Falstaff. Kemble enters now, for the first time, the field of authorship, to vindicate the personal courage of Macbeth,-to. controvert the degrading distinction which Mr Whately had supposed between that personage and Richard III. The first, according to that critic,

66

Mr

having not intrepidity, like Richard, but merely resolution, proceeding from exertion, not from nature,-betraying, in enterprize, a degree of fear,

though he is able, when occasion requires, to stifle and subdue it.”

On this narrow ground Mr Kemble enters the list with Mr Whately, and his second, Mr Steevens, and provided with a great number of quotations from the tragedy, traces the character of its hero from its opening to its close, as one of determined courage and intrepidity,-a courage not excited by exertion to any particular purpose, but native to the person, and an inherent quality in his mind. I think Mr Kemble has made out the point for which he contends; but I feel in the two characters compared, a distinction more marked, in my opinion, and more important, than that on which Mr Kemble has written, with considerable labour, no fewer than 170 pages.

That distinction seems to me to consist, not in any particular quality, such as that of personal courage, but in the original structure of mind of the two persons represented, distinguished by Shakspeare with his usual intimate knowledge of human nature. That, knowledge, with which Shakspeare seems gifted in an almost miraculous degree, enables him, beyond any other dramatist, to individualize his characters. There is nothing general, nothing given in the abstract; every character is a portrait, with those marked and peculiar features by which we immediately recognize the individual. Macbeth and Richard are both ambitious; but their ambition is differently modified, by the different dispositions which the poet has shewn them originally to possess.— There is a process, a gradation, in the crimes and ambition of Macbeth; Richard is from the beginning a villain, a hard remorseless villain,with no restraint but his own interest or safety, acting from the impulse of his own dark mind alone, admitting no adviser from without, no conscience from within. Macbeth requires a prompter for his ambition, a more than accomplice in his crimes. That prompter and that accomplice Shakspeare has given him in his wife; and with his wonted depth of discernment of the peculiar attributes of our nature, he has given her that rapid unhesitating resolution in wickedness, which, in female wickedness, is the effect of the weakness, and the quickly as well as strongly excited

feelings of the sex. In love, in hatred, in ambition, the overbearing passion of the moment quite unsexes them; the most timid become bold, the most gentle fierce, the most irresolute resolved. In the attainment of whatever favourite object, women are much less restrained than men, by reflections on the past, or calculations on the future. Lady Macbeth has none of those doubts or fears which come across the mind of her lord; she looks straight forward to the crown, and sees no bar, from humanity or conscience, in the way.

The developement of Macbeth's character is one of the finest things in that admirable drama. What has been criticised as a barbarous departure from dramatic rule in Shakspeare, in the construction of his plays, affords, in truth, the means of tracing the growth and progress of character, the current of the human mind, in which he excels all other dramatists, much more completely than an adherence to the unity of time could have allowed.The bursts of passion may be shown in a moment; a story may be compressed, at least in its most interesting parts, into very small compass; but the growth, the gradual ripening of character, cannot be traced but in a considerable space of time. We must be led through many intermediate transactions, before such a character as that of Macbeth can be exhibited to us, changed, by steps so natural as to gain our fullest belief, from the brave and gallant soldier whom Duncan honours, into the bloody and relentless tyrant who wades through blood to the throne, and remains steeped in blood to maintain himself there, yet retains enough of its original tincture of virtue (or at least the sense of virtue) and humanity, as to interest us in his fall at the close of a life sullied by every crime, and which, but for the art of the poet, we should devote to pure unmitigated hatred. In truth, the same intimate knowledge of the human heart, that enabled him to unwind the maze of Macbeth's former conduct, guides the poet in that softening which he has given to his character in the closing scenes. During the bustle of the chase of ambition, such feelings have no room to unfold themselves; but if any pause occurs (such as here the death of the Queen) they re-assert the power which