TIBERIO only was legible. Part of this stone is fixed in the ground: but the earth, being dug from the bottom of it at one side, leaves visible some painting, which represents, in the middle, a sphere, with the twelve signs of the Zodiac. The colour which has best withstood the ravages of time is skyblue: the others are almost invisible. Of the antient Tentyris, or Tentyra, we find some notices; and, among the plates, some representations of figures which are found in a temple that has hitherto been proof against the joint attacks of time and barbarism. It was consecrated to Isis, who was here adored under the form of a cat; and it is, says M. Sonnini, one of those edifices which antiquity has with most success striven to render immortal. He describes with admiration the durability of the colours which are here appa rent, and he minutely gives the dimensions of the edifice: It was not in their architecture alone that the Egyptians displayed that affection for posterity, that love of immortality which presides in all their works; they wished also that the painting they employed should be equally durable. The colours of which they made use, the two-edged tool serving to incorporate them closely and for ever with bodies as hard and as solid as stone, are so many proofs of their profound knowledge in the arts, and so many secrets, which our researches have not yet been able to discover. The cieling of the temple of Dendera is painted in fresco, of the brilliant colour of azure blue, with which the vault of the firmament shines in fine weather: the figures in relief strewed along its bottom, are painted of a beauti. ful yellow; and these paintings, at the expiration of some thousands of years, possess still a brilliancy to which our freshest colours do not approach, and they are still as lively as if they had been newly laid on. I have said that the front of this temple, an admirable and but little known work of the genius and the patience which, among the ancient people of Egypt, produced wonders, was an hundred and thirtytwo feet, and some inches in length. I took its other dimensions with the same exactness. The depth of the peristyle is an hundred and fifteen feet three inches, and its breadth sixty feet eleven inches. The two sides of the edifice are two hundred and fifty-four feet nine inches and a half in length; finally, the depth is a hundred and ten feet eleven inches. The summit of the temple is flattened, and formed of very large stones, which are laid from one pillar to another, or on two walls of separation. Several of these masses are eighteen feet long and six broad. Rubbish heaped up, and the sand which collects there, have raised the soil to a level with the roof of the building, and you easily ascend it from behind, although the front is still elevated seventy feet above ground. The inhabitants of this canton had availed themselves of this disposition; they had built a village on the very summit of the temple, as on a basis more firm than the inconstant sands or marshy earth, upon which they generally erect their dwellings. When I was at Dendera, this modern village was desolated and overthrown; overthrown; its ruins of hardened mud formed a singular contrast with the magnificent remains of the ancient city of Tentyris. We beheld there with sorrow the most complete proof of the total anni hilation of the arts, in a country which had given birth and such an astonishing perfection to them, and the still more deplorable decline of the human mind.' We cannot take leave of this work without declaring that, from the perusal of it, we have received considerable pleasure, and much information respecting the manners, habitudes, and principles of the people of Egypt. It has enabled us in some measure to calculate the difficulties which have opposed the late bold attempt of the author's countrymen to over-run it; as well as to appreciate the advantages which would result from its conquest, were it possible to introduce and establish in it such a government as would civilize its people; and, instead of barbarous superstition, gross ignorance, and savage ferocity, would plant in it useful science, productive industry, and good morals. We have already hinted that, on various points of national manners, customs, &c. M. Sonnini's details are by no means suited to the delicate reader. In a work otherwise adapted for general perusal, and calculated to excite general curiosity, this circumstance is to be regretted; and it is to be wished that Dr. Hunter had in these instances taken some salutary freedoms with his original: but he has been minutely faithful to his text. Among the plates, we have a portrait of the author, and a good copy of M. D'Anville's map of Egypt. To the French edition is subjoined a General Index to the three volumes; which useful accompaniment is omitted in the English translation. A table of chapters, with the heads of their subjects, which also occurs in the original, is however given by Dr. Hunter. Wall..e ART. XII. A Miscellany; containing, amidst a Variety of other Matters, curious and interesting, Remarks on Boswell's Johnson; with considerable Additions, and some Anecdotes of that extraordinary Character: a Critique on Burger's Leonora ; in which she is clearly proved of English Extraction, from an old Ballad still extant; consequently, in its German Dress, the Subject is neither new nor original; and an introductory Essay on the Art of Reading and Speaking in Public, in Two Parts. By S. Whyte, and his Son E. A. Whyte. 8vo. pp. 200. Dublin. 1799. THE principal tendency of this collection is to vindicate the character of the late Mr. Sheridan, from an attack which Mr. Whyte conceives to have been made on it in Boswell's life of Johnson. This is a topic which would naturally appear momentous momentous to Mr. W. from his habits of intimacy with the person aggrieved: but it will perhaps be little interesting to most of our readers; who, in the rapid succession of events in the literary as well as the political world, may not retain much recollection of Mr. Sheridan as an author. Respecting Dr. Johnson, the curiosity of the public has been amply gratified. That he might be provoked to speak harshly, on a particular occasion, of a man who generally possessed his esteem; and that his biographer might indiscreetly repeat to the public, what was never intended by Johnson to pass the walls within which it was uttered; are points which will be granted, without exciting any commotion in the literary world. Mr. Whyte seems, indeed, to have had something farther in view: by introducing a considerable portion of Mr. Sheridan's private history, he has found an opportunity of relating the services which were done by himself to that gentleman, during the embarrassment of his circumstances. Mr. W.'s conduct on this occasion seems to have been highly meritorious: but the whole is too circumstantially detailed; and the great admixture of the history of the Irish Theatre will rather create ennui, than furnish entertainment to the English reader. In the original letters of Mr. and Mrs. Sheridan, we meet with nothing particularly interesting; excepting an ode to Patience by that lady, which we shall extract for the reader's amuse ment: ODE TO PATIENCE. Unaw'd by threats, unmov'd by force, Say, you who search with curious eyes • 'Tis Patience.... Lenient Goddess, hail! Thro' all the various turns of fate, What taught me silently to bear, 'Twas Patience.... Temperate Goddess, stay! Nor Nor yield to Passion's Power; • When robb'd of what I held most dear, What, when mute sorrow chain'd my tongue, • 'Twas Patience!... Goddess ever calm! When sick and languishing in bed, And dress'd my looks in smiles? 'Twas Patience!... Heaven-descended Maid! Implor'd, few swiftly to my aid, And lent her fostering breast; Watch'd my sad hours with parent care, And sooth'd my soul to rest. Say, when dissever'd from his side, When my prophetic soul, Anticipating all the storm, Saw danger in its direst form, What could my fears controul? "Twas Patience!... Gentle Goddess, hear! Be ever to thy suppliant near, Nor let one murmur rise; Since still some mighty joys are given, Among many desultory remarks, which succeed this part of the miscellany, we find great pains taken to trace the story on which the late Lord Orford founded his tragedy of the Mysterious Mother. We have met with it in many shapes: but, as it never appears to have been authenticated in any instance, we have been inclined to regard it as the invention of some casuist; from whose impure pages of possible cases, it has crept, by the attraction of its horrors, through a great variety of books. Writers of the 15th and 16th century were extremely addicted. to the practice of retailing unwarranted stories from each other. Burger's Leonora; which has obtained some transient popularity, is here supposed to be taken from an old English ballad. We think that the inquiry hardly deserves attention: the national superstitions are very similar; and it requires small exertion of genius, to tell how the devil came in the shape of a young man, and rode away with a fair maiden of low degree. Besides, those who are conversant with books of demonology know that nothing was more common, at one period, than to set ghosts on horseback. Mr. W. supposes that animal magnetism was founded on the phænomena of the torpedo and electrical eel: its origin, however, can be clearly traced to the reveries of Van Helmont, written before those phænomena were known. It was built on the well-known and never- failing basis of human credulity, and love of the marvellous. The author's detached criticisms, though we cannot agree with him in all instances, bear evident marks of reading and ingenuity but we think that their objects are generally of an inferior kind, and that their importance has been much overrated by Mr. Whyte. They would have appeared to more advantage in the form of separate papers, in some respectable periodical work, than in the consequential shape of a handsome volume. ART. XIII. Memoirs of the Life of Charles Macklin, Esq. principally compiled from his own Papers and Memorandums: which contain his Criticisms on and Characters and Anecdotes of Betterton, Booth, Wilks, Cibber, Garrick, Barry, Mossop, Sheridan, Foote, Quin, and most of his Contemporaries; together with his valuable Observations on the Drama, on the Science of Acting, and on various other Subjects: the Whole forming a comprehensive but succinct History of the Stage; which includes a Period of One Hundred Years. By James Thomas Kirkman, of the Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn. 8vo. 2 Vols. 14s. Boards. Lackington. 1799. THIS biographer seems to challenge inquiry into the private Fer." character of his hero, when he boldly asserts that Mr. Macklin was never sensible that he had occasion to blush at any part of his conduct.' We remember the opinion which the public had of his professional abilities, for more than fifty years; and that he was deemed a good actor of particular villanous parts, such as Shylock and Iago, in which he was unrivalled-but in respect to the goodness of his heart, and the general rectitude of his conduct, we recollect no favourable sentiment. REV. Nov. 1799. Y Mr |