presents a poor devil who picks up pieces of different stuffs and colours to mend his cloths. Their hat corresponds with their beg gary; and their tail of a hare, with which it is decorated, is to this day the usual ornament of the peasants of Bergamo.

I conceive that I have thus clearly demonstrated the origin of the four masks of Italian comedy.'

It would be impossible to conceive a state of things more unfavourable to the efforts of GOLDONI, than the prejudice for the four masks. The mask for ever destroyed all expression. Whether the actor was impressed with joy, sorrow, love, or anger, the same dull leathern face presented itself to the spectators. In vain might he gesticulate, and change the tone of his voice; never could he succeed in discovering, by the features of his face, which are the interpreters of the heart, the different passions that assailed him. The masks of Greece and Rome were a sort of speaking-trumpets, devised for raising the voice to an elevation suited to the vast extent of their amphitheatres but the passions and sentiments were not carried to that degree of refined delicacy which is requisite to modern times, and more especially to the French style. An actor of these days is expected to represent a variety of expression, and variety was precluded by the mask.

. I was assailed,' adds GOLDONI, by continued and increasing complaints: both parties equally annoyed me, and I endeavoured to satisfy them both. I condescended to produce some pièces à canevas, (pieces in which the plot is indicated by the author, and the words are left to the impromptus of the performers,) without ceasing to represent others of character. I introduced masks into the former, and employed the noble and interesting comedy in the latter. Each part had its share of satisfaction; and, with time and patience, I brought them all to one mind, and had the pleasure of seeing myself authorized to follow my own taste, which, in a few years, became the prevailing taste in Italy.'

Next to the monstrous absurdity of the four Italian masks, nothing sets the Italian character in a more grotesque light than the sacred names given to the theatres of Venice, on which these buffooneries had been so much applauded:- Saint Samuel, St. John Chrysostom, St. Luke, and St. Angelo. In commencing his theatrical career, many were the artifices by which GOLDONI attempted to build his new school on the ruin of the old. To instruct an audience not acquainted with the principles of criticism, he represented a critical dialogue in verse called Il teatro comico, containing the best canons for criticism, and particularly useful as a glossary to his own pieces. At one time, he had to encounter the religious vapours of a first actress; at another, the necessity of giving his amorous

parts

parts to a superannuated dame; and at another, he had to labour under the disadvantage of a theatre too large for the cadences of voice or the expression of countenance. Still, with ineffable good humour, he wrote the almost incredible number of sixteen pieces within the season; and, from the time of quitting the theatre of St. Angelo to his arrival at Paris, his hours were exclusively devoted to a labour which now began to degenerate into drudgery. In passing through Loretto, on a journey to Rome, he treats us with an account of our Lady of Loretto, and her shrine, in the true style of the olden credulity. His interview with the Pope is droll; and, as at Paris his performances failed of success from their buffoonery, so at Rome his first comedy was lost through the want of Punchinello.

At the age of fifty-two, he accepted an invitation from Signor Zannuzzi to compose for the Italian comedy of Paris: but the characteristic gaiety of the people, for whom he was to write, led him into an error common to all those who have never visited their capital. Imagining the comic genius to reign there uncontrouled, he gave wings to his imagination, and successively failed in almost every attempt to please. The rigid laws, to which the French comedy is subject, were to GOLDONI SO many fetters; and, instead of conducting the Italian comedy, he was glad to accept a pension from the court as instructor to the princesses. In this new employment, we find him happy in himself, attached to his wife, the guardian of his brother's children, performing all the proper duties of life, and conciliating all the friends within his reach A long residence in this capital gave him an insight into the fastidious taste of the Parisian world: incessant application to the language was rewarded by its attainment; and the author who had failed in his maternal tongue was applauded, to the utmost of his hopes, for his Bourru Bienfaisant. It was his intention to have read this piece to Rousseau, and he had obtained the philosopher's permission to that effect: but he was restrained from availing himself of it, by reflecting that the character would infallibly be applied by his captious hearer to himself. A man of extreme benevolence and beneficence, dashed with a certain waspish fretfulness, was a personage new to the French stage, and its success was a sort of theatrical epoch.

The life of this easy, benevolent, and ingenious man now consists in little more than excursions of pleasure from Paris to Versailles, Marly, Compiègne, Fontainebleau, &c., whither He lives to relate he went yearly in the train of the court. to us the marriage of the Dauphin with the beautiful Marie

Antoinette,

Antoinette, and is a witness of the festivals which celebrated the births of two of their children. His old age is soothed by the urbanity of numerous and respected friends; and, however we may reprobate the style of these memoirs, we cannot but applaud the tone of benevolence and gratitude which pervades them.

We have purposely forborn to notice the dramatic compositions of GOLDONI, because a future article will comprize a work by M. Sismondi, in which they necessarily form a prominent and distinctive feature. If he had the credit of expelling from the stage the pedantic compositions of the Abbé Chiari, and of rising victor from his struggle with the Comte Charles Gozzi:if he tore off the Masks, and gave expression to the exterior as well as to the language of his characters; - if many of his situations are happily contrived, many of his scenes natural, and all unaffected; yet will he shrink from a comparison with Molière, even in the latter's inferior pieces. Voltaire, it is true, has said that the appearance of GOLDONI at the Italian theatre might be called, like the poem of Trissino, "Italy delivered from the Goths." This compliment is well deserved; and, as it is exactly true, we take leave of the author in whose honour it was said, until Sismondi shall fix our attention on the dramas which called it forth.

---

The London edition of this book so teems with typographical errors, that an inexperienced person might sometimes hesitate in recognizing the language in which it is written :— Ex. gr., sa caractère for son caractère: Je me fis que for Je ne fis que: plupat for plupart:-le ruines for la ruine: la nom for le nom:-le Philosophie Anglois for le Philosophe Anglois, &c. Indeed, three errors of this kind per page would be the very lowest estimate throughout the whole work.

ART. III. L'Angleterre au Commencement du 19me Siècle; &c. i.e. England at the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century. By M. DE LEVIS. 8vo. pp.420. Paris. 1814. Imported by De Boffe. Price 10s. 6d.

THE travels of a foreigner in England have naturally a powerful interest with readers in this country. Nations, like individuals, place a part of their happiness in character, and cannot tutor themselves into an indifference respecting the praise or blame of their neighbours. They may ascribe to bigotry, to prejudice, to malice, or to ignorance, the unwel come observations which they encounter: but it is only inasmuch as they hope to refute, that they can sincerely despise satire. In all things, the way to mend is to listen patiently

to

to hostile criticism; and we should rather mistrust the flattery of native cajolers of the people than the censure of enlighetned strangers.

Perhaps the English deserve uncourtly guests, because they are not urbane visitors. They do not enter a foreign country in the spirit of accommodation, but usually complain aloud of everything which they find otherwise than at home; and, accustomed to no privations, but willing to pay for indulgence, they claim all sorts of supplies at the command of a full purse. A foreigner, on the contrary, is more aggrieved by the dearness than by the deficiency of reception here. Bred to a military disdain of luxury, when only personal gratification is at stake, he can contentedly forego every comfort which he is not seen to spare; his orders at an inn are rather a sacrifice to appearance than to enjoyment; and if the expected decorums be but observed, neatness itself will be offered up to economy. The travelling Englishman is constantly occupied in teaching his own way to others; the travelling foreigner, in learning whatever will facilitate his progress cheaply.

M. DE LEVIS, author of the volume before us, was born in Canada, and is the son of the Marshal Levis who commanded there before the peace of 1763. He has visited England five several times, possesses our language with almost native intimacy, has enjoyed the advantage of various and distinguished introductions, and has been attracted to Hull, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham, as well as to the more usual haunts of foreigners, Portsmouth, London, Oxford, Bath, and Bristol. He is therefore tolerably qualified by extensive observation to delineate the characteristics of our Country: but, having seen all that is magnificent in Europe, he is somewhat fastidious.

Half a century ago, the Irish Abbé Grosley drew up in French an entertaining account of Great Britain. His four volumes, intitled Londres, were printed in 1770, and were well abridged and translated by Dr. Nugent. More recently, M. Baert printed a geographical description of this island, under the title of Tableau de la Grande Bretagne, which is the usual source of French information concerning us. It is welcome to find in a more compendious form, and in a less formal compend, the substance of current knowlege and of circulating opinion.

M. LEVIS, having made his remarks at different times on the same objects, has not given a journal of his tour, but rather a collection of the results impressed on his mind by successive visits to the same district. In other books of travels, the scenery is attached to the successive motions of the observer, the face of the country is painted and the style of building is criticized,

criticized, in the order and at the moment in which it comes beneath the author's eye:-but here the traveller vanishes from the scene; instead of our moving with him, the towns are made to come to us; there is inspection, but the inspector seems lost. In short, it is the book of a geographer: but of a geographer who, like Herodotus, has visited the places which he describes. It is meritorious to disdain egotism; yet the personal interest which we take in a traveller, who is the perpetual hero of his own tale, adds to the vivacity of a narrative even when it detracts from its completeness.

The first chapter describes the passage from Calais to Dover; and it is observed that both havens ought to be deepened, so that vessels might be able to enter with passengers even at low water. The pettiness of the houses at Dover offends; the rooms, though neat, are said to be like ship-cabins, and appear to be made for a people of Lilliputians; the houses at Calais are on a more noble scale.

Chapter II. describes the route from Dover to Rochester. The roads are narrow, the cultivation is not assiduous, and the same air of littleness remains at Canterbury. The cathedral is censured for interior nakedness, the tasteless choice of the protestant iconoclasts; and the hop-grounds are said to be far less picturesque than vineyards. Italian vineyards are no doubt picturesque, where the vines climb up the elm and the poplar, and hang festoons of grapes from tree to tree: but a Burgundy vine-yard is not handsomer than a bean-field.

In the third chapter, the author describes the interval between Chatham and London; and some old anecdotes of highwaymen are repeated, which belong to manners of other times. Here the country begins to make an impression; the docks, the view of London from Shooter's-hill, the commencing tunnel at Gravesend, the marine establishments at Woolwich, and the hospital at Greenwich, call forth some symptoms of recovery from disappointment.

Chapter IV. begins to paint London. The houses are characterized as all alike, without ornament, ill furnished, and inconvenient. The last epithet is surely improper; since they comprize, in the least possible space, those accommodations which our peculiar manners render necessary. That practical equality of enjoyment, which disposes such vast classes of the people to live in a way apparently so alike, is one of the meritorious features of our form of society.

The fifth chapter speaks of the shops, which are said to dis appoint when entered; all that is worth seeing having been placed in the window. However beautiful are the foot-pavements, it is justly observed that we have no long sheltered walk

in