such quarters as we could find. We were all dispersed in a short time, some in one place, and some in another. I remember well, after I had pitched upon whom I thought proper to go along with me, I perceived a house at some distance, whither we all agreed to go together, hoping to find it empty. But we found it the reverse, for it was full of miserable objects, that were disabled and wounded in such a manner that I thought them past all recovery. Therefore I said to my companions, I don't think there is a possibility of our having any rest this night. We endeavoured to the utmost of our ability to get out of the noise of the wounded, but found it almost impossible, except we had gone three or four miles distance, for all the hedges and ditches were lined with disabled men. Therefore we returned to an orchard and laid ourselves down in as warm a place as we could find, but the horrible cries and groans of the wounded terrified my soul, so that I was in tortures and fancied I felt their sufferings So I could not lay my eyelids together all that night, for one thought or other that came fresh into my mind, after the agony I was in for my fellow-creatures."

When the changes in the ministry took place, and the war languished, Bishop, with his usual foresight, perceived that nothing more would be done in the fighting line in Europe: instead, therefore, of returning home to his wife, to whom, during his absence of several years, he had only written twice or thrice, he got drafted into a new regiment intended for Canada. He then renews his adventures, partly by sea and partly by land, in America, till accident, rather than design, brings him back to his native shores. We have already intimated the catastrophe that attended his return.

In what condition Bishop was when he wrote this book, we are not informed: he had received no promotion, though he hints, that had he sought or wished it, he might have contrived to have been made an adjutant. Various expressions in the course of the work would lead us to suppose that even in his old age he had an idea of being again employed; and it is not improbable that these memoirs were written with some such view. They are dedicated to the Earl of Stair, at that time Commanderin-Chief.

The Dramatic Works of Thomas Shadwell, Esq. in four Volumes. London, 1720. 12mo.

It is so rare for people to form their own opinions, or to examine into the validity of prevailing notions, that we must not be surprised to find that the success of Dryden in ridiculing the pretensions of Shadwell has been continued up to the present day. When his name has been mentioned, the allusion to Mac Flecknoe, and to some of the more powerful strokes of a rival's satire, has always carried sufficient weight to stifle the

claims of Shadwell to posthumous fame. Our author had a fair reputation in his day, and it will astonish many to hear that he deserved it. The comedy of the reigns of Charles II. and his immediate successors will find no defenders in us: we grant their general badness, the poor contrivances, and their miserable morality, from which even the wit of Congreve could not redeem them. Nevertheless, in the composition of works upon a wretched plan, an author may exhibit his genius, and show indications of power that deserves to be better employed. Those who are fully impressed with the force and truth of Dryden's satire will be surprised to learn, that Shadwell was an accomplished observer of human nature, that he had a ready power of seizing the ridiculous in the manners of the times, and that he possesses and displays in his writings a very considerable fund of humour. He was moreover a man of sense and information, and in the midst of much indecency, coarseness, and whimsical folly, we find numerous valuable remarks, and many dialogues of pointed, able discussion. Certainly we would recommend the plays of Shadwell to neither indiscriminate perusal nor performance; but we believe that the literary antiquary might pick out much enjoyment from this mass of forgotten comedy, that the modern dramatist might reap many valuable hints, and that he who has a relish for broad humour, and can understand and enjoy the absurdities of character when developed in an exhibition of ancient folly, will do well to spend some leisure time over the plays of Shadwell. As for ourselves, we propose to do nothing more than justice in attempting to put the reputation of this author on its true level, and vindicate his memory from that charge of dulness which hangs over it. In the process we expect to be able to reproduce to the world many points and scenes which, while they throw light on past manners, are capable of affording some present instruction and amusement.

The model of Shadwell, in the composition of his plays, appears to have been the comedies of Jonson: he has applied the same methods to expose the follies of his day that his celebrated predecessor did before him; in some instances, the imitation is even closer: characters such as Sir Humphrey Scattergood, in the Woman Captain, who is a modification of Sir Epicure Mammon, are transferred with an allowance of difference for the changes of manners, and some of the ideas and speeches are also adopted with but slight variation. But though Shadwell may resemble the celebrated Ben in his partiality to pourtray extravagance in character, in the desultoriness of his plots, and in his general method and style, he falls far short of his model in his ability to represent passion and that intensity of feeling which Jonson sometimes infuses into his characters. Thus, though we may justly call Shadwell the

Jonson of his day, we must remember that the days of Charles II. and his brother form very different epochs in our literature from those of Elizabeth and the first James-the force of genius in the two writers preserving somewhat of the same ratio that exists between the times. Shadwell himself, so far from disguising this imitation, was proud of it, and in the following extract from the preface to one of his first plays explains the view he took of Ben Jonson's peculiar style.

"I have endeavoured to represent variety of humours (most of the persons of the play differing in their characters from one another), which was the practice of Ben Jonson, whom I think all dramatic poets ought to imitate, though none are like to come near; he being the only person that appears to me to have made perfect representations of human life. Most other authors that I ever read, either have wild romantic tales, wherein they strain love and honour to that ridiculous height that it becomes burlesque; or in their lower comedies content themselves with one or two humours at most, and those not near so perfect characters as the admirable Jonson always made, who never wrote comedy without seven or eight excellent humours. I never saw one, except that of Falstaff, that was in my judgment comparable to any of Jonson's considerable humours: you will pardon this digression, when I tell you he is the man, of all the world, I most passionately admire for his excellency in dramatic poetry.

Though I have known some of late so insolent to say, that Ben Jonson wrote his best plays without wit; imagining that all the wit in plays consisted in bringing two persons upon the stage to break jests, and to bob one another, which they call repartee; not considering that there is more wit and invention required in the finding out good humour, and matter proper for it, than in all their smart repartees. For in the writing of a humour, a man is confined not to swerve from the character, and obliged to say nothing but what is proper to it: but in the plays which have been wrote of late, there is no such thing as perfect character, but the two chief persons are most commonly a swearing, drinking, whoring ruffian for a lover, and an impudent, illbred tomrig for a mistress; and these are the fine people of the play; and there is that latitude in this, that almost any thing is proper for them to say: but their chief subject is bawdy and profaneness, which they call brisk writing, when the most dissolute of men that relish those things well enough in private, are shocked at them in public: and methinks, if there were nothing but the ill manners of it, it should make poets avoid that indecent way of writing."

It will be seen from this free piece of criticism that the object of Shadwell was the exhibition of character, the selection of peculiar humours, as showing themselves in individuals, and this not, as in modern comedies, where the whole tide of the play tends to the illustration of some maxim, or some passion, or some single prevailing folly, but by mixing up together seven or eight remarkable characters, each displaying his own modes of thinking, acting, and speaking. The art of the dramatist is

shown in the choice of incidents and the arrangement of the action, in such a manner as to exhibit these several varieties of persons in an easy and natural manner. Shadwell's plan was a very simple one: he abandons all attempt at combination, and represents his characters in a series of dialogues, that, generally speaking, might be shuffled like cards for any connexion they have together: beyond this, that they are carried on by the same parties, and have a kind of internal reference to each other.

From the latter part of the extract, it might have been supposed that Shadwell's plays contained no such faults as are therein censured. It is nevertheless true that they abound in indecency and loose conversation, and that three out of four dialogues turn upon subjects which cannot be even alluded to in the presence of women at the present day, and which are moreover expressed with the utmost latitude, and an unblushing plainness and particularity.

There is reason to believe that the comedies of Shadwell approach to being imitations of the manners of his time. If so, no one can fail to remark the pitch to which immorality had arrived, and at the more extraordinary openness with which it was displayed. The sense of shame appears to have been unknown, for the most naked savage could not court the public gaze with a more unblushing unconsciousness than do the heroes and heroines of all the comedies of this period. Much of fiction, whether worked up for the stage or the closet, turns upon love the love, however, of the comedies we speak of is the merest sensuality. The best characters can only commend personal charms, and the sole object of their pursuit is possession if it is to be obtained by importunity, the price is considered cheap; if by marriage, the sacrifice is held to be considerable, but is nevertheless justified by the anticipated delights of sensual intercourse. Neither is any secret made that these are the terms on which love is sought and won: on the contrary, the fullest details of the transaction are dwelt upon with great significance. It is remarkable that the ulterior objects of marriage, the respectability and happiness of domestic life, are not even alluded to; marriage is invariably spoken of as an evil to be sedulously avoided; and in Shadwell we find repeated assertions of its growing infrequency. In proportion as the connubial state is depreciated, the sacredness of the compact is abused. A husband appears to dread the infidelity of his wife, solely because it may expose him to ridicule. The easiness with which lapses of this kind, both before and after marriage, are taken, would throw a rigid moralist into an ecstasy of indignation. The best women, according to the ideas of these dramatists, only value themselves upon their chastity as having it under their own command: the wife uses it as a check upon her husband,

and the maid in order to secure better terms, a finer man, or a finer fortune. The low ebb to which this virtue had fallen is, moreover, proved by the indiscriminate mixture in the society introduced on the stage, of women claiming to be virtuous, and of women openly living upon the price of its abandonment. The exemplary Theodosia, in the Humorists, converses familiarly with Mrs. Frisk, whom the explanatory bill of the dramatis personæ terms "a vain wench of the town, debauched, and kept by Brisk." Lady Vain, in the Sullen Lovers, who is designated by a name in the list of persons which we should not introduce into our pages, except unavoidably in a quotation, mixes on terms of perfect equality with the more correct ladies of the piece. The very scene which Shadwell, in answer to his detractors, himself picks out in his comedies as being one that will" live," represents the means of advice and persuasion used by one Lady Busy to Isabella, the daughter of Lady Cheatly, in order to persuade her to accept the offers of a man of rank who proposed to "keep" her on good terms. This passes in the presence of her mother, and with her sanction. The lover, though backed by Lady Busy, and also by Lady Cheatly, finding the young lady inexorable, who reasons very discreetly upon the affair, at last proposes marriage, and on this condition the bargain is completed. Of the exceeding grossness with which loose conduct is exhibited, the very nature of the subject precludes us from giving instances. It may suffice to mention one scene in which parties are represented on the stage as in bed, and in that situation detected by an injured husband. This occurs in the Volunteers or Stockjobbers. Where parties have come to an understanding, instead of resorting to the modern method in novels of marking the intervening events by asterisks, an exit takes place, for purposes avowed with sufficient plainness, and if any doubts were left, subsequent allusions and remarks would clear up any obscurity.

In another branch of morality, honesty, it may be observed, that avowed gamblers and sharpers live in the society of the most upright and accomplished of the gentlemen; who, in truth, if the heroes of Shadwell are to be taken as models, are little better than their companions. Were there no other proofs, it may be said of the gentlemen as well as the ladies, that if they valued either honour or honesty, they would not hold continual and familiar intercourse with those who exist upon the sale of both.

A peculiarity which relates to manners rather than morals is striking enough, and so remarkably in contrast with modern manners as to be worthy of notice. It consists in the facility with which acquaintances are formed, and the absence of the modern necessity of proper introductions. The use of masks appears to