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nonk turned merchant; the jesuits were then accused of commercial traffic with the revenues of their establishment. The rector of a college at Avignon, who thought he was portrayed in this honest work, confined Raynaud in prison for five months.

The most curious work of Raynaud, connected with literature, I possess; it is entitled Erotemata de Malis ac bonis Libris, deque justa aut injusta eorundem confixione. Lugduni, 1653, 4to, with necessary indexes. One of his works having been condemned at Rome, he drew up these inquiries concerning good and bad books, addressed to the grand inquisitor. He divides his treatise into bad and .nocent books; bad books, but not nocent; books not bad, but nocent; books neither bad nor nocent.' His immense reading appears here to advantage, and his Ritsonian feature is prominent; for he asserts, that when writing against heretics, all mordacity is innoxious: and an alphabetical list of abusive names, which the fathers have given to the heterodox, is entitled Alphabetum bestialitatis hæretici, ex patrum symbolis,

After all, Raynaud was a man of vast acquirement, with a great flow of ideas, but tasteless, and void of all judgment. An anecdote may be recorded of him, which puts in a clear light the state of these literary men. Raynaud was one day pressing hard a reluctant bookseller to publish one of his works, who replied, Write a book like Father Barri's, and I shall be glad to print it.' It happened that the work of Barri was pillaged from Raynaud, and was much liked, while the original lay on the shelf. However, this only served to provoke a fresh attack from our redoubtable hero, who vindicated his rights, and emptied his quiver on him who had been ploughing with his heifer,

Such are the writers who, enjoying all the pleasures without the pains of composition, have often apologized for their repeated productions, by declaring that they write only for their own amusement; but such private theatricals should not be brought on the public stage. One Catherinot, all his life was printing a countless number of feuilles volantes in history and on antiquities; each consisting of about three or four leaves in quarto: Lenglet du Fresnoy calls him Grand auteur des petits livres.' This gentleman liked to live among antiquaries and historians; but with a crooked head-piece, stuck with whims, and hard with knotty combinations, all overloaded with prodigious erudition, he could not ease it at a less rate than by an occasional dissertation of three or four quarto pages. He appears to have published about two hundred pieces of this sort, much sought after by the curious for their rarity: Brunet complains he could never discover a complete collection. But Catherinot may escape 'the pains and penalties' of our voluminous writers, for De Bure thinks he generously printed them to distribute among his friends. Such endless writers, provided they do not print themselves into an alms-house, may be allowed to print themselves out; and we would accept the apology which Monsieur Catherinot has framed for himself, which I find preserved in Beyeri Memoriæ Librorum Rariorum. I must be allowed my freedom in my studies, for I substitute my writings for a game at the tenniscourt, or a club at the tavern; I never counted among my honours these opuscula of mine, but merely as harmless amusements. It is my partridge, as with St John the Evangelist; my cat, as with Pope St Gregory; my little dog, as with St Dominick; my lamb, as with St Francis; my great black mastiff, as with Cornelius Agrippa; and my tame hare, as with Justus Lipsius.' I have since discovered in Niceron that this Catherinot could never get a printer, and was rather compelled to study economy in his two hundred quartos of four or eight pages; his paper was of inferior quality; and when he could not get his dissertations into his prescribed number of pages, he used to promise the end at another time, which did not always happen. But his greatest anxiety was to publish and spread his works; in despair he adopted an odd expe dient. Whenever Monsieur Catherinot came to Paris, he used to haunt the quaies where books are sold, and while he appeared to be looking over them, he adroitly slided one of his own dissertations among these old books. He began this mode of publication early, and continued it to his last days. He died with a perfect conviction that he had secured his immortality; and in this manner had disposed of more than one edition of his unsaleable works.

Niceron has given the titles of 118 of his things, which he had looked over.

LOCAL DESCRIPTIONS.

Nothing is more idle, and what is less to be forgiven in a writer, more tedious, than minute and lengthened descriptions of localities; where it is very doubtful whether the writers themselves had formed any tolerable notion of the place they describe,-it is certain their readers never can! These descriptive passages, in which writers of imagination so frequently indulge, are usually a glittering confusion of unconnected things; circumstances recollected from others, or observed by themselves at different times; the finest are thrust in together. If a scene from nature, it is possible that all the seasons of the year may be jumbled together; or if a castle or an apartment, its magnifind, even in works of celebrity, whole pages of these getude or its minuteness may equally bewilder. Yet we neral or these particular descriptive sketches, which leave nothing behind, but noun substantives propped up by random epithets. The old writers were quite delighted to fill up their voluminous pages with what was a great saving of sense and thinking. In the Alaric of Scudery sixteen palace, commencing at the facade, and at length finishing pages, containing nearly five hundred verses, describe a with the garden; but his description, we may say, was much better described by Boileau, whose good taste felt the absurdity of this abondance sterile,' in overloading a work with useless details,

Un Auteur quelquefois trop plein de son objet
Jamais sans l'epuiser n'abandonne un sujet.
S'il recontre un palais il m'en depeint la face
Il me promene après de terrasse en terrasse.
Ici s'offre un perron, lá regne un corridor;
Là ce balcon s'enferme en un balustre d'or ;
Il compte les plafonds, les ronds, et les ovales-
Je saute vingt feuillets pour en trouver la fin;
Et je me sauve à peine au travers du jardin !
And then he adds so excellent a canon of criticism, that
we must not neglect it:

Tout ce qu'on dit de trop est fade et rebutant;
L'Esprit rassasié le rejette à l'instant,

Qui ne sait se borner, ne sut jamais ecrire.

We have a memorable instance of the inefficiency of local descriptions, in a very remarkable one by a writer of fine genius, composing with an extreme fondness of his subject, and curiously anxious to send down to posterity the most elaborate display of his own villa-this was the Laurentinum of PLINY. We cannot read his letter to Gallus, which the English reader may in Melmoth's elegant version, without participating somewhat in the delight of the writer in many of its details; but we cannot with the writer form the slightest conception of his villa, while he is leading us over from apartment to apartment, and pointing to us the opposite wing, with a 'beyond this,' and a 'not far from thence,' and 'to this apartment another of the same sort,' &c. Yet, still, as we were in great want of a correct knowledge of a Roman villa, and as this must be the most so possible, architects have frequently studied, and the learned translated with extraordinary care, PLINY'S description of his Laurentinum. It became so favourite an object, that eminent architects have attempted to raise up this edifice once more, by giving its plan and elevation; and this extraordinary fact is the result-that not one of them but has given a representation different from the other! Montfaucon, a more faithful antiquary, in his close translation of the description of this villa, in comparing it with Felibien's plan of the villa itself, observes, that the architect accommodated his edifice to his translation, but that their notions are not the same; unquestionably,' he adds, if ten skilful translators were to perform their task separately, there would not be one who agreed with another!"

If, then, on this subject of local descriptions, we find that it is impossible to convey exact notions of a real existing scene, what must we think of those which, in truth, describe scenes which have no other existence than the confused makings-up of an author's invention; where the more he details the more he confuses; and where the more particular he wishes to be, the more indistinct the whole appears?

Local descriptions, after a few striking circumstances have been selected, admit of no further detail. It is not * Book ii, lett. 17.

their length, but their happiness, which enter into our comprehension; the imagination can only take in and keep together a very few parts of a picture. The pen must not intrude on the province of the pencil, any more than the pencil must attempt to perform what cannot in any shape be submitted to the eye, though fully to the mind.

The great art, perhaps, of local description, is rather a general than a particular view; the details must be left to the imagination; it is suggestion rather than description. There is an old Italian sonnet of this kind which I have often read with delight; and though I may not communicate the same pleasure to the reader, yet the story of the writer is most interesting, and the lady (for such she was) has the highest claim to be ranked, like the lady of Evelyn, among literary wives.

Francesca Turina Bufalini di Citta di Castello, of noble extraction, and devoted to literature, had a collection of her poems published in 1628: she frequently interspersed little domestic incidents of her female friend-her husband -her son-her grand-children; and in one of these sonnets she has delineated her palace of San Guistino, whose localities she appears to have enjoyed with intense delight in the company of her lord,' whom she tenderly associates with the scene. There is a freshness and simplicity in the description, which will perhaps convey a clearer notion of the spot than ever Pliny could do in the voluminous description of his villa. She tells us what she found when brought to the house of her husband.

Ampie salle, ampie loggie, ampio cortile
E stanze ornate con gentil pitture,
Trouai giungendo, e nobili sculture
Di Marmo fatte, dà scalpel non vile.
Nobil giardin con un perpetuo Aprile
Di varij fior, di frutti, e di verdure,
Ombre soavi, acque a temprar l'arsure
E strade di beità non dissimile;
E non men forte ostel, che per fortezza
Ha il ponte, e i fianchi, e lo circonda intorno
Fosso profundo e di real larghezza
Qui fei col mio Signore dolce soggiorno
Con santo amor, con somma contentezza
Onde ne benedico il mese e il giorno!
Wide halls, wide galleries, and an ample court,
Chambers adorn'd by picture's soothing charm,
I found together blended; noble sculpture

In marble, polished by no chisel vile;

A noble garden, where a lasting April

All various flowers, and fruits, and verdure showers;
Soft shades, and waters tempering the hot air;
And undulating paths, in equal beauty!
Nor less, the castled glory stands in force,

And bridged and flanked. And round its circuit winds

The deepened moat showing a regal size.

Here with my lord I cast my sweet sojourn,
With holy love, and with supreme content;
And hence I bless the month, and bless the day!
MASQUES.

It sometimes happens in the history of national amusements, that a name survives, while the thing itself is forgotten. This has been remarkably the case with our Court Masques, respecting which our most eminent writers long ventured on so many false opinions, with a perfect ignorance of the nature of these compositions, which combined all that was exquisite in the imitative arts of poetry, painting, music, song, dancing, and machinery, at a period when our public theatre was in its rude infancy. Convinced of the miserable state of our represented drama, and not then possessing that more curious knowledge of their domestic history, which we delight to explore, they were led into erroneous notions of one of the most gorgeous, the most fascinating, and the most poetical of dramatic amusements. Our present theatrical exhibitions are indeed on a scale to which the two-penny audiences of the barn-playhouses of Shakespeare could never have strained their sight; and our picturesque and learned costume, with the brilliant changes of our scenery, would have maddened the property-men' and the tire-women' of the Globe or the Red Buil. Shakespeare himself never beheld the true magical illusions of his own dramas, with Enter the Red Coat,' and Exit Hat and Cloak,' helped out with 'painted cloths ;' or, as a bard of Charles the Second's time chants,

But while the public theatre continued long in this con-
Look back and see

The strange vicissitudes of poetrie:
Your aged fathers came to plays for wit,
And sat knee-deep in nut-shells in the pit.

tracted state, without scenes, without dresses, without an orchestra, the court displayed scenical and dramatic exe hibitions, with such costly magnificence, such inventive fancy, and such miraculous art, that we may doubt if the combined genius of Ben Jonson, Inigo Jones, and Lawes or Ferobosco, at an era most favourable to the arts of imagination, has been equalled by the modern spectacle of the Opera.*

But this circumstance had entirely escaped the know. ledge of our critics. The critic of a Masque must not only have read it, but he must also have heard, and have viewed it. The only witnesses in this case are those letter-writers of the day, who were then accustomed to com municate such domestic intelligence to their absent friends: from such ample correspondence I have often drawn some curious and sometimes important information. It is amusing to notice the opinions of some great critics, how from an original mis-statement they have drawn an illeg. mate opinion, and how one inherits from the other, the er. ror which he propagates. Warburton said on Masques, that Shakespeare was an enemy to these fooleries, as ap. pears by his writing none.' This opinion was among the many which that singular critic threw out as they arose at the moment; for Warburton forgot that Shakespeare characteristically introduces one in the Tempest's most fanciful scene. Granger, who had not much time to study the manners of the age whose personages he was 80 well acquainted with, in a note on Milton's Masque, said that These compositions were trifling and perplexed allegories; the persons of which are fantastical to the last de gree. Ben Jonson, in his "Masque of Christmas," has introduced "Minced Pye" and "Babie Cake," who act their parts in the drama. But the most wretched perfor mances of this kind could please by the help of music, ma chinery, and dancing.' Granger blunders, describing by two farcical characters, a species of composition of which farce was not the characteristic; such personages as he notices would enter into the Anti-Masque, which was a humorous parody of the more solemn Masque, and sometimes relieved it. Malone, whose fancy was not vivid, condemns Masques and the age of Masques, in which he says, echoing Granger's epithet, the wretched taste of the times found amusement.' And lastly comes Mr Todd, whom the splendid fragment of the Arcades,' and the entire Masque which we have by heart, could not warm; while his neutralising, criticism fixes him at the freezing point of the thermometer. This dramatic entertainment, performed not without prodigious expense in machinery and decoration, to which humour we certainly owe the enter tainment of Arcades,' and the inimitable Mask of Comus,' Comus, however, is only a fine dramatic poem, retaining scarcely any features of the Masque. The only modern critic who had written with some research on this departed elegance of the English drama was Warton, whose fancy responded to the fascination of the fairy-like magnificence and lyrical spirit of the Masque. Warton had the taste to give a specimen from 'the Inner Temple Mask, by William Browne,' the pastoral poet, whose address to Sleep, he observed, reminds us of some favourite touches in Milton's Comus, to which it perhaps gave birth.' Yet even Warton was deficient in that sort of research, which only can discover the true nature of these singular dramas.

Such was the state in which some years ago I found all our knowledge of this once favourite amusement of our court, our nobility, and our learned bodies of the four inns of court. Some extensive researches, pursued among contemporary manuscripts, cast a new light over the obscuro child of fancy and magnificence. I could not think lightly of what Ben Jonson has called The eloquence of masques-entertainments on which three to five thousand pounds were expended, and on more public occasions ten and twenty thousand. To the aid of the poetry, compos ed by the finest poets, came the most skilful musicians, and the most elaborate mechanists; Ben Jonson and Inigo Jones and Lawes, blended into one piece their respective genius; and Lord Bacon and Whitelocke and Selden, who sat in committees for the last great Masque presented to Charles the First, invented the devices; composed the procession of the Masquers and the Anti-Masquers; while one took the care of the dancing or the brawlers, and White

*Since this article was written, our theatres have attempted several scenes in the style of these Court-Masques, with admirable success in the machinery.

locke the music;-the sage Whitelocke; who has chronicled his self-complacency on this occasion, by claiming the invention of a Coranto, which for thirty years afterwards was the delight of the nation, and was blessed by the name of Whitelocke's Coranto,' and which was always called for, two or three times over, whenever that great states. man came to see a play!* So much personal honour was considered to be involved in the conduct of a Masque, that even this committee of illustrious men was on the point of being broken up by too serious a discussion concerning precedence; and the Masque had nearly not taken place, till they hit on the expedient of throwing dice to decide on their rank in the procession! On this jealousy of honour in the composition of a Mask, I discovered, what hitherto had escaped the knowledge, although not the cu riosity, of literary inquirers;-the occasion of the memora ble enmity between Ben Jonson and Inigo Jones, who had hitherto acted together with brotherly affection; 'a circumstance,' says Mr Gifford, to whom I communicated it, not a little important in the history of our calumniated poet.' The trivial cause, but not so in its consequences, was the poet prefixing his own name before that of the architect, on the title-page of a Masque, which hitherto had only been annexed; so jealous was the great architect of his part of the Masque, and so predominant his power and name at court, that he considered his rights invaded by the inferior claims of the poet! Jonson has poured out the whole bitterness of his soul, in two short satires; stll more unfortunately for the subject of these satires, they provoked Inigo to sharpen his pen on rhyme; but it is edgeless, and the blunt composition still lies in its manuScript state.

While these researches had engaged my attention, appeared Mr Gifford's Memoirs of Ben Jonson. The characteristics of masques are there, for the first time, elaborately opened with the clear and penetrating spirit of that ablest of our dramatic critics. I feel it like presumption to add to what has received the finishing hand of a master; but his jewel is locked up in a chest, which I fear is too rarely opened, and he will allow me to borrow something from its splendour. The Masque, as it attained its highest degree of excellence, admitted of dialogue, singing, and dancing; these were not independent of one another, but combined, by the introduction of some ingenious fable, into an harmonious whole. When the plan was formed, the aid of the sister arts was called in; for the essence of the masque was pomp and glory. Moveable scenery of the most costly and splendid kind was lavished on the masque; the most celebrated masters were employed on the songs and dances; and all that the kingdom afforded of vocal and instrumental excellence was employed to embellish the exhibition. Thus magnificently constructed, the masque was not committed to ordinary performers. It was composed as Lord Bacon says, for princes and by princes it was played. Of these masques, the skill with which their ornaments were designed, and the inexpressible grace with which they were executed, appear to have left a vivid impression on the mind of Jonson. His genius awakes at once, and all his faculties attune to sprightliness and pleasure. He makes his appearance, like his own Delight, accompanied with Grace, Love, Harmony, Revel, Sport, and Laughter.'

In curious knot and mazes Sc

The spring at first was taught to go;
And Zephyr, when he came to woo
His Flora had his motions too;

And thus did Venus learn to lead

The Idalian brawls, and so to tread

As if the wind, not she, did walk,
Nor press'd a flower, nor bow'd a stalk.

And in what was the taste of the times wretched?' con-
tinues Mr Gifford, in reply to Messieurs Malone, and the
rest, who had never cast even an imperfect glance on what
one of the completest gentlemen of that age has called,
The courtly recreations of gallant gentlemen and ladies
of honour, striking to exceed one the other in their mea-
sures and changes, and in their repast of wit, which have
been beyond the power of Envy to disgrace.'
what was the taste of the times wretched? In poetry,
painting, architecture, they have not since been equalled:
The music of Whitelocke's Coranto is preserved in 'Hawk.
in's History of Music; might it be restored for the ladies as a
waltz?

But in

The figures and actions of dancers in masques were called motions,

and it ill becomes us to arraign the taste of a period which possessed a cluster of writers of whom the meanest would now be esteemed a prodigy.' I have been carried farther in this extract than I intended, by the force of the current, which hurries Malone down from our sight, who, fortunately for his ease, did not live to read this denouncement for his objection against masques, as 'bungling shows ;' and which Warburton treats as fooleries; Granger as wretched performances; while Mr Todd regards them merely as the humour of the times!'

Masques were often the private theatricals of the families of our nobility, performed by the ladies and gentlemen at their seats; and were splendidly got up on certain occasions; such as the celebration of a nuptial, or in compliment to some great visiter. The Mask of Conus was composed by Milton to celebrate the creation of Charles the First as Prince of Wales; a scene in this Mask presented both the castle and the town of Ludlow, which proves, that although our small public theatres had not yet displayed any of the scenical illusions which long afterwards Davenant introduced, these scenical effects existed in great perfection in the Masques. The minute description introduced by Thomas Campion in his Memorable Mask,' as it is called, will convince us that the scenery must have been exquisite and fanciful, and that the poet was always a watchful and anxious partner with the machinist; with whom sometimes, however, he had a quarrel.

The subject of this very rare mask was 'The Night and the Hours. It would be tedious to describe the first scene with the fondness with which the poet has dwelt on it. It was a double valley; one side, with dark clouds hanging before it; on the other, a green vale, with trees, and nine golden ones of fifteen feet high; from which grove, towards the State,' or the seat of the king, was a broad descent to the dancing place: the bower of Flora was on the right, the house of Night on the left; between them a hill hanging like a cliff over the grove. The bower of Flora was spacious, garnished with flowers, and flowery branches, with lights among them; the house of Night ample and stately, with black columns studded with golden stars; within, nothing but clouds and twinkling stars; while about it were placed, on wire, artificial bats and owls, continually moving. As soon as the king entered the great hall, the hautboys, out of the wood on the top of the hill, entertained the time, till Flora and Zephyr were seen busily gathering flowers from the bower, throwing them into baskets which two silvans held, attired in changeable taffety. The song is light as their fingers, but the burden is charming:

Now hath Flora robb'd her bowers
To befriend this place with flowers;
Strow about! strow about!
Divers, divers flowers affect
For some private dear respect;

Strow about! strow about!
But he's none of Flora's friend
That will not the rose commend;
Strow about! strow about!

I cannot quit this masque, of which collectors know the the rarity, without preserving one of those Doric delicacies, of which, perhaps, we have outlived the taste! It is a playful dialogue between a Silvan and an Hour, while Night appears in her house, with her long black hair spangled with gold, amidst her Hours; their faces black, and each bearing a lighted black torch.

SILVAN. Tell me, gentle Hour of Night,
Wherein dost thou most delight?
HOUR. Not in sleep!

In the frolic view of men!

Wherein then?

Oh! 'tis sweet!

SILVAN.
HOUR,
SILVAN. Lov'st thou music?
HOUR.

SILVAN. What's dancing?
HOUR.
E'en the mirth of feet.
SILVAN. Joy you in fairies and in elves?
HOUR. We are of that sort ourselves!
But, Silvan! say, why do you love
Only to frequent the grove?

SILVAN. Life is fullest of content

When delight is innocent.

HOUR. Pleasure must vary, not be long;

Come then, let's close, and end the song! That the moveable scenery of these masques formed as perfect a scenial illusion as any that our own age, with all

ts perfection of decoration, has attained to, will not be denied by those who have read the few masques which have been printed. They usually contrived a double division of the scene; one part was for some time concealed from the spectator, which produced surprise and variety. Thus, in the Lord's Mask at the marriage of the Palatine, the scene was divided into two parts from the roof to the floor; the lower part being first discovered, there appeared a wood in perspective, the innermost part being of releave or whole round,' the rest painted. On the left a cave, and on the right a thicket, from which issued Orpheus. At the back part of the scene, at the sudden fall of a curtain, the upper part broke on the spectators, a heaven of clouds of all hues; the stars suddenly vanished, the clouds dis. persed; an element of artificial fire played about the house of Prometheus-a bright and transparent cloud, reaching from the heavens to the earth, whence the eight maskers descending with the music of a full song; and at the end of their descent the cloud broke in twain, and one part of it, as with a wind, was blown athwart the scene.

While this cloud was vanishing, the wood, being the under part of the scene, was insensibly changing: a perspective view opened, with porticoes on each side, and female statues of silver, accompanied with ornaments of architecture, filling the end of the house of Prometheus, and seemed all of goldsmiths' work. The women of Prometheus descended from their niches, till the anger of Jupiter turned them agian into statues. It is evi

dent, too, that the size of the proscenium, or stage, accorded with the magnificence of the scene; for I find choruses described, and changeable conveyances of the song,' in manner of an echo, performed by more than forty different voices and instruments in various parts of the scene. The architectural decorations were the pride of Inigo Jones; such could not be trivial.

'I suppose, says the writer of this mask, 'few have ever seen more neat artifice than Master Inigo Jones showed in contriving their motion; who, as all the rest of the workmanship which belonged to the whole invention, showed extraordinary industry and skill, which if it be not as lively expressed in writing as it appeared in view, rob not him of his due, but lay the blame on my want of right apprehending his instructions, for the adoring of his art.' Whether this strong expression should be only adorning does not appear in any errata; but the feeling of admiration was fervent among the spectators of that day, who were at least as much astonished as they were delighted. Ben Jonson's prose descriptions of scenes in his own exquisite masques, as Mr. Gifford observes, are singularly bold and beautiful." In a letter, which I discovered, the writer of which had been present at one of these and which Mr. Gifford had preserved, the reamasques, der may see the great poet anxiously united with Inigo Jones in working the machinery. Jonson, before 'a sacrifice could be performed, turned the globe of the earth, standing behind the altar.' In this globe, the sea was expressed heightened with silver waves, which stood, or rather hung, (for no axle was seen to support it), and turning softly, discovered the first masque,' &c. This turning softly producing a very magical effect, the great poet would trust to no other hand but his own!

It seems, however, that as no masque-writer equalled Jonson, so no machinist rivalled Inigo Jones. I have some. times caught a groan from some unfortunate poet, whose beautiful fancies were spoilt by the bungling machinist. One savs,The order of this scene was carefully and ingeniously disposed, and as happily put in act (for the motions) by the king's master carpenter;' but he adds, the painters, I must needs say (not to belie them.) lent small colour to any, to attribute much of the spirit of these things to their pencil.' Poor Campion, in one of his masques, describing where the trees were gently to sink, &c, by an engine placed under the stage, and in sinking were to open, and the masquers appear out at their tops, &c, adds this vindictive marginal note: Either by the simplicity, negligence, or conspiracy of the painter, the passing away of the trees was somewhat hazarded, though the same day they had been shown with much admiration, and were left together to the same night; that is, they were worked right at the rehearsal, and failed in the representation, which must have perplexed the nine masquers on the tops of these nine trees. But such accidents were only vexa* Memoirs of Jonson, p. 88.

+ See Gifford's Jenson, vol. vii, p. 78.

tions crossing the fancies of the poet: they did not essentially injure the magnificence, the pomp, and the fairy world opened to the spectators. So little was the charac ter of these masques known, that all our critics seem to have fallen into repeated blunders, and used the masque as Campion suspected his painters to have done, either by simplicity, negligence, or conspiracy.' Hurd, a cold systematic critic, thought he might safely prefer the masque in the Tempest, as putting to shame all the masques of Jonson, not only in its construction, but in the splendour of its show - which,' adds Mr Gifford, was danced and sung by the ordinary performers to a couple of fiddles, perhaps in the balcony of the stage.' Such is the fate of criticism without knowledge! And now, to close our

masques, let me apply the forcible style of Ben Jonson himself: The glory of all these solemnities had perished like a blaze, and gone out in the beholder's eyes; so shortlived are the bodies of all things in comparison of their souls!'

OF DES MAIZEAUX, AND THE SECRET HISTORY OF ANTHONY COLLINS'S MANUSCRIPTS.

Des Maizeaux was an active literary man of his day, whose connexions with Bayle, St Evremond, Locke, and Toland, with his name set off by an F. R. S. have occa sioned the dictionary-biographers to place him prominently among their 'hommes illustres. Of his private history nothing seems known. Having something important to communicate respecting one of his friends, a far greater character, with whose fate he stands connected, even Des Maizeaux becomes an object of our inquiry.

He was one of those French refugees, whom political madness, or despair of intolerance, had driven to our shores. The proscription of Louis XIV, which supplied us with our skilful workers in silk, also produced a race of the unemployed, who proved not to be as exquisite in the handicraft of book-making; such were Motteur, La Coste, Ozell, Durand, and others. Our author had come over in that tender state of youth, just in time to become half an Englishman; and he was so ambidextrous in the languages of the two great literary nations of Europe, that scripts, which I have examined, that it was mere accident whenever he took up his pen, it is evident, by his manu which determined him to write in French or in English. Composing without genius, or even taste, without vivacity or force, the simplicity and fluency of his style were suffi cient for the purposes of n ready dealer in all the minutia literariæ; literary anecdotes, curious quotations, notices of obscure books, and all that supellex which must enter into the history of literature, without forming a history. These little things, which did so well of themselves, without any connexion with any thing else, became trivial when they assumed the form of voluminous minuteness; and Des Maizeaux at length imagined that nothing but anecdotes were necessary to compose the lives of men of genius! With this sort of talent he produced a copious life of Bayle, in which he told every thing he possibly could; and nothing can be more tedious, and more curious: for though it be a grievous fault to omit nothing, and marks the writer to be deficient in the development of character, and that sympathy which throws inspiration over the vivifying page of biography, yet, to admit every thing has this meritthat we are sure to find what we want! Warburton poignantly describes our Des Maizeaux, in one of those let ters to Dr Birch, which he wrote in the fervid age of study, and with the impatient vivacity of his genius. Almost all the life-writers we have had before Toland and Des Maizeaux are indeed strange, insipid creatures; and yet I had rather read the worst of them, than be obliged to go through with this of Milton's, or the other's life of Boileau; where there is such a dull, heavy succession of long quotations of uninteresting passages, that it makes their method quite nauseous. But the verbose, tasteless Frenchman, seems to lay it down as a principle, that every life must be a book, -and, what is worse, it seems a book without a life; for what do we know of Boileau, after all his tedious stuff?

Des Maizeaux was much in the employ of the Dutch booksellers, then the great monopolizers in the literary mart of Europe. He supplied their nouvelles litteraires' from England; hut the work-sheet price was very mean in those days. I have seen annual accounts of Des Mazeaux settled to a line, for four or five pounds; and yet he sent the Novelties' as fresh as the post could carry them! He held a confidential correspondence with these great Dutch booksellers, who consulted him in their distresses;