and of the captives whom they bring home to torture, by fome uncouth figures fcratched upon the bark of trees. All thofe nations, though unacquainted with that happy art which neither paints ideas, nor expreffes words by arbitrary marks, but merely ufes figns, to denote fimple articulate founds; are, yet, able to perpetuate the memory of events, by means different from oral tradition. We may then reafonably conjecture, that the Greeks, who, at the time of the fiege of Troy, do not appear to have been in a more barbarous ftate than fome of those nations, would also endeavour to hand down to pofterity, by fome kind of record, an account of their circum tances and tranfactions; and that Homer may have received his information from monuments of indifputable authority.

2dly, Though we meet with many abfurd and improbable ftories in the Grecian mythology, and even in the earlier periods of Grecian hiftory; yet the Greeks do not appear to have been more addicted to falfchood and fiction than other nations in fimilar circumstances. In the carly stages of fociety, while men are yet in a favage ftate, or, at leaft, have not advanced far towards knowledge and refinement; their ignorance, their wants, their hopes, and fears, naturally lead them to form many notions concerning the beings to whom they are related, and the circumftances in which they are placed, which a more accurate knowledge of nature, and of themfelves, would teach them to reject as groundlefs and abfurd. At this period, they regard all their pains and sufferings as inflicted, and all their comforts and pleasures as bestowed, by the immediate agency of fome fuperior beings; and the objects of their worship become almost as numerous as the differ ent accidents or circumstances which affect them with pleafure or pain. As they advance farther towards civilization, they add the founders of em

pire, the givers of laws, and the inventors of arts, to the lift of their divinities. And, by their ignorance, their credulity, and the wildness of imaginations, they are led to afcribe to thofe fuperior beings, actions, paffions, and characters, which are, almoft wholly, ideal and imaginary. Hence, in our inquiries into the carly history of nations, we find, to reward our labours, and to gratify our curiofity, often only allegory and fic tion,-the legends of enthusiasm and fuperftition: we find the peculiar deities of every nation, establishing government, promulgating laws, and inventing arts: we fee thefe fame divinities continuing to protect their defcendants and worshippers, to blefs and favour the arts which they have invented, and to punish the violation of thofe laws which they have instituted. We may, indeed, exclaim against the vanity and impofture of thofe people, who thus place themselves under the peculiar care of heaven, and reprefent themselves as being fo nearly related to the gods. But those tales and legends, which we juftly reject as fabu lous, fpring from a different fource s they proceed not from vanity and impofture, but from wonder, ignorance, enthufiafm, and fuperftition. Not only the earlier period of the Grecian hiftory is involved in fiction of this kind; but the Romans, the Egypti ans, the Mexicans, and the Peruvians, entertain us with as marvellous ftories, concerning their origin, as the Grecks. Had Juvenal reviewed, with liberal impartiality, the early hiftory of Rome, he would have found that the Greeks were not more inclined to the marvellous than his ancestors. The Romans, envying the elegant tafte and genius of the Greeks, fo fuperior to their own in philosophy and the fine arts, were unwilling to allow them the palm, alfo of patriotifm and valour. They, therefore, bafely prefumed to infinuate, that the Greeks owed the fame of the Perfian and Peloponnes

forenoon to fell him fuch a horfe at fuch a price? To which the other readily answered in the affirmative. He then asked him why he now receded from his bargain? The Captain faid, he had receded from it because the horfe was too cheap, and that he would not part with him unless he gave him eighty, instead of fixty moidores. Major Luttrell now ordered his interpreter to tell the Captain, that by his infamous behaviour he had fhewn himself to be a liar, a rafcal, and a fcoundrel. The Captain at this shrugged up his shoulders, and replied to the interpreter, he was forry the gentleman fhould take offence where none was intended; but faid, he would part with his horfe on no other terms. On finding this, the Major directed the interpreter to accquaint the Captain, that in France or England, if it happened that one officer beftowed on another fuch epithets as he had juft done on him, the officer fo grofsly infulted must and certainly would directly call the other out and fight him. The Captain, ftill preferving his fang froid, replied to the interpreter very deliberately, that what the gentleman faid might be very true, for what he knew to the contrary, but that he as yet faw no good reafon for preferring the practice of foreigners in the prefent inftance to that of his own country; that if he confidered himself as affronted, he should never be fuch a fool or a madman, as by calling out his antagonist, to offer him an equal chance of taking his own life, while he knew of a fafer and more certain method of obtaining fuch fatisfaction as he fhould judge adequate to the affront received. In other words, by ftabbing him unaware, or by hiring affallins to do fo.'-Such is the point of honour in this high-fpirited couniry.

But to return to the dramatical entertainment The theatre was neat ly fitted up, but entirely in the fame tafte with their churches and chapels; VOL. VII. No 40.

every thing was covered with crimfor damask, the curtains and draperies were of the fame ftuff, and ornamented with a profufion of mock lace, both of gold and filver. A confiderable deal more of company attended in the evening than we had feen at dinner, and the front rows of the boxes were full of ladies, who looked charmingly, and feemed to be there in the proper point of view. Their hair was done up in a wonderful variety of plaits and braids, with a great degree of tafte, and without caps, but a quantity of beautiful flowers, both natural and artificial, fupplied their place, and were richly intermixed with sprigs of diamonds, befides many breast-knots, folitaires and pendants of the fame, and other precious ftones. The performers were moftly of the profeflion brought from Lifbon for the occafion, and our entertainment confifted of three parts: The firft was a Portuguese comedy, intermixed with fome very extraordinary finging; the fecond was a most uncommon medley, but which I un derftood better, as I had formerly feen fomething like it in a puppet-fhow at Madrid; the laft was called a Spanifh farce, or Entremez, in which the actors attempted to fpeak Spanish, but did it wretchedly.

The performers had a way of drawling out their words, and fpeaking through the nose, so much more than I have perceived in ordinary conversation here, that I confefs I loft much of the wit and falt of the first part, and even many of the fentences, and the thread of the plot, if it had any. One thing I remarked was, that the laugh was chiefly kept up by the fmut and repartees of an old woman, who was employed as a procurefs, or go-between, and every time the opened her mouth was followed with bursts of applaufe. One fcene I particularly noticed was, that, where a young countryman, deeply fmitten with the charms of one of the ladies of the piece, took to bed, the uncle, in great confterna

tion,

tion, fends for a phyfician, who appears at the patient's bedfide, feels his pulfe, and makes him put out his tongue, on which he makes fome witty remarks, though not very decent: he afterwards afks the patient where his chief complaint lay? The patient replies, that he has had violent pains in his ftomach and bowels, but that fince he had a hearty fit of b-lch-g a little before, he was much eafier. This indecent joke produced a hearty laugh.

The next piece was more comprehenfive, and included more important fcenes of action, beginning, as it ought to do, with the creation of the world: Here we faw the (Padre Eterno) Eternal Father, with a long white beard, defcend in a cloud, with a great number of lights and angels about him, and give orders for the creation of the world; over his head was drawn an equilateral triangle, as an emblem of the Trinity.

The next scene prefented us with the ferpent tempting Eve to eat the apple, and, his Infernal Majefty the Prince of Darkness paffed the most exaggerated encomiums on her beauty, in order to engage her to eat, which, as foon as she had done, and had made Adam do the fame, there came a terrible ftorm of thunder and lightning, in the midst of which we had a dance of Infernal Spirits, with the Devil in the middle, all in high glee, and congratulating their Monarch on the fuccefs of his scheme against mankind; the Devil was dressed in black, with fcarlet ftockings; long ruffles, the frill of his fhirt, a broad lace on his hat, and a large feather in it, all of the fame colour. While they were exceedingly well diverted with their dance, a voice from behind the ftage pronounces, in a loud and folemn tone, the word JESUS, on which the whole company of Devils funk immediately under the ftage through trap-doors, from which flames and black fmoke were feen rifing, till they were shut.

As foon as the fcene was fhifted, the Eternal Father was feen again defcending, but now in great wrath, and without any lights or angels attending him. He immediately cal led for Noah, who, it feems, was ready in waiting, telling him he was fo provoked by the wickednefs of mankind, that he was refolved to drown them all together, and faid he was heartily vexed that he had taken the trouble of creating fuch a fet of ungrateful fcurvy fellows. But here the piety of Noah interceded in their fa vour, and at laft, it was agreed that Noah fhould build an Ark, according to the directions the Eternal Father gave him; he therefore orders Noah to go to the King's dockyard in Lif bon, and call John Gonfalves (which is the name of the prefent Mafter Builder here) whom he defired Noah to employ under his own inspection in the work, affuring him he preferred John Gonfalves's method to thofe of all their boafted French and English Builders, (this compliment to the na tion produced a great clap of approbation from the audience) after which the Eternal Father went up again to Heaven, and Noah to build his Ark.

Let no fnarling French critic henceforth cavil with your Shakespeare, for the irregularity of his hiftorical plays, which only included the fmall period of twenty or thirty years, which va nifh into a point when compared to the diftance of time between the Creation and the Flood, or between this laft and the following fcene of our piece, which confifted of a conversation between St Chriftopher, (a Giant) our Saviour, who was reprefented as a very pretty boy of about ten or twelve years old, but very poorly dreffed, and the Devil, whom I readily knew again, having the fame drefs he appeared in before. The Devil complains grievoufly to the Saint of the irreparable mifchief the coming of Chrift had done to himself and his kingdom, faid, that he could now fcarcely put

dows