of the performance being taken up with the Cid's imprisonment, his condemuation, the king's pardon, and Estrella's resolution never to marry the murderer of her brother. His lordship has added extracts from two of the most interesting scenes, in which we can discover considerable force of language and pathos of expression, though unequal to the last degree, and deformed by numerous absurdities.

We will not close our present observations without mentioning a peculiarity noticed by lord H. in the character of theGracioso,' which finds a place in every Spanish play. He is a buffoon, who jests in the middle of the deepest tragedy. Let not the reader suppose that the plays of Lope approach at all nearer to those of Shakspeare on that account: the following description of this singular personage in the words of lord Holland is very curious, and furnishes us with one of the most striking characteristics of the Spanish drama.

'He seems, indeed, invented to save the conscience of the author, who after any extravagant hyperbole puts a censure or ridicule of it in the mouth of his buffoon, and thereby hopes to disarm the critic, or at least to record his own consciousness and disapprobation of the passage. This critical acumen is the only estimable quality of the Gracioso. His strictures on the conduct of the characters, the sentiments, expressions, and even the metre, are generally just, though they would better become the pit than the stage. In other respects he is uniformly a designing, cowardly, interested knave: but Lope found his account in the preservation of this character, and was happy to reconcile the public to an invention so convenient to the poet."

But the principal reason, after all, which has established Lope so high in the favour of his countrymen, may be that all his dramatic successors, except Calderon, have fallen short of his merits. Philip IV. was one of the first among Christian princes who dared openly to avow the pleasure he received from the amusements of the stage; and he was a munificent patron as well as admirer of them. On his death the dramatic spirit, which had just been kindled, expired for ever, owing to the slavish and tasteless bigotry of courts, the gloomy character of the Austrian princes, and the proud fanatic ignorance of overruling prelates and confessors.

It remains for us to say a few words on the nature of the task which lord Holland has undertaken, and the manner in which he has executed it. We think his lordship entitled to great praise for directing the attention of his Countrymen to an almost unknown field of literary exer

tion, and for having turned to so honourable and useful an account the store of information and of critical knowledge, which his acquaintance with the language and residence in the country enabled him to collect. The manner in which he has performed it is also, in many respects, entitled to our commendation. His style is easy and unaffected, his remarks are generally very judicious, and his criticisms, where he allows himself time to make them, sound and correct. But, with all this, we confess ourselves to have been disappointed in the expectations we had formed from his lordship's known abilities, and the interesting nature of the subject on which he has chosen to exert them. In those very parts where we hoped to find the largest fund of entertainment, we were often greviously disappointed, by being presented with general remarks instead of close and ininute observation,with dry and imperfect notices of facts instead of a history of men and manners, with a mere list of works, or, at best, a catalogue raisonnée instead of an interesting detail of their progress, or the particular circumstances of national taste or of private history which produced them. The most important and curious part of Lope's history must necessarily be that in which he was employed in raising, establishing, and maintaining his high reputation against the perpetual assaults of his rivals and the influence of fashion. The detail of these transactions would have laid open to us a full view of the literary society of Madrid, the habits and manners of many illustrious and interesting characters, now hardly known to us but by name. We are far from recommending the practice of filling up the deficiencies in a barren piece of biography by drawing imaginary facts from sagacious hypothesis, and so making up a man about whom nothing is known, by attributing to him all that, in the nature of things, may be conceived likely to have happened to him. For such ingenious fabrications we heartily wish the present proprietors might obtain an exclusive patent. But we think that on a period of time so interesting as the life of Vega, and in a history of disputes in which Cervantes himself acted a principal part, Lord H. might have obtained and communicated a great deal more of valuable literary information than he has done.

With regard to his lordship's translations we have given one or two specimens which we consider as creditable to his poetical taste, but the principal part of them are from the play of La Estrella de Sevilla,' concerning which we cannot speak so favourably. In the first place, what could have induced his lordship to adopt in them the old tragic rhyme,

which has been rejected with contempt and ridicule ever since the days of Dryden? It is true that the original is also generally in rhyme ; but it occasionally deviates,and is throughout irregular; there is not a single heroic verse in the whole. It would have been an infinitely closer copy in that respect had his lordship given all to his translations more of a lyric form. But the truth is that translators lie under a great mistake when they imagine that they can give a better or more accurate idea of their original by a close, than by free version; on the contrary, the very peculiarities that please in one language, disgust in another; the most tender and beautiful play of Racine would excite nothing but laughter if dressed in rhyme by an English translator. Voltaire was well acquainted with this fact, and, most insidiously, translated some of the finest soliloquies in Shakspeare into French blank verse,the very name of which is ludicrous in the extreme. With an equally blameable, and equally imperfect, attention to closeness, his lordship has throughout followed the Spanish nearly word for word, the consequence of which must always be the most bald, jejune, and lamentable com position that can be conceived. For instance,

San.-I kiss thy feet.

6 King.-Rise, Sancho, rise and know I wrong thee much to let thee stoop so low.'

And again:

Inis.-Great heav'n! a blow! a blow to me!
King-What's here?

What is this broil?

And again:

'Gui. (aside)-My ruin then is clear.*

Theo.-Hark, steps below!

Clar. And now the noise draws near.

Est. My joy o'ercomes me.

(Enter Alcaldes with the dead body of Bustos.)

Gracious God! what's here!'

However, in the same page our eyes are attracted by lines of a very different description, in which lord H. has deviated from his unnatural sing-song, and shewn us that he can write poetry if he chuses;

is true he comes: the youth my heart approves
Comes fraught with joy, and led by smiling loves.
He claims my hand; I hear his soft caress,

Sae his soul's bliss come beaming from his eye.'

We forbear quoting further; the two next lines, unfortunately, spoil the whole again. If lord H. was bent on giving a literal translation, it should certainly have been in prose; but his readers, we are convinced, would have had a

Three Pamphlets on the British and Foreign Bible Society. 205

much more accurate idea of his original by the freest imitation, than by the tame and slavish rhymes which he has so injudiciously adopted.

ART. IX.-An Address to Lord Teignmouth, President of the British and Foreign Bible Society, occasioned by his Address to the Clergy of the Church of England. By a Country Clergyman. Rivingtons. 1805.

ART. X.-A Letter to a Country Clergyman occasioned by his Address to Lord Teignmouth, President of the British and Foreign Bible Society. By a Sub-urban Clergyman. Hatchard.

1805.

ART. XI. A Letter to the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, occasioned by Two recent Publications respecting the British and Foreign Bible Society. Riving

tons. 1805.

WHEN Mr. Reeves's proposal for a society for distributing Bibles on a new plan came before us, after making such remarks and animadversions as that proposal seemed to require, we took occasion to observe (Crit. Rev. July 1805, p. 261) that we could not profess ourselves very warm admirers of the then recently established British and Foreign Bible Society. The interval of time which has since passed over our heads has tended rather to strengthen than to diminish our objections against that institution and were we not of opinion that the more reflecting part of the public are already of the same sentiment on this subject with ourselves, the pamphlets which now lie before us would afford a suitable opportunity for a full developement of the grounds of our disapprobation. We shall however, upon the present occasion, confine ourselves to one solitary remark. There are already existing in this kingdom societies for the distribution of the scriptures, which afford many more advantages than those which are pretended by this novel institution, and are free from several objections of considerable importance to which the constitution of that society isjustly liable. A wise man therefore is bound, we think, by very strong ties to do his best to promote, to extend, and to improve those which are already established, and not to lend his hand to mislead the public to take up with a lesser good, when they might with equal ease, and at as little expence, obtain one much greater. The Society for promoting ChrisSian Knowledge,now venerable for its having been conducted

106 Three Pamphlets on the British and Foreign Bible Society

with the entire approbation of all good men for more than a century,continually distributes Bibles to a very great amount, and, we imagine,at a cheaper rate than they will ever be afforded by the British and Foreign Bible Society. But besides these, that society affords an additional advantage to its members, very little, if at all inferior to the preceding: for it supplies them, to any extent, with a large and excellent collection of Common Prayer books, books of psalms and hymns, collections for private and family devotion, some short expositions of scripture, several expositions upon the church catechism, books on religious education, and a vast variety of excellent tracts, many of them written by some of the greatest ornaments of the English church, upon all the several parts and duties of the Christian life. Among some sects of dissenters, there are similar institutions, which supply Bibles to the subscribers, and not Bibles only, but tracts, several of them very well chosen, and adapted to their peculiar views and tenets.

What then is the rational deduction from such a state of things? Is it not, that every churchman, who is prevented by this new institution from subscribing to the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, or, if he be a dissenter, from lending his aid to his own proper institution, does by the establishment of the Bible Society suffer an injury, and that in the most important of all interests, inasmuch as otherwise he might have had to use in his own family, and to distribute among his poorer neighbours, along with his Bible,: excellent moral, sacred, and devotional tracts, to which a great part of the religion still happily remaining amongst us is to be attributed ?

Upon one ground indeed, and one only, will this very material objection, and many others of very great weight, vanish away, or be very much lessened. And this is (we

wish that we had influence enough to persuade them to set about it immediately,) if they would convene the society, revise their resolutions, and declare that their Bibles should only be distributed in foreign parts. A society with such a design would, we think, obtain and deserve the hearty patronage of all denominations of Christians. It would be considered as an excellent subsidiary and supplement to such particular societies as we have already recommended. And while the subscription of the less opulent would proba bly be confined to the more extensive advantages of the institution of their native country,and their own profession of religion,the more wealthy, along with these, would, by their patronage also of the foreign society, further do their part