Page 88.

We shall now see the pretty Helen in that dress, in which she has barefoot plodded the cold ground, in her pilgrimage to St. Jacques-led thither by pure love. The old Widow, and her beauteous daughter, will of course he introduced; to whom this holy pilgrim may be addressing her invitation:

Please it this matron, and this gentle maid,
To eat with us to-night; the charge and thanking,
Shall be for me.

The pilgrim's dress in Gravelot's print to Theobald's edition, is wanting in that grace which we often meet with in his design's.

The

moft

The late Thomas Davies speaks more candidly of her:

Helen's love is as honest as her parentage. It appears throughout the whole-play, that the paffion of this sweet girl is of the noblest kind : "Nature, fays Shakespeare in Hamlet, is fine in love;" that is, it purifies and refines our paffions. Before marriage Helen diminishes the blemishes of Parolles, because he is the constant companion of Bertram, and after marriage, though the might reasonably exclaim against the seducer of her husband, with the utmost delicacy she restrains herself from the least reproach: nay, converts a question, implying cenfure, to a mark of honour.

DRAM. MISCELLANIES..

It is scarce pardonable to pass over the spirited lines with which the widow's daughter encounters Bertram, in p. 88, without wishing they may give rise to some animated (half-length) portraits of them, from the words :

Mine honour's such a ring:

My chastity's the jewel of our house.

most pleasing stile of engraving, for this proposed print of Helen, would be that, in which Celia appears : : a beautiful coloured print from after Kauffman, and engraved by Bartolozzi. The dress may be likewise partly gathered from the print of Helen in Bell's last edition. And fee a lately published print of a Nun. I do not immediately recollect its title; but I think it is designed from a poem of Mr. Jerningham's.

Tail-Piece.

A Most interesting portrait of Helen, may be taken from page 79, as fondly supplicating her absent husband :

Poor lord! is't I

That chase thee from thy country, and expose
Those tender limbs of thine to the event

Of the none-sparing war? and is it I

That drive thee from the sportive court, where thou

Wast shot at with fair eyes, to be the mark

Of smoky muskets? O you leaden messengers,
That ride upon the violent speed of fire,
Fly with false aim.--

SHE may be drawn in half-length, in the style which is recommended for page 88-and a perusal of the whole of her tender address in this prefent

The dress of Bertram, might be partly taken from Bell's first edition; and partly from a very spirited figure in the print of Tarquin and Lucrece, engr. by Basan, from after Luc. Jordans; and the features of Bertram, might possess somewhat more (perhaps) of that keen impatience which is so finely expressed in this print. It appears from what the Clown says in p. 128, that Bertram should have one of the delicate fine bats, and most courteous feathers.

present page 79, will be the best guide, and the best incitement to an artist, for producing a spirited and graceful portrait of this sweet dejected girl. *

* SHE would appear well in page 149: as saying-Tis but the shadow of a wife you fee-but it would be impossible to receive any fatisfaction in introducing Bertram with her ; r; for the reasons given by Dr. Johnson, in his concluding observations on this play. If she were to appear in this page, she might possess something of that softened melancholy which is seen in the figure of Miss Macklin, in Bell's first edition-or there might be a group of half-lengths, of the King, Countess, and the other characters, looking affectionately on her.

THE King himself might be well drawn from page 138, as saying:

This ring was mine.

Or, as faying:

Had you that craft, to reave her

Of what should ftead her most ?

A LIST of such Prints as have been published from this play. Those I have not seen, are printed

in Italics.

1. Bell's two editions.

2. Hanmer.

3. Theobald.

4. Rowe.

5. A cut by Fourdrinier, in an edition, in 8 vol. 8vo. printed for Tonson, 1735.

6. Pope.

7. Lowndes.

8. Taylor's

L

COMEDY OF ERRORS.

No author had ever so copious, so bold, so creative an imagination, with so perfect a knowledge of the paffions, the humours, and sentiments of mankind. He painted all characters, from heroes and kings, down to Inn-keepers and Peasants, with equal truth and with equal force. If human nature was quite destroyed, and no monument left of it, except his works, other beings might learn what man was, from those writings.

LORD LYTTLETON.

Vignette.