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and imperfection in all; and we must still return to Comus, which was evidently written chearfully and ambitiously, as the only, and at the same time the least specific production of the kind, that can be truly be said to have outlived it's occasion.

The piece now presented to the reader would endeavour to supply this deficiency in the actual character of the Mask, by keeping the scenic and fanciful part of it predominant, while it would still exhibit something more of regularity and human interest, than is possessed by Masks in general. But enough of this is suggested by the Preface. It may seem strange to some readers, that a drama professedly full of machinery should be written expressly for the closet, and not even have made an attempt at being performed. In the first instance, the author's intention was otherwise; and an eminent person, who relieves his attention to public business by looking after the interests of a theatre, and to whom an application was made on the subject, gave him reason to expect every politeness, had he offered it to the stage. As he proceeded, however, he

found himself making so many demands upon the mar chinist, besides hazarding, perhaps, in one or two instances, the disturbance of an unanimity which, above all others, ought to have attended the representation of such a piece, that he soon gave up the wish, and set himself, with no diminution of self-indulgence, to make a stage of his own in the reader's fancy. It is the most suitable one, he is convinced, for the very dramas which appear most to demand a machinist. When a storm blows on the stage without disturbing the philosophy of the trees,-when instead of boiling up a waste of waters it sets in painful motion a dozen asthmatic pieces of tin,-when Ariel, instead of breaking out of the atmosphere with ready eagerness at his master's ear, comes walking in with his wand like a premature common-councilman,-in short, when the lightning lingers, the rain leaves dry, the torrent has a hitch in the gait, and one flat piece of carpeted board performs the eternal part of lawn, meadow, and lea, of over, grown wild and finished garden, who, that has any fancy at all, does not feel that he can raise much better pic, tures in his own mind than he finds in the theatre?

The author is far from intending to ridicule the stage, the truest office of which (and a noble one it is) is the representation of manners. The stage does a good deal.. and perhaps cannot afford to do more. He would merely remind the reader of what must have struck himself whenever he went to see a play like the Tempest. When Masks were in fashion, the Machinist was an important person, and used the utmost efforts of his art; but it was chiefly in still life and architectural decorations, and even for these no expense seems to have been spared. The rest of the shew, however novel and rich, was of as easy a nature as it could be rendered, and subservient rather to the parade of the ac tors than to the fancy of the poet.

In a word, as the present piece was written partly to indulge the imagination of one who could realize no sights for himself, so it is more distinctly addressed to such habitual readers of poetry, as can yield him a ready mirror in the liveliness of their own apprehensions. There is a good deal of prose intermixed, but the nature of a Mask requires it; and if the reas

der be of the description just mentioned, and shall settle himself with his book in a comfortable arm-chair condition,-in winter perhaps, with the lights at his shoulder, and his feet on a good fender,-in summer, with a window open to a smoothing air, and the consciousness of some green trees about him,-and in both instances, (if he can muster up so much poetical accompaniment) with a lady beside him,-the author does not despair of converting him into a very suffici→ ent and satisfied kind of theatre.

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ODE FOR THE SPRING OF 1814*.

THE vision then is past,

'That held the eyes of nations,

Swept in his own careering blast,
That shook the earth's foundations.

No more throughout the air
Settles the burning glare,

That far and wide, metallic twilight, shone;
No more the bolts, from south to north,

Leap in their fiery passion forth;

We look'd, and saw the Wonder on his throne; We rais'd our eyes again, and lo, his place was gone.

Nor did the Shape give way

To mightier spirits like him,

Nor did upon that final day Elder Corruption strike him."

* From the Examiner of April the 17th, 1814.

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