Ling. I beseech your honour, let me speake; I will neither trouble the company, nor offend your patience.

Com. S. I cannot stay so long, wee have consulted about you, and find your cause to stand upon these termes and conditions. The number of senses in this little world is answerable to the first bodies in the great world now, since there be but five in the universe, the foure elements, and the pure substance of the heavens, therfore there can bee but five senses in our Microcosme, correspondent to those; as the sight to the heavens, hearing to the aire, touching to the earth, smelling to the fire, tasting to the water; by which five meanes onely, the understanding is able to apprehend the knowledge of all corporeall substances, wherefore wee judge you to bee no sense simply; onely thus much we from henceforth pronounce, that all women for your sake shall have sixe senses: that is, seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, touching, and the last and feminine sense, the sense of speaking."

Besides the main stream of the principal action, there are numerous scenes between the minor personages, which do not only afford considerable amusement, but, likewise, give us interesting information concerning the manners of the times in which our unknown author wrote. Take, for instance, the following dialogue between the imaginative Mendacio and the gluttonous Appetitus, or, as he styles himself, King of Hungary.

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Ap. Hang this superiority, crowne me no crowne, but Bacchus' crowne of roses; give me no scepter, but a fat capon's leg, to shew that I am the great King of Hungary; therefore I prithee, talke no more of state matters, but, in briefe, tell mee, my little rascall, how thou hast spent thy time this many a day?

Men. Faith, in some credit, since thou saw'st me last.

Ap. How so? where?

Men. Every where: in the court, your gentlewomen hang me at their apron-strings, and that makes them answere so readily. In the city, I am honoured like a god, none so well acquainted with your tradesmen your lawyers all the terme time hire me of my lady; your gallants, if they heare my name abused, stabbe for my sake; your travailers so dote upon me as passes. O, they have good reason, for I have carried them to many a good meale under the countenance of my familiaritie; nay, your statesmen have oftentimes closely conveied me under their tongues, to make their policies more current; as for old men, they challenge my company by authoritie.

Ap. I am exceeding glad of your great promotion.

Men. Now, when I am disposed, I can philosophy it in the universitie with the subtilest of them all.

Ap. I cannot be perswaded that th'art acquainted with scholars,

ever since thou wert prest to death in a printing-house.

Men. No; why I was the first founder of the three sects of philosophy, except one of the peripateticks, who acknowledge Aristotle (I confesse) their great grandfather.

Ap. Thou boy, how is this possible? thou art but a boy, and there were sects of philosophy before thou wert borne.

Men. Appetitus, thou mistakest me; I tell thee, three thousand yeares' agoe was Mendacio borne in Creete, nurst in Greece, and ever since honoured every where: I'le bee sworne, I held old Homer's pen, when hee writ his Iliads and his Odyssees.

Ap. Thou hadst need, for I heare say he was blind.

Men. I helped Herodotus to pen some part of his Muses, lent Pliny inke to write his history, rounded Rabalais in the eare when he historified Pantagruell; as for Lucian I was his genius, O those two bookes, De vera Historia, howsoever they got under his name, I'le be sworne I writ them every tittle.

Ap. Sure as I am hungry, thou'st have it for lying. But hast thou rusted this latter time for want of exercise?

Men. Nothing lesse; I must confesse, I would faine have jogged Stow and great Holingshead on their elbowes, when they were about their chronicles; and, as I remember, Sir John Mandevil's travels, and a great part of the Decads, were of my doing. But for the Mirrour of Knighthood, Bevis of Southampton, Palmerin of England, Amadis of Gaule, Huen of Burdeaux, Sir Guy of Warwicke, Martin Marprelate, Robinhood, Garagantua, Gerilion, and a thousand such exquisite monuments as these, no doubt but they breathe on my breath up and downe."

Phantastes exclaims:

"Oh, heavens! how have I bin troubled in this latter times with women, fooles, babes, taylers, poets, swaggerers, guls, ballad-makers, they have almost disrobed mee for all the toies and trifles I can devise; were it not that I pitty the multitude of printers, these sonnet-mungers should starve for conceits of all Phantastes. But the puling lovers, I cannot but laugh at them and their encomions of their mistresses: they make, forsooth, her haire of gold, her eyes of diamond, her cheekes of roses, her lips of rubies, her teeth of pearle, and her whole bodie of ivorie; and when they have thus idol'd her, like Pigmalion, they fall down and worship her. Psyche, thou hast layd a hard taske upon my shoulders, to invent at every one's aske, were it not that I refresh my dulnes once a day with thy most angelicall presence, 'twere unpossible for me to undergoe it.”

Memory says:

"I remember that I forgot my spectacles, I left them in the 349th page of Hall's Chronicle, where hee tells a great wonder of a multitude of mice which had almost destroyed the countrey, but that there resorted a great mighty flight of owles that destroied them: Anamnestes, read these articles distinctly."

We are, however, compelled to take our leave of this amusing production, and we cannot do it better than with the following extract. It seems, that the year 1632 was as much

afflicted with critics, antiquaries, and newsmongers, as the present, or, at least, if the evil had not arrived to its présent extent, its novelty caused it to be as severely felt.

"Com. S. Come, good Master Register, I wonder you bee so late now adayes.

Mem. My good lord, I remember that I knew your grandfather in this your place, and I remember your grandfather's great grandfather's grandfather's father's father, yet, in those dayes, I never remember that any of them could say, that Register Memory ever broke one minute of his appointment.

Com. S. Why, good father, why are you so late now adayes?

Mem. Thus 'tis; the most customers I remember myselfe to have are (as your lordship knowes) schollers, and now adaies the most part of them are become critickes, bringing me home such paltry things to lay up for them, that I can hardly find them againe.

Pha. Jupiter, Jupiter, I had thought these flies had bit none but myselfe; doe critickes tickle you yfaith?

Mem. Very familiarly; for they must know of me, forsooth, how every idle word is written, in all the mustie, moth-eaten manuscripts, keepe in all the old libraries in every city betwixt England and Peru (is requisite.)

Com. S. Indeed, I have noted these times to affect antiquities more than

Mem. I remember, in the age Assaracus and Ninus, and about the warres of Thebes, and the siege of Troy, there was few things committed to my charge, but those that were well worthy the preserving; but now every trifle must be wrapt up in the volume of eternitie; a rich pudding-wife or a cobler cannot die, but I must immortallize his name with an epitaph: a dogge cannot soil a nobleman's shoe, but it must be sprinckled into the chronicles, so that I never could remember my treasure more full, and never emptier of honourable and true heroicall actions.

Pha. By your leave, Memory, you are not alone troubled; chronologers, many of them, are so phantasticke, as when they bring a captaine to the combat, lifting up his revengefull arme to dispart the head of his enemy, theile hold up his armes so long, til they had bestowed three or foure pages in discribing the gold hilts of his threatning faulchion. So that in my fancy, the reader may well wonder his adversary stabs him not before he strikes moreover, they become most palpable flatterers, alwayes begging at my gates for invention.

Com. S. This is great fault in a chronologer to turne parasite, an absolute history should be in feare none, neither should hee write any thing more than trueth for friendship, or lesse for hate, but keepe himselfe equall and constant in all his discourses; but for us, we must be contented, for as our honors encrease, so must the burthen of the cares of our offices urge us to waxe heavy.

Pha. But not till our backes breake, s'lud, there was never any so hanted as I am; this day there comes a sophister to my house, knocks at my doore, his errand being ask'd, forsooth his answere was, to bor

row a faire suit of conceits out of my wardrop, to apparell a shew he had in hand; and what thinke you is the plot?

Com. S. Nay, I know not, for I am little acquainted with these toyes.

Pha. Meanwhile, hee's somewhat acquainted with you, for hee's bold to bring your person upon the stage.

Com. S. What, me? I cannot remember that I was ever brought upon the stage before.

Pha. Yes; you, and you, and myselfe, with all my phantasticall tricks and humours; but I trow, I have fitted them with fooleries, I trust he'l never trouble me againe.

Com. S. O times, O manners! when boyes dare to traduce men in authority; was ever such an attempt heard?

Mem. I remember there was. For (to say the trueth) at my last being at Athens (it is now, let me see, about one thousand six hundred yeres agoe) I was at a comedy of Aristophanes' making, (I shall never forget it.) The arch-governour of Athens tooke me by the hand, and placed me; and there, I say, I saw Socrates abused most grossely, himselfe beeing then a present spectator; I remember, he sate full against me, and did not so much as shew the least countenance of discontent.

Com. S. In those dayes it was lawfull, but now the abuse of such liberty is unsufferable.

Pha. Thinke what you will of it, I thinke 'tis done, and I thinke it is acting by this time; harke, harke, what drumming's yonder; I'le lay my life they are comming to present the shew I spake off.

Com. S. It may be so; stay, wee'le see what 'tis."

This play has been commonly attributed to Antony Brewer, the author of the Country Girl and the Love-sick King; a mistake originating with Phillips, who, not rightly comprehending the plan of Kirkman's Catalogue of Plays, gave birth to a great number of similar errors.* The talents of Brewer, it is true, were esteemed highly by his contemporaries, but we have no proofs remaining in his surviving productions, which warrant us in assigning to him a drama so full of various talent as Lingua. The date of its publication is, moreover, forty or fifty years prior to the two plays of which he is doubtless the author: and it cannot be supposed that a genius equal to the production of Lingua would lie dormant for forty years, and then rouse itself to achieve a play of no higher merit than the Country Girl. The claim of Antony Brewer seems to us founded upon slightest grounds, and we lament that so much praise as would justly accrue to the author of this excellent play must still remain unappropriated.

the

* Vide Biog. Dram. Art. Brewer.

ART. VI. Disquisitions on several Subjects; 1782; 12mo.pp. 182. [By Soame Jenyns.]

We venture to assert, that there are few books in the language, of the same size as the little volume before us, containing more acute and ingenious reasoning, abounding in more lively illustration or more elegant and polished composition. Its author is Soame Jenyns; a writer of whose life or works it is unnecessary for us to give any account, as the particulars of both are to be found in every biographical dictionary. Suffice it to say, that he was a gentleman of the best kindindependent in his feelings and circumstances, and drawing a fund of calm and equable pleasure from study and reflection, and the resources of a cultivated and accomplished mind. Of the peculiar and characteristic traits of his genius, the little book, which we are about to recommend to the notice of our readers, will afford ample means of judging. What may be the share of public attention which the works of our author are in the habit of receiving at the present day, we are unable to state; but we are led to believe, that it is not very considerable, and that such as it may be, it is confined to his excellent treatise on the Evidences of Christianity, and his Enquiry into the Origin of Evil. So that we hold ourselves amply justified in noticing so late a production as the present Disquisitions, which possess both the internal claim of excellence and the external one of neglect. To those who do not possess this little volume we fearlessly recommend them to procure it, and unhesitatingly promise them a rich, though small, store of instruction and entertainment. This recommendation, however, we do not wish should rest on our authority alone; for we are well convinced that the extracts, which we shall quote, will be a sufficient inducement not only to purchase, but to read.

The Disquisitions are eight in number:-1. On the chain of universal being. 2. On cruelty to inferior animals. 3. On a pre-existent state. 4. On the nature of time. 5. On the analogy between things material and intellectual.. 6. On rational Christianity. 7. On government and civil liberty. 8. On religious establishments. Some of these subjects, it will be observed, are of an abstruse nature; but let not any one be deterred, by supposing that an abstruse subject must be treated in a dry and uninteresting manner. It will readily be seen, that most of them are of so extensive and deep an order that they cannot be fully discussed in so short a compass. But it is not the way of Soame Jenyns to run into full discussion on any to