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We have with considerable attention looked over the late Mr. Cnsac's Hypotheses of Comets, and Theory of Spirit; but, we regret to say, to no one purpose, except that of bewildering ourselves. After wandering amongst the Constellations, therefore, until we had a narrow escape from not returning in time to meet our friends on the first of March, we now feel in duty bound to spare our readers a similar mishap, and, by declining insertion to the papers alluded to, thus save them from being either lost in soaring amongst the stars, or sunk in plunging to the bottomless depths of metaphysics. The MSS. will be returned upon application at our Publisher's.

Early Love is a subject too interesting to our personal feelings not to command our earliest attention; and R. E. E. R. will, we hope, give us many future opportunities of being thus grateful.

ALFRED BEAUCHAMP has much pleasure in acknowledging the politeness of PERCY Yorke, Jun, Esq.; though it is at present quite uncertain whether his kind present can be made available in the mode suggested.-Under any circumstances, however, Mr. YORKE's future correspondence will be esteemed a compliment.

Visions of complaining Authors and disappointed Publishers frowning upon our nightly slumbers, and haunting our "curtained sleep" in dreadful lamentations for our disregard of their neglected Volumes, have at length roused us to shake off these night-mairs from our pillow, by attending to the subject of their complaints, and to chase away these spectres from our library, by acknowledging ourselves in the wrong; and, as far as in us lies, making honourable amends. Their works shall receive our critical regard; and even now, to prove our sincerity, will we commence here,

"For let the frame of things disjoint, both the worlds suffer,
Ere we will eat our meal in fear, and sleep

In the affliction of these terrible dreams
That shake us nightly."

And first, then, for the most troublesome,-" The Gossip" is a work whose gossipings were not very popular, as they extended only to four and twenty Twopenny Numbers; and though, in these days of economy and retrenchment, an article being very cheap is it's strongest recommendation, it seems to have been of little or no avail in this instance, as a very premature decease closed it's talkative career. In justice to it's conductors, however, we must admit, that there are some few of it's articles, on which we should not be ashamed to confer immortality, by giving them insertion in our EUROPEAN; but we have no space to be thus liberal, and, with an anxious wish for better success to his next literary exertions, we here take leave of it's worthy Editor's gossiping.

Our next article is a curiosity, entitled "The Story of Pigou," setting forth, as the author tells us," how he hid himself in a forest,"-"how he was discovered quite naked on the coast of Malacca," and "how he saved an East Indiaman's crew from slaughter!" which, "with many other hows of as great charge," the learned writer assures us, “form the most perfect and laudable lessons of humanity that ever were recommended to the reading of young persons!" From this eulogy, however, we beg leave to record our dissent, as from the "highly finished Frontispiece," representing Master Pigon like a consumptive monkey with his hair and tail singed off, to the last page of this "eventful history," it is so extremely improbable, unnatural, and inconsistent, that we should be very fearful of it's giving the aforesaid " young persons" a knack of becoming equally marvellous in their own story-telling; which the world might be ill-natured enough to term lying. We regret the necessity for our being thus plain spoken, because the author either is, or has been, an instructor of youth; but what will our readers say to the "Master of the Lydney and Aylburton Grammar Schools" favouring us with such grammar as the following, in “An Ode addressed to the Nightingale," at the end of his Volume.

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"Perhaps, hermit bird, like myself thou art come, }.
For to weep in this solitude rude;

O'er sorrow, that's only befitting it's gloom,
And where folly and noise ne'er intrude.

For the heart by reflection in Solitude's taught

The deceptions that float in the day's sunny time;
And from meditation that wisdom is caught
The vision of fancy, the spirit of thought,
That uplifteth the mind to sublime !"

If our friends can understand this rhapsody, we most readily acknowledge them much better qualified to unriddle mysteries than we are.

We could add much

more equally intelligible and quite as edifying; but cheu! jam satis, and in pity we forbear.

UNIV. OF

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LONDON Published for the Proprieters of the European Magazine by the Exeactors of the late Asparne 32 Cornhill1 March 1822

M. William Farron of the

Theatre Royal Covent Garden

Engraved by T Thomson. Trom an original Painting by George Clint Esq.ARA.

EUROPEAN MAGAZINE,

AND

LONDON REVIEW.

FEBRUARY, 1822.

MEMOIR

OF

MR. WILLIAM FARREN,

OF THE THEATRE ROYAL, COVENT GARDEN.

WITH A PORTRAIT, ENGRAVED BY JAMES THOMSON, FROM AN ORIGINAL PAINTING BY GEORGE CLINT, ESQ. A.R.A.

Α'

He did act, what now we moan,
Old men so duly;

That the Parcæ thought him one,
He play'd so truly.

BEN JONSON'S Epitaph on Salathiel Pavy.

MIDST the vast and varied improvements which even our own times have introduced equally amongst the necessaries and comforts, as into the luxuries and amusements of life: there have been none more decided and more manifest, than the alteration and improvement of our Theatres. Contrasted with but the time of Garrick, how changed is the scenic illusion which now gives "a local habitation and a name" to the creations of our poets; and which mimics Nature with a fidelity that appears to bid defiance to all future rivalry! To Greece, the cradle of Science and of Glory, belongs also the honour of having been the Parent of the Drama; and from her first rude wanderers in the Cart of Thespis, and the Chorus of Eschylus, to the gorgeous Theatres and classic Performers of the present day, is a change and an improvement equal to any of those which Time has wrought, or History has chronicled. Nor has a less gratifying advancement taken place in the moral characters of those individuals, by the exertion of whose talents the drama is upheld, and the stage supported ; and our theatres may at the present moment boast of very many, whose private worth and respectability may proudly challenge comparison with those of any other class of society;

and whose excellence is as universally acknowledged as it is universally admired. To this honourable distinction, in it's fullest extent, we venture to lay claim for the subject of this brief Memoir; in the confident persuasion of our readers' equal acquiescence in our eulogy of his professional talent, and private respectability.

MR. WILLIAM FARREN, the present popular Comedian of Covent Garden Theatre, is one of three sons of the late Mr. Farren, of Gower-street, Bedford-square, formerly attached to the same Company in a rank of considerable eminence. The taste and inclination of our hero having early fixed upon the stage as his future profession, after receiving a superior education in the seminary of Dr. Barrow, of Soho-square, he made his debut, in the character of Sir Archy Macsarcasm, at the Plymouth Theatre, then partly belonging to his elder brother, and was most favourably received. Mr. Farren's talents were next transplanted to Dublin, where his success speedily procured him a permanent engagement and considerable popularity, and an offer from the Haymarket Theatre was consequently declined, from the eligibility of his present situation. Mr. Farren's name being, however, most

favourably introduced to the Drurylane Committee, by his Grace the Duke of Leinster, a negociation was entered into, which fell to the ground from the alleged excess of the terms demanded by that gentleman. It was about this time that a series of disturbances, arising from the disappointment of a favourite performance, compelled the premature close of the Dublin Theatre, and the surrender of it's management into other hands; in consequence of which, on it's re-opening, Mr. W. Farren was announced Stage Manager with the full consent of the Proprietors, and to the satisfaction of the public. In the succeeding summer, the Drurylane Committee offered the terms which they bad previously rejected, but which Mr. Farren, having stipulated to remain in Ireland for a period of three years, in his turn refused the acceptance of. In the autumn of 1817, our hero was introduced to Mr. Harris, and accepted a most liberal engagement for Covent Garden; where, having bidden farewell to his Dublin friends, under the high patronage of the Lord Lieutenant, on the 19th of August 1818; he made his first bow to a London audience, in the character of Sir Peter Teazle, on Thursday the 10th of the following September. Mr. Farren's success in the metropolis

must have fully equalled, if not have exceeded, the warmest anticipations of his most sanguine friends. His successive performances of Lord Ogleby, Sir Anthony Absolute, Lovegold, Sir Fretful Plagiary, and similar characters, were a series of new triumphs to his fame, and conferred new distinctions on his talent. While in the former and most difficult of these arduous parts he was admitted. to have rivalled or eclipsed the cele brated original performer Mr. King, whose representation had been confidently pronounced inimitable. A more rapid rise to popularity and eminence was probably never before witnessed upon the stage, than in the instance of Mr. Farren; while the general opinion of his merit is confirmed by every repetition of his old characters, and extended by his every appearance in a new one. We have entered so fully and so frequently into an analysis of the very correct study evinced in these various performances, that it is quite unnecessary for us again to enter upon a course of criticism, which must be principally encomium. Few actors of the present day are so constantly before the public, and perhaps none are less likely to occasion disappointment to the pleasurable anticipations of their audience, than Mr. William Farren,

RETROSPECTION.

AS we sail from the shore of a land that we love,
And the waves urge us onward, in mist we depart;
Yet we turn to it still, and wherever we rove,

It is traced on the memory, and drawn on the heart.
And though soon in a far-distant region we stand,
On a tropical desart, or cold northern plain,

There Fancy will oft with her talisman-wand

Bring back to cur sight the dear country again.

And 'tis thus too with life:-As we glide down it's stream,
The gaily-gilt vision of Infancy dies;

And the Youth that was tinged with it's last parting gleam,
Becomes dim as it upward to Manhood shall rise.
Old Age is too far from the bright-beaming spot,
For e'en one lovely ray on it's ruins to pour;
And the few happy moments which then are our lot,

Are when blest in our dreams, we are youthful once more.

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