an affectionate wife. In that latter character, when Belvidera upbraided her wavering and irresolute husband on the subject of that assembly, "all made up of wretches," we could not help thinking that such true jokes should be more cautiously hazarded, as, bating the admirable Pierre of Mr. Conway, the epithet was too lamentably applicable to "the greasy rogues," without saving and excepting even her good man Jaffier himself. The personal requisites of Mr. Conway, the present hero of this company, bespeak an immediate interest in his favour. He has also the advantage of a gentlemanly air and deportment, plays with judgment, and dresses with taste and fashion.

Mr. Barnes has great comic excellence in testy and eccentric old men; he has a little bias to buffoonery, which, though very pardonable in an actor in his line, he would do well to correct. Mr. Radford, a young man of agreeable appearance, played Count Cas sel, Gratiano, &c. very decently. Mr. Atkinson sings a tolerable comic song, and plays respectably. Mr. Payne is a young man who has been on the stage but a few months. He is under size, and his countenance partakes an insipidity, which at present distinguishes his performance. As a singer he has much much merit. Mrs. Beverley, from the Edinburgh theatre, played second tra gedy-such as Cora, Valeria, &c. She is tolerably handsome both in face and figure, but seems rather an automaton at present in her performance, tragedizing trifles, and flinging her arms about at a great rate, when she intends to be pathetic. Practice, and a constant endeavour to "learn to feel," may correct these imperfections. Miss Booth, sister to Miss Sarah Booth, already mentioned, joined the company toward the close of the season. She is quite handsome, has a fine figure, and sings very pleasingly. Miss King is considered the first female singer. Her person is not good, but she is respectable as a performer, and sings with considerable execution. The residue of the company, consisted of Mr. Remington and family, Mr. Shaw and family, Mr. Foote, Mr. Harley, and some others, generally sufficiently known, and too tedious to enumerate, I therefore take my leave of you for the present.

P. P.

Theatre, NORTH SHIELDS.-I shall not presume to follow performers into the recesses of private life, as I have no direction to their lodgings, and am unacquainted with them in that character, neither shall I dwell much on funny song."-subjects that I leave to the penetrating scholastic Privado of Sunderland.* The managers are Messrs. ANDERSON and FAULKNER,

* Vide Mirror for last August.

Next to Mr. Faulkner in tragedy and comedy, ranks Mr. Flowerdew, a good declaimer, but too frequently suffers his sentences to 66 drag their slow length along."

The tyrants fall to the lot of Mr. Holmes, a gentleman always perfect and attentive to the business of the stage, but who destroys by his voice the expression of his eye. Mr. Lancaster sustains the characters pourtrayed by Mr. Munden in town, and evidently has modelled himself upon that gentleman's acting. Mr. Grove from the Haymarket, is also an excellent comedian, he sketches well, and his colouring partakes of glowing tints blended with "the mo desty of nature."

Messrs. Adcock and Wallis roar like lions, and Mr. Errington. murmurs like a sucking dove; Mr. Darley speaks more than is set down for him, and Mr. Bland can scarcely say Bo to a goose.

Mrs. Henley is the facetious old woman-facetious I call her, for it is impossible to refrain from laughter the moment she appears-to a person en bon point, she unites a good-humoured, comic countenance, and by well regulated judgment and chastity of action creates more real mirth than can the exertions of a whole tribe of buffoons.

DESCRIPTION

Of the Exterior and Interior of the

NEW THEATRE, COVENT-GARDEN.

By a Correspondent.*

THE rapidity with which this Theatre has been constructed is unexampled in this country; though one that was burnt some years back in Paris was rebuilt, of stone, in less time. A theatre is so much connected with the state of the arts in the country, that it naturally becomes immediately as much a subject of criticism as a new play. It is pleasing to accord with most amateurs in praising the new façade in Bow-street, which, without injustice to any other work, is the most classical elevation in London. We have had as yet few specimens of the true Greek style; for most of our

*This Correspondent is the gentleman who wrote the article in the Times, Sept. 12. He has here greatly amplified and improved his remarks, happily availing himself of a larger field for the display of his learning, taste, and science.

K-VOL. VII.*

architects have copied their Grecian orders from the modern Italians, &c. such as Scamozzi, Vignola, Serlio, P. De l'Orme, (too few from Palladio,) or from the remains of the ancient Romans, in whose hands the Doric, under the notion of improvement, lost much of its original noble proportions and characteristic simplicity. Mr. Smirke has taken for his model the finest specimen of the kind at Athens, which has escaped the ravages of time and war, or the more desolating barbarism of the ignorant Turks: The grand Temple of Minerva, called also Parthenon, and from its dimensions Hecatompedon, situated in the Acropolis, or castle of Athens. This temple (it may be observed for the sake of those not classical antiquarians) was erected in the time of Pericles by Callicrates and Ictinus, under the direction of the celebrated sculptor Phidias, who superintended many public works. It originally contained the famous statue of the goddess by Phidias, of ivory and gold, of which metal it had 40 talents (about 120,000 pounds of our money), and which was stripped off 150 years after Pericles by Lachares. The width of the portico was 101 feet 1 inch, and the height of the order 45 feet 6 inches. The depth of the building, which was a parallellogram, surrounded by an open colonnade, was 227 feet 6 inches. I shall just mention that the church of St. Martin in the Fields, with which the Parthenon has been compared for size, is but 80 feet 9 inches, by 161 feet 9 inches, and its fine portico only 66 feet 10 inches in breadth, and the height of the order 40 feet 8 inches. I have not the exact dimensions of the Theatre, but as the pórtico is a good deal less than St. Martin's, an idea may from these particulars be formed of the original example, now imitated on a reduced scale. The temple was reduced to its ruined state by an unlucky bomb at the siege of Athens, in · 1687, then defended by Count Konigsmark and Proveditore Morosini. By a careful comparison with the illustrations of Greek antiquities, I find that a scrupulous attention has been paid to correctness of Imitation. The ornaments of the tympanum and frieze, and at the corners of the pediment, are omitted; so is the interior row of columns, for which the situation does not allow sufficient projection of the portico. It is the opinion of many who have been accustomed to view such theatres only as we have built, that the style is much too heavy; but this idea, I think, will gra. dually go off, as the beauties will be found so much to depend on a certain excellence of proportion, by which "parts answering parts, slide into a whole." The disadvantages of situation could not be got over, and so far this specimen of Athens shares a common

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fate in London. As for the choice of the order for the particular purpose, some will think the Doric rather too massive for a modern theatre, and fitter for a bank, a church, &c.; they would prefer the greater lightness and elegance of the Ionic. Perhaps they are right, but the Ionic would have been more expensive. There ap pears to have been no necessity to resort to so much grandeur and cost as the Corinthian requires. Objections have been made to the entablatures not being continued all along the front, but I think the architect right here, in avoiding what might have appeared too ponderous. The relievos would have been crowded, had they been placed under such an entablature. There was some difficulty in adapting the ancient design, for the original had no wings. The grandest work of Athens, the Temple of Jupiter Olympius, had its entablature carried all round the outer edifice; but then it was supported by a range of equidistant projecting Corinthian pillars. In the Propylea, it will be seen that the trygliphs, &c. are omitted in a case somewhat similar.

Particulars of the relievos have been published. The following description, sold by children about the theatre, is drawn up by the artist himself:

The piece representing the ANCIENT DRAMA is to the north of the portico, and that representing the MODERN DRAMA is to the south side,

THE ANCIENT DRAMA.

In the centre, three Greek poets are sitting; the two looking towards the portico, are Aristophanes, representing the Old Comedy, and (nearest to the spectator) Menander, representing the New Comedy. Before them Thalia presents herself with her crook and co. mic mask, as the object of their imitation. She is followed by Polyhymnia playing on the greater lyre, Euterpe on the lesser lyre, Clio with the long pipes, and Terpsichore, the muse of action and pantomime. These are succeeded by three nymphs, crowned with the leaves of the fir-pine, and in succinct tunics, representing the Hours or Seasons, governing and attending the winged horse Pegasus.

The third sitting figure in the centre, looking from the portico, is Æschylus, the father of Tragedy. He holds a scroll open on his knee; his attention is fixed on Wisdom, or Minerva, seated opposite to the poet. She is distinguished by her helmet and shield. Between Eschylus and Minerva, Bacchus stands leaning on his fawn, because the Greeks represented Tragedy in honour of Bacchus. Behind Minerva stands Melpomene, or Tragedy, holding a sword

and mask. Then follow two furies, with snakes and torches, pursuing Orestes, who stretches his hands to supplicate Apollo for protection. Apollo is represented in the quadriga, or four-horsed chariot of the Sun. The last described figures relate to part of Æschylus's tragedy of Orestes.

THE MODERN DRAMA.

In the centre (looking from the portico) Shakspeare is sitting; the comic and tragic masks, with the lyre, are about his seat. His right hand is raised, expressive of calling up the following characters in the Tempest; first, Caliban, laden with wood; next, Ferdinand sheathing his sword; then Miranda, entreating Prospero in behalf of her lover: they are led on by Ariel above, playing on a lyre. This part of the composition is terminated by Hecate (the three-formed goddess) in her car, drawn by oxen, descending. She is attended by Lady Macbeth, with the daggers in her hands, followed by Macbeth, turning in horror from the body of Duncan behind him. In the centre, looking towards the portico, is Milton seated, contemplating Urania, according to his own description in the Paradise Lost. Urania is seated facing him, above; at his feet is Samson Agonistes, chained. The remaining figures represent the masque of Comus; the two brothers drive out three bacchanals, with their staggering leader, Comus; the enchanted lady is seated in the chair; and the series is ended by two tigers, representing the transformation of Comus's devotees.

Tragedy, which occupies the nich in the southerm extremity of the building, is a figure, holding the tragic mask and dagger.

Comedy holds the shepherd's crook, or pedum, on her right shoulder, and the comic mask in her left hand, and is placed in the northern extrémity of the building, next to Long Acre."

The execution is good, but they are liable to the charge of flat

ness.

The character of the front seems to require some corresponding boldness in the sculpture. In the design, might not some part of the ancient have been dispensed with? The emblematical decorations of the temples and theatres of the Greeks and Romans were intelligible to the whole public, and so, one would think, should ours be now.

Our great poets, who displaced the old mysteries and moralities which had existed so long, (see Wm. Fitz-Stephen's Descriptio Nobilissima Civitatis Londonie) are of more consequence, and much better known to John Bull, than the great successors of Susarion and Thespis. Eschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Menander, and Aristo

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