the performance; and they were all distinguished for talent of superior kind, and execution in the fullest contrast to each other.

Storace was certainly one of the most effective burletta singers in the world. She took business as a pleasure, and seemed always happy while employed. In the discharge of her public duty she was highly exemplary; laughed at colds and nervous complaints; used her shoes in the dry, and her pattens in the wet, to convey her to and from the theatre, and had not a grain of affectation about her. Nor have I yet done with the display of Kemble's activity in the present season; he made a very attractive comedy out of Mrs. Behn's Rover, which was beautifully acted; and just before the close, my most respected friend, Mr. Prince Hoare, gave to the stage a musical farce, called No Song No Supper, which must be delightful as long as there is any thing like the whim of Bannister, Suet, or Storace, in the successive ornaments of the stage. Mr. Kemble hus terminated a very successsful season, with little outlay of money; fertile of attraction, in the absence of the greatest attraction of all; and proved his management to be at least equal to his acting.

A circumstance at the other theatre this season realized a pleasantry a few years back. Henderson one morning rehearsed his Richard the Third in the manner of little Quick, and the company was convulsed with laughter. Mr. Quick, no doubt, was aware that in " every man's thought" the performance of Richard by him would be deemed a most ludicrous achievement; but he fancied it would bring him a fine benefit night, and he tried it. He had, however, much too high a veneration for Shakspeare to play it otherwise than seriously; so that all he had to struggle with were some tones inveterately comic, and the associations of himself with comedy by the audience; and these came sometimes into their minds uncalled by any lapse into usual attitude or whimsical utterance.

I have already noticed the preparation of the Crusade. It was by some strange management brought out in the run of the benefits, so that if it hit strongly, it could only proceed at intervals, and at most could be but a turn over to the following season. The burlesque chivalry of Edwin did not prove captivating, and the author considered the production as rather weakly. The florid poets of the time assisted him in the songs; but the truth is, that Reynolds, although occasionally highly successful in the play with spectacle and music, is never there more than half himself in fair broad comedy he luxuriates. The serious dialogue of his dramas always wants strength and poetry.

The summer theatre offered a few pleasing features. Palmer, a little recovering from his Royalty embarrassments, returned to

Colman's where he was invaluable-and Parsons, too, who had some odd mode of consulting his health, without forsaking his favourite usquebaugh, appeared there for the benefit of Mrs. Bannister, in Dr. Bartholo. Bannister, on his own night, wisely devolved the character of Gondibert on Palmer, and became himself a very excellent Gregory Gubbins through the long continuance of the Battle of Hastings.

The winter season of 1790-1 had scarcely commenced when the theatres were closed by the death of the late King's brother, the Duke of Cumberland. His Royal Highness was born on the 7th November 1745; in 1771 had married the widow Horton, sister of Earl Carhampton, and this match, while it excited some very unpleasant opposition to him in his family, became a source also of savage persecution out of it. The use that was made of it by Junius will never be forgotten. By this marriage his Royal Highness left no issue. Upon the subject of any other, reference may at any time be made to the Princess Olive of Cumberland, who will take every suitable pains to establish her title. The late Duke came much into public, was distinguished by great condescension, and good humour, loved music passionately, and passionately admired Mrs. Billington. You looked for his Royal Highness about the orchestra at the Opera, and seldom missed him. He as seldom missed the trial of Warren Hastings, while his health permitted him to attend; and thus he passed his life innocently and happily; not indecently opposing the government of his sovereign and his brother; and lending neither his countenance nor his allowance to any faction in the state. He had lingered some time under the combined attacks of asthma and consumption--had passed from Windsor to the coast, and back again to Windsor, with little improvement; and an inveterate cancer in the throat and mouth terminated his existence on the 18th of September. In conversation his Royal Highness had the hurried manner of his family, and gave easy utterance to any gay levity that struck his fancy. These trifles were malignantly weighed with the occasions that produced them, and brought forward to impeach his understanding; but had they proceeded from,a facetious judge, or, if the character be acknowledged, facetious father of the church, the mere expressions would have excited little surprise and not the slightest derision.

About this time an occurrence, which may, I hope, be termed singular, frighted the whole island from its propriety. I allude to the disinterment of a coffin in Cripplegate church, supposed to contain the body of the great author of Paradise Lost. Milton, though without any theatrical purpose, has left his muse among the graces of the modern stage, by having written, for Ludlow

Castle, his magnificent Masque of Comus. With the severe and truly Grecian tragedy of Agonistes our stage has never yet become acquainted. About the year 1741 a gentleman, of the name of Dixon, meditated its performance in public, and he had fallen upon some distribution of it into parts, which in his own opinion at least, was calculated to produce a very powerful ef fect. Sincerely as I admire the poem in the closet, (and few offer more frequent splendours of diction to my memory) I should be unwilling to display the hero upon our common stages: and should survey the attempt to do so, with an alarm that sacrilege was about to invade the mind as well as the person of the great bard. To the latter atrocity I am fortunately restricted, and a short account of it shall be laid before the reader.

The best things are so liable to perversion, that it will excite little surprise to learn that the profanation alluded to arose out of a design to do honour to the epic glory of our country. A monument had been intended to Milton in the church of Cripplegate; and this naturally enough begot a desire to ascertain, if practicable, the precise situation of his remains. Among the mouldering coffins of past generations tradition lends her feeble taper, in the memories of hereditary sextons and pew openers. The search was accordingly made under the immediate direction of Mr. Strong, a solicitor, and a man of science, and Mr. Cole, one of the churchwardens. On the 3d of August, word was brought to these gentlemen, that the coffin of the poet was found; it was a leaden one, and reposed upon another of wood, conceived to contain the body of his father. They immediately repaired to the spot, and ordering water and a brush to be brought, they cautiously washed the surface, to ascertain whether any inscription was yet legible, to remove all doubt upon the subject. The coffin appeared to be old, much corroded, and without plate or inscription of any kind. Further these gentlemen did not think it proper to proceed. Fully satisfied as to the material fact, they retired; and leaving the sacred ashes undisturbed, ordered the ground to be closed. But the parish had the honour to possess at this time, for its overseers, a Mr. Laming, a pawnbroker, and a Mr. Fountain, a publican; and at a merry-making at the house of the latter, the subject being mentioned, they resolved on the following day, to see all that it was possible for them to discover. They brought the coffin to the edge of the excavation, where the light fell upon it; cut it open with a chisel, both at the head and the foot, and had a distinct view of the body upon turning down the lead. It appeared to be perfect, completely enveloped in a shroud of many folds; the ribs standing up regularly. When they disturbed the shroud, the ribs in course fell. These miscreants made various attempts

to extract the teeth, and one of them, the pawnbroker, had a mind to take the whole of the lower jaw as a pledge; but propably from the failure of any present supply of his friend the publican's spirits, threw it back again into its place. From such gurdians, the coffin passed into the custody of Mrs. Hoppey the sexton's servant, Elizabeth Grant, who discharged, I suppose by some male deputy, the functions of grave-digger in this well-conducted parish. Elizabeth Grant, by the aid of a light and in company with the workmen, exhibited the body to as many people as chose to look at it; and the teeth and the smaller bones and the hair were, at vile prices, sold to a great number of persons. A player of the name of Ellis had taken some hair and one of the ribs away in a piece of paper. As this person was an ingenious worker in hair, he meditated a larger purchase; but he was afterwards refused admittance. Mr. Neve published his succinet account of the transaction on the 24th of August, and entertained not the smallest doubt that the body so treated was that of Milton; he closes his narrative with this strong and terrible sentence: "The blood of the lamb is thus dashed against the door posts of the perpetrators, not to save, but to mark them to posterity."

There could be but one opinion as to the shameful usage of the body but there were two as to the question, whether that body was or was not Milton's. Mr. Steevens, the commentator upon Shakspeare, distinguished himself, as usual, by the diligence of his inquiries, and the subtlety of his inferences. He decided against Mr. Neve's opinion; and maintained that Milton had certainly escaped this profanation, on the following grounds:

First-Because Milton was burried in the year 1674, and that this coffin was found in a situation previously assigned to the Smiths, a wealthy family, unconnected with his own. See their mural monument, dated 1653, immediately over the place of the supposed Milton's interment.

Secondly-Because the hair of Milton was decidedly of a light hue, and that of his pretended skull of the darkest brown, without any mixture of grey among it. Now Milton was 66 years old when he died, a period at which human locks are in a greater or less degree always interspersed with white.

Thirdly-Because the skull in question is remarkably flat and small, and with the lowest of all possible foreheads; whereas the head of Milton was large, and his brow conspicuously high. Fourthly-Because the hands of Milton were full of chalk stones. Nothing of the kind was found in the hand of the substitute, though time does not destroy the trace, where the

fingers are preserved; a fact ascertained upon a subject almost coeval with Milton.

Fifthly-Because from the smallness of the bones-the slight insertion, whiteness, evenness, and sounds of the teeth, it was most probably a female, one of the three Miss Smiths. The sex could not absolutely be determined. If not a female, it might be the favourite son, John Smith, for whom an expensive receptacle had been ordered.

Sixthly--Because Milton was not in affluence--expired in an emanciated state--in a cold month, and his funeral was ordered by his widow. One of such expense was, therefore, little likely to come from a rapacious woman, who oppressed his children while he was living, and cheated them after he was dead.

Such are the strong points of Mr. Steeven's case. I will not weaken them by some, which prove nothing but the writer's pleasantry. His concluding reflections every reader would complain, if I omitted. I therefore insert them for two reasons: first, as expressing a right feeling upon the subject; and second, as presenting a lively portrait of the very peculiar mind of a gentleman, with whom I delighted to converse; and who, to antiquarian sagacity, united a pleasantry, that seemed eternally "mocking the meat he fed on."

"Thanks to fortune (says Mr. Steevens,) Milton's corpse has hitherto been violated but by proxy! May his genuine reliques (if aught of him remains unmingled with common earth) continue to elude research, at least, while the present overseers of the poor of Cripplegate are in office! Hard, indeed, would have been the fate of the author of Paradise Lost, to have received shelter in a chancel, that a hundred and sixteen years after his interment his domus ultima might be ransacked by two of the lowest human beings, a retailer of spirituous liquors, and a man who lends sixpences to beggars, on such despicable securities as tattered bed-gowns, cankered porridge-pots, and rusty gridirons. Cape saxa manu, cape robora, Pastor! But an ecclesiastical court may yet have cognizance of this more than savage transaction. It will then be determined whether our tombs are our own, or may be robbed with impunity by the little tyrants of a workhouse.

"If charnel-houses, and our graves, must send
Those that we bury back, our monuments

Shall be the maws of kites."

After a careful consideration of the subject, the only reason for supposing this body to be the poet's is, that it was found