The Ruins of Rigonda, or the Homicidal father. By Helen St. Victor. 3 vols. 12mo 138. The Woman of Colour, A Tale, 2 vols. 12mo, 10s.

Theodore and Blanche. Translated from the
French of Madame Cottin. 2 vols. 12mo. 9s.
Malvina. Par Madame Cottin. 4 vols. £i.
Ned Bently. By Mr. Amphlett. 3 vols. 12mo.
* 15s.

PHILOLOGY.

PROPOSITA PHILANTHROPICA,
Homa sum

Humanum nihil a me alienum puto.

NAVAL AND MILITARY BIBLE SOCIETY.

Patron, His Royal Highness the Duke of York. Vice-patron, His Royal Highness the Duke of Gloucester. President, His Grace

A Grammar of the Sanskrita Language. By C. the Archbishop of Canterbury. Thirteen Wilkins, L. L. D. F. R. S. 4to. £4. 4s.

vice-presidents. Treasurers, Ambrose Martin, Esq. Mr. John Stephenson, Secretary, Mr, N. Meredith, Mount Street, Lambeth.

The sole object of this Institution is to distribute Bibles among the Sailors and Soldiers of the British Navy and Army. It took its rise in the year 1780, and, by the aid of annual subscriptions, benefactions, and collections at various churches, it has been enabled to distribute upwards of 40,000 Bibles, and a large number of Testaments: with which two hundred and eighty of His Majesty's Ships, ninety-one Regiments, and forty-eight Garrisons and Barracks, have been supplied.

Ardnt's Spirit of the Times; translated from Many naval and military officers of high the German. By the Rev. P. W.--being the work rank in His Majesty's service, have, from for the publication of which the unfortunate Palm, of Erlangen, was sacrificed by Napoleon, the detime to time, made applications to the Soci stroyer; containing Historical and Political Sket-ety; and have, in the most satisfactory ches, with Prognostics, relative to Spain and Portugal, Russia, Turkey, Austria, France and Buonaparte. 8vo. 4s.

Manifesto addressed to Europe, on the Atrocities perpetrated by Napoleon Buonaparte. By Antonise Mordella y Spotorno. 6d.

Presume not beyond Meastire. A serio-coinic Letter of Advice, addressed to all the Editors of the Public Papers. By a Briton. 1s. 6d.

THEOLOGY.

The Lessons of the Church of England, taken from the Old Testament, and appointed to be read in the Morning Service through the year. With Short Notes. Printed on a large letrer. 8vo. 4s.

The Lessons for the evening service are printing in the same form, also accompanied with potes.

A Sermon occasioned by the Death of the Rev. W. Humphries; preached at Hammersmith, Oct. 9, 1808. By R. Winter: and the Address delivered at the Interment, Oct. 6, 1818. By W. Jay. 2s. Discursory Considerations, or the Hypothesis of Dr. Mac Knight and others, that St. Luke's Gos pel was the first written. By a Country Clergy

man 4s. 6d.

Scriptural Hlustrations of the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England. With a practical Comment upon each Article. By S. Wix, A. M. 8vo. 8s.

A View of the Progress, Origin, and Diversity of Heathen Worship, antecedently to the Christian Revelation. By T. Thomas. 4s.

Puritanism revived; or Methodism as Old as

Curate to his Rector. 2s. 6d.

manner, expressed their approbation of its design. From their own observation they have testified their conviction, that the Holy Scriptures, which teach men to be faithful servants to God, would teach them also to be faithful servants to their king and their country instructing them to be strong and of good courage, to fear God and honour the king." They have therefore expressed their earnest desire to have the Bible put into the hands of their men.

For several years this Institution was amply supported; but at present, it is greatly to be regretted, that, in consequence of the death of many of its most liberal supporters, its funds have so far declined, as to have become very inadequate to its benevolent purposes.

The claims of gratitude to our Sailors nd Soldiers are great and commanding. We are indebted to them, under the providence of God, for our safety, our peace and domestic enjoyments; which are purchased by their exertions. The maintenance of our laws, liberty and religion; our freedom from attack, invasion, and civil tumult; and our very existence as a nation; are all preserved to as by the valour, the dangers, the wounds, the blood, and the lives, of these brave and generous men.

Where then is the Briton who loves his

the great Rebellion; in a series of Letters, from a king and his country, who will not cordially Jend his aid to put the Bible into the hands of their intrepid defenders, and who will not add his prayers that the Divine blessing may attend the gift?

TOPOGRAPHY.

A New Picture of the Isle of Wight, illustrated with 36 Plates. By W. Cook, 8vo. 18s.

Benedetto, vicerov's steward Mr. Penley.
Marchioness of Caprara... Mrs. Powell.
Josepha....
Mrs. H. Siddons.
Teresa .....
Mrs. Sparks.
Grandees of Messina, Monks, Maskers,
Fishermen, Servants, &c.-The scene lies at
Messina, in the island of Sicily.

having been confined twenty years, and which the prior believes to be, unknown to all except himself and his accomplices: but father Michael having suspected the existence of such a dungeon, has traced out the way to it, and hastens to apprize the viceroy. In the meanwhile, Venoni, endeavouring to escape from hisprison, knocks down the party-wall, and thus breaks into the adjoining convent, and diswho had not been put to death, but closely covers his mistress, likewise in a dungeon, confined; and the deliverance of both is shortly after produced by the arrival of father Mi chael, with the viceroy and Josepha's parents,

Dangle.-Excellent, i'faith-But won't this appear rather improbable?

Puff-To be sure it will; but, what the plague! a play is not to shew occurrences that happen every day; but things just so strange, that though they never did, they might have happened!-SHERI

DAN.

Fable.-Venoni, a young Sicilian noble- Notwithstanding this authority, we cannot man, was on the point of marriage with Jo- help avowing that we think the incidents sepha, when her parents were obliged to visit of this play never did, or are ever likely to the court of Naples. During their absence, happen. There is such a mixture of horror Josepha was placed in a convent, where, it and improbability about them that defies even was reported, she shortly after sickened and all credibility; for who can believe that Celes died. Grief for her loss for a time robbed Ve-tino, the prior of St. Mark, could live onnoni of his senses; and on his recovery he such terms of intimacy and friendship, as he entered the monastery of St. Mark's, which is represented to do with the marchioness of was only separated by a party-wall from the Caprara, while he is keeping her daughter. Convent of the Ursulines, in which Josepha Josepha during the period of twelve months was said to have expired. At this period the in a tremendously horrid subterraneous cave, piece commences-Venoni is on the eve of lighted only by the melancholy glimmer of a pronouncing his vows; when father Michael sorry lamp, because she would not consent to gives him a letter from the abbess to the prior his libidinous passion; at the same time cajol of St. Mark's, which explains that Celestino, ing her mother and all her friends, with the the prior, had failed in an attempt upon Jose- tale that she was dead are buried, in the conpha's virtue, and that her removal from the vent of the Ursulines, in which her relations world had been thought necessary, to prevent had placed her?-But this burying alive is not her divulging to her parents the infamous conall: we have insanity and murder to boot, insoduct of the abbess and her confederate. Blind- much that our author again, as Shakespeare ed by fury, Venoni shews this letter to the says, waxes desperate with imagination," prior, who says to his holy brethren, "we are as he was wont to do in the MONK, and his all discovered" in consequence Venoni is pre-othergloomy and most extravagant productions. vented from leaving the monastery, and confined in a subterraneous dungeon, where the preceding victim of Celestino's rage died, after

On the recital of the fate of this victim to the rage of Celestino, we certainly expected something very terrible to follow, from the anthor's well known taste for the terrific and marvellous; in truth we began to pity the audience, and the lines of the Poet, describing a dead man and another audience, immediately came into our recollection.

The dead man gave a groan.....*
They groan'd, they star'd, they all uprose,
Nor spok❜d, nor mov'd their eyes:.
Had it been strange, e'en in this play,
To have seen that dead man rise?

His predilection for caverns, ghosts, blacks, and other strange auxiliaries to his muse, had fortified us in the expectation of witnessing something not to be met with every day, either in castle, cloister, or prison; but notwith standing this, the denouement of Venoui, is so horrid and improbable, and the pantomime atrocity so very glaring, that it excited the universal disgust of the audience; and, like them, we more than once wished the curtain would fall to relieve us from terrors no one could give credit to.

The noise and confusion was so great at the latter end of the piece that we could not by any means discover what became of the prior and his holy brotherhood, who were all represented to be villains alike, in compliment,

we suppose, to the reigning sentiment lately in vogue in France (that all priests are rogues) whence this piece derives its origin. It is taken from the French drama enutled Les Victimes Cloitrées, which was performed at Paris with great success; and when it is considered how forcibly it attacks the monks, we cannot in the least be surprised, as that order of people has been, by the fashionable philosophical currency, subjected to the most unmanly attacks of writers who chose to level their sarcasm and illiberality at then when they had not even the privilege of defending themselves from la liberté et l'égalité.

monastery of St. Mark. This pair of dangeons fills the whole front of the stage.

C. The party-wall that divides the two dungeons, and which is knocked down by the exertions of Venoni-a feat we believe not to have been equalled since the days of Guy Earl of Warwick, or of Jack the Giant-killer No. 2. represents the dungeons after the exertions of Signor Venoni's athletic powers. Of the performers, the most prominent was Elliston, who pourtrayed the character of Venoni with an interest and ability, which fairly entitled him to the applause he received. His industry has more than once reminded us of the just observation Garrick made to one of our friends: "If the performers, said he, would only be industrious, and apply that time to the study of their profession which they do to taverns and dissipation, you would have much better acting than you have; AND

THE MORAL CHARACTER OF PLAYERS KE

The audience manifested great disapprobation; and much must be curtailed to ensure it even a short run; the third act can never remain on the stage, in its present state. A most ridiculous masquerade scène helped to lengthen the play without producing any other effect, than that of adding weight to what was already too heavy; although like the comic wit of the piece it was intended to lighten it. Apropos, of this wit the following is a specimen: the scene, as our readers have already been informed, lies at Messina; Be nedetto says, "It I were a senator I would "have an act of parliament to prevent fat people from walking out in the dog days." In fact the humourous parts of the play produced no laughter; but it would be doing great injustice to the author not to avow that the language of the serious parts is in generally highly creditable to him, eliciting fine senti- a ments, finely expressed. When it is published we shall notice some of those passages which struck us as particularly worthy of attention.

We present our readers with a slight representation of the situation of the hero and he roine in the last scene, by which they will be enabled to judge of its probability. Such of then who have been abroad will be surprised to see a convent and a monastery so' nigh each other, and perhaps may exclaim, as a highly distinguished foreigner did to us, on viewing this exhibition: Diantre, nous autres, nous n'avons jamais vu pareille chose dans le monde mais, croyez-vous que John

Bull l'avalera?

TRIEVED; for my part, to preserve my reputation, I assure you that I am obliged to devote all my time to my profession." From appearance, Elliston seems to be closely fot lowing this advice; if so, he need not doubt of success; and what is still more in his favour, he may bid defiance to those reptiles about the press (hinted at in page 560 of our present volume), who praise or abuse in proportion to the plunder they do or do not obtain, and whose base prostitution frequentmakes good bad, and bad worse; to borrow phrase from Owen Feltham's Resolves, their foolish sentences dropt upon paper "set folly on a hill, and are a monument "to make their infamy eternal."

On Wednesday evening, Dec. 7, the aubation of the audience, desired it to be anthor, in consequence of the marked disappro

ounced that he would withdraw the piece, to write an entire new third act.-On the same morning appeared the following paid for puff, in a diurnal print :

"Indeed, this new drama seems to unfold new beauties every successive representation. It was disputed, however, which had more admirers, Venoni, or Love in a Tub; the latter certainly appeared universally to please."

Thus it appears that a contemptible dance has universal admirers, while Venoni, notwithstanding its new beauties every night, is left in the minority, and obliged to be written over again!-Surely this is a strange way of puffing, and worthy only modern managers, modern authors, and modern newspapers

Monday, Dec. 12, the Drama of Venoni, was again brought forward, with alterations, and an entire new third act, much to the credit of the author and to the improvement of the piece; as some part of the improbability has