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The Author of the Elegy on a Robin at Sevenoak having fent his performance to he published elsewhere, it cannot be printed in our Mag-zine. We with those persons would forbear fending their pieces to us which they mean to have printed in other publications. We must apologize to several of our Poetical Correfpondents, whofe pieces are not for. gotten.

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AVERAGE PRICES of CORN, from March 8, to March 15, 1794.

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THE

EUROPEAN MAGAZINE,

For MARCH 1794.

MEMOIRS OF THE RIGHT HONOURABLE WILLIAM BURTON CONYNGHAM. [WITH A PORTRAIT. ]

THE name of this Gentleman was originally BURTON. He is defcended from the very ancient family of that name in Yorkshire. Mr.CoNYNGHAM took the name which he now bears on the death of his uncie, LORD CONYNGHAM, of the kingdom of Ired. He is one of the Lords of the Treafury in Ireland, a Member of the Houfe of Commons, and a Privy Counfellor of that Kingdom, Vice Prefident and Treasurer of the Royal Irish Academy, Fellow of the Royal and Antiquary Socictics of England, and a Member of feveral Foreign Academies. The abilities of Mr. Conyngham have been particularly applied to onjects of national utility and convenience. He often speaks in the Irish S.oate upon matters of trade and policy, and, as few men poffefs more information on thefe fubjects, he is always Beard with the greatest attention. He is a very excellent engineer. The road that leads to Dublin from the Phoenix Park bears his naine; an honour beftowed upon him for planning it, and the exertion and talents he difplayed in its fabrication. And alfo one of the finest roads in Ireland extending upwards of fixty miles, from Rutland to Donnegal, was planned by him; a work, which, for ages, had been confidered as impracticable by all the gentlemen of that country. But the fubject which moftly engages his liberal leifure,is antiquity. The colection of drawings relating to Irith churches, abbes, and caftler, in his pofeffion, is cfteemed the molt valuable extant; and there are but few objects of antiquity in Spain or in Portugal of which he has not drawings, as he travelled through these countries accompanied by three ingenious artifts be employed for that purpose. One of thefe artifts relates, that threefcore workmen were employed by him, in

digging, and clearing away the rubbish which concealed a great part of the Theatre of Saguntum, in Spain. The novelty of this fight gave rife to a report among the people of that town, that Mr. C. was digging for the gold bells, valued at one hundred thousand pounds fterling, which tradition reported to have been concealed in this place. The fable obtained credit fo far, that the Prime Minifter of the day thought it expedient to dispatch oneof his Majefty's engineers from Madrid, to infpect thefe operations: the workmen notwithstanding proceeded, and difcovered the treasures which Mr. C. fought for; they confifted of a number of ancient inferiptions, bases and capitals of columns, and a curious Roman altar. Asioon as drawings were taken of these, antique fragments, the originals were prefented to the engineer, as a reward for his trouble. Mr. Conyngham is known to the lovers of vrt, by the patronage that he has afforded to an ingenious architect of his country, Mr. JAMES MURPHY, in his defcription of the Royal Monaftery of Batalha, in Portugal, from the dedication of which elegant work our portrait of Mr. Conyngham is taken, by the permillion of Mr. Murphy. It is with pleafure that, in thefe times of fiction and of luxury, we can prefent to the public a character like this of Mr. Conyngham, a man of diftinguished rank ad great fortune, who, facrificing the enjoyments of retirement, and difdaining the allurements of diffipation, confecrates his talents to the advantage, and the improvement of his country. We could with that his example was more imitated in thefe kingdoms, and that abilities and wealth like his were applied to ufes for which they were defigned by the order of Nature, and the directions of Providence. 2.2

THE

THE WITCHES OF SHAKSPEARE.

country villages, who fo much exercifed the fagacity of our British Solomon, King James the First.

A Swe learn from one of to-day's Newf- dition of the fuppofed difturbers of papers, that the Tragedy of Macbeth will be revived at the New Theatre in Drury-lane, with fuch expensive ornaments as the liberal Manager of Covent Garden has alrely bestowed on Hamlet, the following hints relative to the drefs and conduct of the Witches may not be improperly fuggefted in this public vehicle of inftruction and enter

tainment.

We are well aware of the general adherence of Managers to ancient prac tices. By thefe Gentlemen precedents are too frequently adduced to countenance detected abfurdities, or apologize for omitions that are never meant to be

fupplied. Till the influence of the public, therefore, is exerted, fuch deviations from propriety as have been long endured, will continue to difgrace the Stage in almost every drama that requires a peculiar difplay of character, fcenery, and dress.

The reprefentation prefixed to Holinthead's narrative of Macbeth's en. counter with the Weird Sifters, is ridi culously mifconceived: But Shakfpeare's idea of thefe dangerous females was wholly different from that fuggefted by the print before him. He, in conformity to our ancient Chronicler's defcription, has given us terrific bags, instead of the young well-dreffed ladies in the wooden cut; as the latter are by no means "women in ftraunge and forly apparel, refembling creatures of an elder worlde."

On the modern Stage thefe imaginary beings have fometimes been dreffed above their rank, and fometimes beneath it. By the claffical Mr. COLMAN they were elevated into majeftic fybils. Mr. GARRICK funk them down into beggarly Gammer Gurtons, with highcrowned hats on their heads, and broomfticks in their hands. A more fuitable habit for them may cafily be contrived, without running into either extreme; for a combination of rags and vulgar attributes, is incompatible with the folemn agency of fuch powerful Beldames; whilf a formal ftateliness of garb does but ill accord with the inglorious mischief to which they occafionally condefcend. Sybilline robes, therefore, are mifplaced on a "killer of wine;" and yet the reprefentatives of creatures who have the elements at command, ould appear above the con

The drefs of the Weird Sifters ought not to refemble any that cuftom has rendered familiar. The fteeple crowned hat, the neck-handkerchief, the gown, the quilted petticoat, &c. fhould all be laid afide. Loofe, dusky vestures, of uncouth or indeterminate fhape, may be fubftituted for thefe mean habili ments. Nor have we yet been informed why Hecate thould wear mittens, a plaited cap with a towery front to it, a ruff, a red ftomacher, and a laced apron; for fuch were the paraphernalia of Mcffrs. BEARD and CHAMPNESS in that character, at a time when our inimitable GARRICK perfonated Macbeth.

The fcenery alfo in the fourth Act fhould be illuminated only by glimpfes iffuing from the cauldron, and faintly brightening up at intervals. Our Author himfelf, in one of the choruffes to King Henry the Fifth, has defcribed the picturefque effect of objects vifible by the reflected light of nocturnal fires.

"thro' their paly flames "Each battle fees the other's umber'd face."

Thus alfo Milton, in his Il Penferofo— "Where glowing embers thro' the

room

"Teach light to counterfeit a gloom."

Acrofs the mouth of the cavern a thin bluish gauze fhould be extended. Thro' this hazy medium the royal phantoms would appear as fhadows, and fufficient diftinction be produced between the fubftantial and unfubftantial beings on the Stage. A vifion of abfent ladies was thus naturally exhibited in the after-piece of Selimaan í Azor, at Drurylane; and the fuccefs of the fame mechanifm was abundantly juftified by the skilful reprefentation of a fog, in a pantomime at Mr. Colman's Theatre in the Haymarket.

But till, the force of the most characteristic feenery will be aborsive, as long as the Witches themselves are reprefented by Comic Actors, who think their occupation's gone," unless they are allowed to folicit laughter from the loweft clay of fpectators. The judicious Mr. MUNDES, of Covent Gar den, has lately fhewn that Polomus mav

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