igns of their brother actors,
or would not venture to show themselves. The machinist only, with his
scene-shifters, who felt so deep an interest in the fate of my piece,
was tranquil and attentive to his duty, to produce a fine effect. After
the hurly-burly was over, he left the actors mute with their arms
crossed. He opened the scenery! and not an actor could enter on it! The
pit, more clamorous than ever, would not suffer the denouement! Such was
the conduct, and such the intrepidity, of the army employed to besiege
the _Arsacides_! Such was the cause of that accusation of tediousness
made against a drama, which has most evidently the contrary defect!"

Such is the history of a damned dramatist, written by himself, with a
truth and simplicity worthy of a happier fate. It is admirable to see a
man, who was himself so deeply involved in the event, preserve the
observing calmness which could discover the minutest occurrence; and,
allowing for his particular conception of the cause, detailing them with
the most rigid veracity. This author was unquestionably a man of the
most honourable probity, and not destitute of intellectual ability; but
he must serve as an useful example of that wrong-headed nature in some
men, which has produced so many "Abbots of Unreason" in society, whom it
is in vain to convince by a reciprocation of arguments; who assuming
false principles, act rightly according to themselves; a sort of
rational lunacy, which, when it discovers itself in politics and
religion, and in the more common affairs of life, has produced the most
unhappy effects; but this fanaticism, when confined to poetry, only
amuses us with the ludicrous; and, in the persons of Monsieur de
Beaussol, and of Percival Stockdale, may offer some very fortunate
self-recollections in that "Calamity of Authors" which I have called
"The Illusions of Writers in Verse."

ACAJOU AND ZIRPHILE.

As a literary curiosity, and as a supplemental anecdote to the article
of PREFACES,[173] I cannot pass over the suppressed preface to the
"Acajou et Zirphile" of Du Clos, which of itself is almost a singular
instance of hardy ingenuity, in an address to the public.

This single volume is one of the most whimsical of fairy tales, and an
amusing satire originating in an odd circumstance. Count Tessin, the
Swedish Ambassador at the Court of France, had a number of grotesque
designs made by Boucher, the king's painter, and engraved by the first
art