PROPOSITA PHILANTHROPICA. -Homo sum, SCHOOLS FOR EDUCATION OF THE POOR. When we gave our opinion in favour of the intention of Mr. Whitbread's Bill for the better Education of the Poor, we thought it but consistent that a knowledge of what was already done in this behalf should be obtained and promulgated. This we are happy to see is put into a train, by circular letters issued under episcopal direction. We subjoin those addressed to the Clergy of the Diocese of London. The Right Reverend Prelate who so worthily exercises ecclesiastical jurisdiction over this immense metropolis, and its adjacencies, could not have taken a more interesting and proper introductory step. We coufess, however, that in our judgment a more complete return might have been procured, with little, if any, further trouble, had it included schools of every kind, under their separate distinctions. We believe, Mr. Beckwith could have given information of schools intended by their founders to communicate instruction gratis, or nearly gratis, in which no instruction is communicated: and a very considerable advantage might have arisen from the examination of the principles on which these schools are established: since, as the variety is almost infinite, somewhat approaching toward a model of what is most desirable, might have been found among them. Nor would much trouble have attended a proper report on the boarding schools, and day schools, with an estimation of their average number of scholars. The RISING GENERATION is of so much importance at all times, and never more than at the present time, that every in formation connected with its welfare deserves day schools, sunday schools, schools of industry, or any other sort of schools for the educa tion of the poor; and also the number of poor children educated in each school. This return I shall be obliged to you to enter on the other side; and send by the post, as early as you conveniently can, to, Rev. Sir, your faithG. O. CAMBRIDGE. ful servant, Second Circular Letter from the Archdeacon of Middlesex, to the Clergy of his Archdeaconry. Twickenham Meadows, Dec. 15, 1807. Rev. Sir, In addition to the account of the charity schools in your parish, which I' have already received, I must request you to send me a further return of all the day schools, and the numbers they are supposed to contain, as far as such information can be collected, where the children of the mechanics and labouring poor, of whatever sect or denomination, receive instruction at the expence of their friends.-I am, Rev. Sir, your faithful G. O. CAMBRIDGE." servant, We have the satisfaction of adding, that se◄ veral returns.have already been made; and it appears that one village alone can boast of having no less than 600 children of the lowest class under instruction in the art of reading, at the small price of three half pence or twopence per week. We allude to Isleworth, and when we reflect on the number of superior schools established in that place, any fears entertained on the education of the rising genera tion in this instance may, at least, be at rest. WIDOWS AND ORPHANS OF CLERGY. the diocese of Hereford was held at the Mitre Nov. 13, a general meeting of the clergy of coffee-house; present, the Lord Bishop, the Chancellor, the Custos, Rev. Drs. Morgan, Cope, and Yate, and many others. Dr. the attention of the statesman, and the moral-Cope, treasurer of the Clerical Charity, in ist; we add, of the Christian, also; and Christian ministers cannot be more in the way of their duty, than when they are watching over the moral interest of youth, which most surely is closely connected with seminaries as well as with systems of education. Circular Letter from the Archdeacon of Middlesex, to the Clergy of his Archdea conry. Twickenham Meadows, Dec. 5, 1807. Rev. Sir, The Bishop of London having signified to me his desire to have a return made to him of all the schools, for the instruction of the children of the poor, in, every parish within my archdeaconry, with the numbers in each school; I trouble you with this, to request that you will have the goodness to inform me what number of such schools you have in your parish, whether charity schools, the chair. The Diocesan, remarking on the decreased value of money since the commencement of that institution, the serious advance in the price of all necessaries of life, and the consequent pressure on the objects o the charity, proposed that the original rule for restricting subscriptions to a limited sum, however wise at the time, should be rescinded; and that the clergy and laity should be at liberty to subscribe, in future, to the extent of their benevolent wishes this plan was unanimously adopted. His lordship then set a laudable example, by doubling his own subscriptiou; which was followed by the gentlemen present, and we trust will have an influence on all their absent brethren. Dr. Cope yielded to the united wishes of the diocese, in continuing his able and zealous superintendence of the charity. Strong letters of admonition were directed to be written, in the name of the Board, to all arrearists. At the annual meeting of this society, lately held, J. C. Hampp, Esq. President, Robt. Partridge, Esq. Vice President, it appeared by the accounts, that 202 persons, besides the weekly pensioners, were relieved this year, making a total of 2420 since the establishment of the institution. The number of objects which received the benefit of the society this year, far exceeds any preceding one, among whom were many soldiers' and sailors' wives and children in distress, (whose husbands and fathers had been sent on foreign service) who were thereby enabled to return to their several homes. SCOTTISH HOSPITAL. Nov. 30, St. Andrew's Day, the friends and contributors to the Scottish Hospital and Corporation dined at the London Tavern. In the absence of the Duke of Montrose, the Marquis of Huntley was chairman. The meeting was unusually numerous, and among others were present Lords Hawkesbury, Mulgrave, Ready, Mr. R. Dundas, Mr. G. Rose, and many other gentlemen of rank.--The subscriptions for the charitable purposes of the society were very liberal; and, if we may judge from the number of those who have received relief from the funds of the institution, during the last year, the contributions must be well bestowed. In the last year, 1256 pensioners received occasional relief: and 185 poor persons, destitute of employment, have been enabled to return to their relations and friends in Scotland. SOCIETY OF ST. PATRICK. Earl Fitzwilliam has presented the Society of St. Patrick, in Liverpool, with a generous donation of 20001. The liberal manner in which the bankers, merchants, and others, have stepped forward to protect this infant Institution, docs them the greatest honour, and gives every promise of the growing prosperity of an establishment, which we have no doubt, will be found in its results to be a great national blessing. DENBIGH DISPENSARY, WALES. It gives us pleasure to find that while some of our great men are promoting the miseries of mankind, by boxing and other brutal exercises and diversions, our neighbours of the principality are worthily employed in the great work of benevolence.A meeting has been held at Denbigh, for the purpose of erecting a dispensary in that town, for the laudable purpose of alleviating the afflictions of the poor and indigent in that neighbourhood. Dr. Cumming, and the other medical gentlemen there, with a liberality becoming great and generous minds, have offered their assistance gratis, and we have no doubt, from the respectability of the gentlemen who patronise the plan, and the spirit with which it is likely to be supported, that it will be a lasting monument of fame to its founders, and a comfort and honour to the country. DANISH AND NORWEGIAN MASTERS AND MATES OF MERCHANT VESSELS. At a meeting of Merchants trading to Denmark and Norway, held at the Bank Coffee House, Cornhill, Dec. 4. 1807, G. Wolff, Esq in the chair, it was resolved unanimously, that a public subscription be opened towards their additional relief, to enable them to obtain many of the necessaries of life, of which they must inevitably be deprived, during the present inclement season, being cut off from all communication with their own country; and that in this appeal to the generosity of the British nation, in behalf of these unfortunate captives, all party views are disclaimed by this meeting, which is solely actuated by motives of humanity and benevolence.-That this meeting has heard, with the greatest satisfaction, of the kind and humane treatment experienced by several masters of British vessels, detained at the port of Dram, in Norway, where they have been received into the houses of the merchants, and boarded and lodged free of expence. A committee was appointed and upwards of £2000 have already been subscribed. Subscriptions are taken in by the bankers. DIDASCALIA. COVENT GARDEN THEATRE. Tuesday, Dec. 1, a new after piece was brought out at this theatre, entitled The Blind Boy. It is a grand historical melo-drama, of an interesting nature, abounding with excellent music composed by Mr. Davy. It is aided by pantomime effect, and fine scenery; and, what is a little extraoridnary now-a-days the incidents are brought about in the simplest manner, not once wounding probability; except in the guard scene, which requires some trifling alteration, as it is hardly credible to that Kalig and Oberto should so loudly talk quity of family joined with splendour."-Mercy on us! what an effect it would have on morality, and virtue, and dignity and NOBILITY, if a posse of the play-actors were called up to the House of Peers!-His Majesty might for instance [though, God bless him, he knows better!] create an acting manager of one of our theatres-royal, or a Pierrot, or even the gentleman who enacts Mother Goose,* a baron of the realm.-Yes, gentle reader, this might be done, for it was acknowledged in the case of Lord G. Germaine that His Majesty had the power of creating his chimney-sweeper a peer, though it was also allowed that remonstrances might be made against such creation.-But to be serious, where would be judgement, taste, Would it not be nearand sensibility? thus describes; er the truth to turn to our lexicographer again, and look for the word Degradation ? Previous to the Bind Bou the Provoked Husband was performed. Lady Townly was, fanguishingly, represented as it is called, by MissBrunton, who presented a piece of insipidity from beginning to end, without emitting one spark to shew the dignified manners of a lady of quality. How different from the original! which Cibber "the qualities she had acquired, were the genteel and elegant; the one, in her air, and the other in her dress, never had her equal on the stage; and the ornaments she herself provided seemed in all respects the paraphernalia of a woman of quality!!!”—The fine lady and the perfect gentleman seem now to be banished from our stage.-Keble's Lord Townly and Murray's Manly were the best performed parts in the piece. The low comedians were low indeed, swearing and taking unwarrantable liberties with their author, and substituting mummery and gross buffoonery for nature and simplicity. But we must not wonder, as Cibber says, " that the poor actors are sometincs forced to trade in trash for a livelihood." Since the above was written we understand that Miss B. has retired from the stage to render happy one of the peers of the calm, and a University paper remarks "that the choice the noble lord has made has evinced his JUDGEMENT, taste and sensibility"!!!— However inclined we may be to compliment the lady on her good fortune, yet we must frankly acknowledge, that (owing to our old fashioned education) we never looked on the stage as a fit place for the creation of peeresses! Those loud trumpeters of fame, the diurnal prints, have puffed off this circumstance as if the nation had gained some great advantage. Our readers will forgive us, if, differing from them, we quote the words of a manager, author, senator, and eke a patriot bold, who has more than once talked humourously of the dignity of the country: 'Pshaw! Is this a time for mandling tenderness, DRURY LANE THEATRE. Wednesday, Dec. 16, " a new tragedy called Faulkener, with scenes, dresses, and decorations," as the bills expressed it, was performed at this theatre, of which the following are the dramatis persona : Faulkener, an English Stauley, bis friend, an En- Lauretta, a cast off mis Mr. Elliston. Mr. H. Siddons. Mr. Powell. Mr. Palmer. Mrs. Powell. tress of Count Orsini... Mrs. H. Siddons. The scene lies at Florence, and the story consists of a young man (Faulkener) rambling in quest of his mother, who on the death of his father had kindly condescended to live as a prostitute with Charles II, but who afterwards retiring from the embraces of the monarch, was admired by a Count Orsini of Florence, who ignorant of her intrigues, married her, and made her an woman again. Faulkener is conducted to Florence, by Signor Benedetto, a kind of bravo, or, in plain English, the bully of a Signora Lauretta, who having been once the chère amie of Count Orsini, and being cast off to make way for his new wife, is determined to be revenged, and in the trae stile of honest * For they are really excellent in their situalion, and might be of use in composing a Court of Ease to my Lord Chamberlain, or the We have always coincided with our great a female Zanga, devises and pursues, in conjunction with her tool Benedetto, every plan she can think of for that purpose, and to render miserable Faulkener, the Count and the Countess. Her acrimony is active, till her bravo is " honourably murdered" as the author says, for telling Faulkener the history of his mother's adventures with the King, and of her portrait being still in the palace as one of his mistresses. Faulkener is committed to prison for the murder. His friend Stanley waits upon Orsini to get him pardoned, when a quarrel ensues on Stanley's relating the story of the Countess's life to her husband, and the Count is killed in his own house, by Colonel Stanley, because he would not (like Faulkener) believe the baseness of his wife's character, nor credit the assertion that she wanted to get him out of the world, by any means, as Lauretta had persuaded him; the Countess Orsini having upon all occasions refused to acknowledge Faulkener as her son, although she had several interviews with him in which she might have given that satisfation. His trial at length commences, rather ludicrously we must confess in the manner-she arrives, and informing the burlesque judges of his birth, parentage, and education, and producing a letter against poor Signor Benedetto and Lauretta, they acquit him. Returning home and seeing the dead body of her husband, she acknowledges her errors, and is left to repentance, whilst the intriguing Lauretta is severely punished in the death of Orsini, on whom all her schemes of vengeance had fallen instead of her rival the Countess. This is a most lamentable tragedy with a merry interlude, for there is a masquerade, and dancing and music forsooth, and if our memory is right, the musicians gave us, andante vivace, Je suis sorti de mon pays pour jouir de ma guitarre, which, to say the truth, we thought the best thing in this new tragedy-although the audience, not being like us in a dancing humour, most unmercifully disapproved of it. Our readers will perceive the plot is made up from the intrigues of two heroines who are at best but ladies of casy virtue, and who ought not to be exhibited in the manner here presented in any production that professes morality and virtue. If we are told that the principal circumstances of the piece though improbable really did happen, we answer that events of depravity happen every six weeks at the Old Bailey which, like this, would cut a sorry figure, if dramatized at our national theatres. There is a too frequent calling on the name of the divinity. The audience highly disapproved of making English Officers such adepts at assassination; a wag near us said the author had not only forgot his own country, but Italy also. However the Countess Orsini is certainly in character, if Shakespeare may be believed, for during the four first acts, she, instead of acknowledging her son, Does, like a whore, unpack her heart with words, And talls a cursing like a very drab, A scullion.-Fie upon't!--Foh! This disgusting history of two prostitutes we suppose is meant as a sequel to Mr. Monk Lewis's marvellous history of one, exhibited last season under the title of "Adelgitha, or fruits of a single error." If the managers go on in this ratio the stage may be made a register pour les filles de joie. The plot is said by the prologue to be taken from Daniel Defoe, and the author is reported to be Mr. Godwin, who has figured in the republic of literature, As Novelist, Historian, Poet, Pamphleteer, one of which titles he may still retain from the present piece, although we do not think Poetry (we mean dramatic Poetry) will be it. Justice to the audience obliges us to mention that it met with much disapprobation; and justice to the managers (for we love impartiality) enables us to add their notice to the public the next morning, viz. “ that it was received with unbounded applause from all parts of the theatre!!!" Notwithstanding their fiat, it has already visited The silent cell, Where great King Arthur and his heroes dwe!!! THE HINDO0 CITY, DHUBOY. The following description of the once celebrated Hindoo city, Dhuboy, situated to the northward of Baroach, is entirely new to the European world: we have reason to believe that there are in India many cities, now fallen from their original splendour, or even in ruins, which formerly boasted of their illustrious residents, and their own magnificence. They deserve the attention of the curious, as marking the manners of a part of mankind: and even the histories of their foundations are not without interest, as they manifest the mode of narration adopted by the natives; and their traditionary variations from simple truth. over the reflecting surface of the tank ; while all around, trees of the same species are seen overshadowing the Hindoo pagodas and splendid houses of the Bramins, who are a very numerous class of people in Dhuboy. I have seldom seen so interesting a spectacle as is to be observed almost every day in this city. Under the grateful shade of these verdant canopies, the weavers fix their looms, manufacture; and, together with the surand carry on various branches of the cotton rounding objects, form a most pleasing and gratifying sight, to a man who feels delight in the contemplation of earthly comfort, and of human happiness. As the harmless inhabitants never persecute, or even molest, any part of the animal creation; the face of this beautiful tank is covered with large flocks of wild-ducks, pelicans, and a variety of water-fowl, which remain in perfect security, and feed unconscious of fear; while the trees are filled with peacocks, cranes, doves, and many other very beautiful birds; and thousands of mon even on the very roofs of the houses. These animals swarm, to such a degree, in the streets of Dhuboy, that they appear far more numerous than the other inhabitants. DHUBOX, is an Hindoo city, that can boast of the most valuable remains of very remote antiquity. The fortifications which surround it are nearly three miles in circum-keys jump about, and play their antic tricks, ference; and the ancient parts, that yet remáin, are constructed in an elegant, and costly manner, being formed entirely of a beautiful hewn stone, having a covered piazza, supported by pillars and pilasters that are formed of triangular stones, and are adorned by very curious sculpture. The four principal entrances, or gates of the city, are yet more magnificently decorated, and exhibit a more expensive, and valuable species of workmanship, particularly that which opens towards the east; this is called, by way of eminence, the gate of diamonds. Many lacks of rupees were expended upon the decorations of this gate alone, and so great is the profusion of carved work and fine basso-relievos, and for the Indian style of sculpture, they are so admirably executed, that the most superficial and idle spectator must, of necessity, be forcibly struck by its magnificent appearance. Near the centre of this justly celebrated city, a spacious tank of the purest water expands its broad and placid surface, which is adorned by several small but beautiful islands, bearing groves of trees that are clothed by an eternal verdure. This artificial tank is surrounded, for the greatest part, by flights of marble steps, which descend to the very bottom of the water. It was originally made for a reservoir of water, for the use of the inhabitants, and was formed at a vast expense. Notwithstanding it adorns the centre of a large city, and that containing many very considerable manufactures, the banks are ornamented by beautiful groves of mango and tamarind trees, that suspend their luxurious foliage and fruits VOL. III. [Lit. Pan, Jan. 1808.] sident in Dhuboy, is owing to the universal The multiplicity of birds and monkeys, reprotection that is afforded to them by the Hinmerous inhabitants of the city, which is by doos, who are the principal and most numuch the most beautiful and interesting place I have seen in the east; and the appearance of so many animals, that in other places are wild and will scarcely allow a stranger to approach them, but which are here so tame that they exist under the immediate power of the lords of the creation, forms a striking picture, and recals to the mind of the spectator, the beautiful allegory of men in a state of innocence, when surrounded by all the monsters of the forest, and the various species of the animated creation, without fear of dauger, or dread of persecution. The scite of this city is so extremely low, ed how its early founders came to fix upon so wet, and marshy, that the stranger is astonishdisagreeable a spot (when compared with the delightful situations that almost every where surround it) for the foundation of so famed a city. But an account of its origin, which has been carefully handed down to the prelieved by the inhabitants to be true, at once sent generation, and which is generally beexplains the cause. I have little doubt but this story is founded upon fact; but, as almost all the Asiatic traditions, and what the natives term historical facts, are mingled with the most extravafitnacy with their manners, customs, and ligant fable, it requires a long and accurate in, Cc |