Monthly Re dew of Literature, 



[JUNE, 



to be the exact amount of the fortune Mr. 

 C. had given the lady of his comedy of the 

 Jew. 



Something more of Cumberland : 



Cumberland invited me, says Dibdin, to his 

 lodgings, to bear him read Joanna of Montfaucon 

 before it went to rehearsal, and asked me to play 

 in it. The reason -why he wished me to appear, 

 arose from his having put into the mouth of an 

 opposite character, addressing himself to me, " O 

 you have no genius, not you!" which, said Mr. 

 Cumberland, " being taken by the audience in the 

 contrary sense, will not fail to occasion three 

 rounds of applause." With all deference to the 

 venerable bard's opinion, I could not exactly co- 

 incide with it in this instance, and respectfully 

 declined the experiment. 



Mr. Dibdin gives a specimen or two of 

 the licencer's execution of his office 

 though not equally impertinent. While 

 at Covent Garden, says Dibdin, I wrote, 

 in a season of monopoly, and much arti- 

 ficial scarcity, a farce, which I named the 

 Two Farmers, and which Mr. Harris highly 

 approved and accepted. Poor John Moor- 

 head composed the music, and the piece 

 was put into rehearsal. Munden and 

 Emery were the two farmers; one a nar- 

 row, and the other a liberal minded fel- 

 low ; the former was named Mr. Lo- 

 cust : . 



When the farce was nearly finished, thelicencer 

 shopped its further progress, and at the desire of 

 Mr. Harris, I waited on him, to inquire what were 

 his objections to it. Mr. Larpent would hardly 

 deign to listen to a word I had to say ; and told 

 me, that if the farce were to be acted, no respect- 

 able farmer would be able to pass through the 

 streets, lest people should cry out "there goes an 

 old locust.' 1 I humbly submitted to the great man, 

 that it would not be to respectable farmers such 

 an epithet could, by any chance, be applied ; but 

 he turned a deaf ear to all I could say ; and the 

 .100 I had agreed for, and calculated on receiv- 

 ing, for successful ridicule of monopoly, were lost 

 by the sensitive apprehensions of Mr, Larpent. 

 On another occasion, the run of my opera of II 

 Bondocani was stopped in its career on the thirty- 

 third night, because, being just at the period of 

 Mr. Pitt's quitting office, there happened to be a 

 line in a song sung by Fawcett, which said 

 " When fairly kick'd out, I but call it resigning," 

 which said line had been written five years before 

 the opera was acted. The Orange-boven was pro- 

 hibited, because two or three songs were thought 

 too personal against Buonaparte. 



We alluded to Mr. Dibdin's e.nbarrass- 

 ments he has himself done so and there- 

 fore we quote the following statement re- 

 lative to a subscription for a monument 

 to his father's memory : 



Through the kind and unremitting zeal of that 

 most amiable and benevolent friend, the late Mr. 

 John Young of the British Institution, a large sub- 

 scription was procured, and several highly re- 

 spectable public meetings were held (Admiral Sir 

 .Joseph Yorke presided at the last) for the pur- 

 pose Of erecting a monument to the memory of our 



national lyrist Dlbdin's father ; but what arrange- 

 ments have been made since Mr. Young's lamented 

 death, or when the subscribers are to be informed 

 of the destination of their liberality, or to whose 

 care the funds are entrusted my brother and my- 

 self, as well as our personal friends, remain equally 

 uninformed. 



The persons who thus contributed are 

 probably many of them the very persons 

 who have been most amused by the younger 

 Dibdin's thousands of efforts. We prefer 

 the benevolence that relieves the living, 

 to that which is so often ready to honour 

 the dead ; and therefore we recommend 

 these sums to be handed over to the auto- 

 biographer. 



The Prairie, a Talc, by the Author 

 of" 1 The Spy, Pioneers,'" $c. ; 1827. The 

 scenes of these vigorous and not unin- 

 teresting volumes He far away beyond the 

 limits of civilization, to the west of the 

 American settlements, beyond even the 

 " father of waters," amidst the wild and 

 howling wastes, the world of /Eolus, un- 

 skreened by the forests and mountains of 

 the north, succession of hill and vale end- 

 less and countless, like the heaving waves 

 of ocean on the first subsidence of a storm 

 the hunting grounds of hostile tribes 

 countries yet undescribed to describe 

 which is the writer's main object, and 

 one which he successfully accomplishes. 

 The characters of the drama consist of a 

 family of roaming whites retreating be- 

 fore the advance of " clearing" and settle- 

 ment ; a solitary old man, who, though 

 born by the sea-side, has weathered eighty 

 winters among or near to the Indians, and 

 in habits and sentiments is himself an 

 Indian, except that he has a dash of Chris- 

 tianity in him the Scout of the " Mohi- 

 cans," and Leather-stocking of the " Pio- 

 neers," grown with his age more empha- 

 tical in manner, and garrulous in fact; add 

 to these the red-skin chiefs of the Siouxes 

 and the Pawnees, and you have all the 

 personages worth speaking about. Out 

 of these raw materials to make a narrative 

 calculated, if not very deeply to fix the 

 reader's sympathies, yet capable of carry- 

 ing him onwards to the end, implies no 

 ordinary powers. Mr. Cooper has de- 

 servedly won the title of American no- 

 velist. The field is all his own ; no Euro- 

 pean at least will contend the palm with 

 him. 



The story, if story it can be called, is 

 of very loose construction. A man of the 

 name of Ishmael Bush, of a rough and 

 resolute cast, unaccustomed and unable to 

 bear the restraint of society, quits the 

 borders of Kentucky, as the clearings ad- 

 vance, to penetrate into the far interior 

 accompanied by a numerous family of sons 

 and daughters, and a young woman, called 

 Ellen, someway connected, who has seen 

 something of civilized life, of considerable 



