— 
1803.] 
greatly the current price. This was the 
origin of a paragraph respecting the arti- 
cle silk, which I presume was inadvert- 
ently inserted in one of your late com- 
mercial reports, and the incorrectness of 
which has been shewn by your Coventry 
correspondent, p. 11. 
As your correspondent confesses that 
he is unacquainted with the proportion 
of Indian and Italian silk consumed in 
this country ; and as the circulation of, 
facts is the best means of preventing mis- 
representation, | beg leave to state the 
- actual quantity imported into Great Bri- 
tain in three years, previous to the inter- 
ruption of the ordinary course of impor- 
tation, viz. 
In 1803—Bengal - lbs. 405,631 
China - 74,538 
Italianraw - 325,630 
Ditto, thrown 384,764 
Ibs. 1,188,563 
In 1804—Bengal_—- 624,878 
China - 90,362 
Ttalian, raw $17,141 
Ditto, thrown 449,182 
Ibs. 1,481,563 
——— 
En 1805—Bengal - 844,659 
China - 72,041 
Italian, raw - 267,850 
Ditto, thrown 433,272 
Ibs. 1,617,822 
The total quantity of raw and thrown 
silk exported from this country in the 
above years, was 265,948lbs, which, de- 
ducted from the above, makes the quan- 
tity consumed, on an average, 1,340,667 
pounds per annum. Of this quantity, 
667,675\bs. or one half, isthe produce of 
Italy, the other half is the produce of 
India. The East India Company have 
for some years past persuaded themselves 
that by throwing Bengal silk into organ- 
zine they should gradually. do away the 
necessity of importing organzine from 
"answer very well, therefore i 
Italy ; the deficient supply of the latter 
has lately induced the manufacturers to 
endeavour to substitute Bengal organzine 
in almost every article in which Italian 
silk was before used; but the result has 
been a conviction, that for some princi- 
palarticles Bengal silk never can be used 
with equal advantage to that of Italy, 
from an inherent deficiency in its quality. 
fh some articles, however, it is found to 
: the com- 
ny inerease their imports of fine silks, 
607,675\bs. imported from Lialy may 
Mon7ury Mae, No, 175, 
Importations of Sitk. 
113 ~ 
be materially reduced, and allowing for 
what will arrive in various ways in spite 
ef all prohibitions, no very great defi- 
ciency of the raw material of this ma- 
nufacture need be apprehended, 
I remain your's, &c. Fi Je Gre 
EE 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, 
HE specimens of early dramatic 
writers, lately published by Mr. 
Lamb, will tend to throw considerable 
light on the subject of English litera- 
ture. There is one mistake very gene- 
rally received, which they willbe a means 
of correcting, viz. that Shakspeare lived 
ina barbarous age. We are taught to 
Jook upon his works with the same kind 
of wonder that we should feel on finding 
a large city filled with all the monuments 
of the highest art, standing in the midst 
of some vast wilderness. It is supposed 
that he steod alone at a time when all 
was barrenness around; that he wasa 
sort of terre filius, whose mind had nei- 
ther birth, parentage, nor education ; 
that he had nothing in common with 
others. ‘There appears, however, to be 
very little truth in all this. Shakspeare 
was a prodigy in. himself, not with ree 
spect to the age inwhich helived. IFfhis 
faults were the faults of his timie, his 
beauties were so too. He did not arrive 
at excellence by taking a different route 
from his contemporaries, but by going be« 
yond them. He was taller and stronger 
than they, he saw his way more clearly 
before him, and he moved with far more 
grace and lightness, but he was cast in 
the samme mould with them, and trod the 
same‘circie of the human heart, Shake 
speare does not need a foil; butif he did, 
it should not be sought in the impassion« 
ed scenes of the writers of his own age, 
It would be difficult to select from suc- 
ceeding writers any passages so nearly 
approaching to Shakspeare in spirit, life, 
and the true feeling of poetry, as some of 
those contained in the volume I refer to, 
Yhere is neither much good sense nor 
much good-nature in these high-flown 
compliments to Shakspeare at the exe 
pence of his contemporaries. It looks 
very much like an attempt to indemnify 
ourselves for the homage we are forced 
to pay to him, by our contempt forall those 
who lived at the same time ; and as to the 
probability of the fact itself, it is hardly 
to be supposed that the largest man ever 
seen should be found among a nation of 
dwarfs. Ido not see, however, why our 
respect for other early writers should in- 
terfere with our admiration of Shak- 
speare, 
