I791'« LITERARY INTELLIGENCER. J4I 



this make in a climate favourable to its growth ! What a de- 

 lightful odour would it exhale, and how agreeable to the 

 eye would it appear ! 



Queries, 



W. 



HAT good reafon can our modern critics affign for 

 allowing only 24 hours to be occupied from the com- 

 mencement to the completion of a tragic plot, rather 

 than 24 years? — Cannot that fertile genius that can 

 imagine he fees, in the fcenery, the azure canopy, and 

 kings and heroes rifen from their graves, after an in- 

 terval of fome hundred years, to flirt an hour upon the 

 ftage, with equal facility, and much more piopriety, fup- 

 pofe a rational time admitted for the fuliSlment of the 

 fates of confpicuous perfonages, and the revolutions of 

 mighty fempires ? — ^Why accufe a Shakefpeare for carry- 

 ing his fcene, in purfuit of his game, beyond feas ? Muft 

 the faft fubmit to the critic, or the critic to the fad ? Is it 

 more, difficult to fuppofe tliat you are now in France and 

 now in Britain, than that you are altogether in France ? or 

 that the whole theatrical exhibition is not a mock ? 



T. 



A familiarity contrafled by the ftriiSefl and longefl: 

 continued friendfhip, does not difpenfe from politenefs ; 

 and the freedom permitted among friends ought always 

 to be accompanied with it, cfpecially in the prcfence of 

 others. As there can be no fincere .friendfhip without 

 efteem, at leaft to a certain degree, and in certain refpefts, 

 two friends owe to each other marks of efteem as well as 

 marks of friendfhip. Friendfliips are often broken, or at leafl 

 interrupted, becaufe that under the pretexts of afling freely 

 and without referve, they come infenfibly to behave with- 

 out politenefs. 



