The National Register. — London, England, 1817-04-28 00:00:00

APRIL S. THE ROYAL FAMILY. II ER MAJESTYS DRAWING-ROOM. Wednesday, being St. George's dav, had been select ed as the day on which the birth of he Prince Regent was to be observed, instead of the I 2th of August, and a Drawing-room and other splendours, were of course appointed We regret, however, to state, that a sudden indisposition of the Queen, which occurred in the course of the preceding night, prevented the Drawing room from taking place. Sir H. Huila(' attended her Majesty and issued the following bulletin : Qui en's Palace, 9 o'clock, A. M. April 23. " The Queen having betm intliAposed in the night, her Ma jemy iv not able to receive company at the thawing-room this A Supplementary Gazette to the same effect was pub lished, and posted up at St. James's Palace, and is dif ferent parts of London. It was at first supposed the Drawing-room would go on, and that the Princesses would receive the company in their Royal Mother's name ; but after due consideration and consulation, it VMS concluded that it would be deemed indecorous on the same floor where the Queen was confined by indisposition, to be holding a Gala Court. • _ It was not till a little after nine that it was finally determined to postpone the Drawing-mom. The mornino , was ushered in with the ringing of bells. The Guards' mounted in white waiters, and wore Dew clo•lies. Carlton House was thronged during the whole of the day with all ranks, paying their respect fal ,:ongratulations. There were to have Wen various other tokens of cspect and rejoicings similar to those ob served on the King's birth-day, had the birth-day Court taken place. Tae Tower guns fired at one o'clock : the firing of the Park guns was dispensed with in conse quence of the indispoltion of the Queer. In the evening the Theatres, the Royal Traacsmen house , :, &C. were illuminated. Her Majesty was bled three times on Wednesday.— As soon as the Queen is sufficiently recovered, her Ma jesty will hold a drawing-room. It is said that it will be the last which her Majesty intends to hold, as the fatigue is too great tbr • er constitution to sustain. Saturday's Bulletin was as follows: (.I..een has had 1.0 rt•lnen or ter nsin in her side, LAI Is free trim fever. Her Majesty is cia.vakscent." Monday the Prince Regent held a Levee at Carlton house, which was very numerously and splendidly at tended. The day being remarkably fine, a great crowd was attracted in Pa and its environs ; the squari of Waterloo-place was opened fhr the first time, fin- the accommodation of Carriages, &c. which was a great ma venience. The bands of the Life Guards and the Guard of Honour played alternately.—The former sounded their trumpets on the ap e roach of the Leaches of the Royal Fatally. The Regent came from his private apart meats soon after the appointed time, and proceeded into his closet, where he received the Field-officer in wait ing with the return of the effective state of the three regiments of Foot Guards, and afterwards received the Foreign Ambassadors and the Cabinet Ministers, the Great Officers of State, and those win) have the privi lege of the entre : among whom was the Duke of Wel lington, who was introduced to the Regent upon his ar rival in England, having arrived from Paris in 48 hours. His Grace appeared much stouter and in better health than when he was in England before. He was received With every degree of congratulation by the Prince Re gent, and most of the crowded Court. He left the dis tinguished assemblage at an early hour, and long before numbers of those attending the general Levee had been introduced. Prince Estechazy, the Duke of Argyll, Earls Fitzwilliam and Aylesbury, and several others came in state, and displayed most splendid equipages. Among the listingnished characters were the Dukes of York, Clarence, and Cumberland ; the Archbishop of York, the Lord Primate of Ireland, the Judge of the Admiralty, the Attorney and Solicitor General, Gen. Hammond, the Equery in Waiting ; the Master of the Horse, and the Chamberlain to the Queen, the Advocate General, &c. &c, Among the company we observed the names of a few who are not often at Court : such as Lord Fitzwilliam Lora Dudley and Ward, Lord Kinnaird Lord George Cavendilit, Sir F. Burdett, Mr. W. Smith. and Mr. T. Coke. A great number attended for the purpose of pre senting Addresses. The Princess Charlotte, as we learn from good au thority, is in a situation which must gratify the nation at large, and gig a an additional security to the House of Brunswick. THE REV. MR. WRIGHT.—The passage in Mr. Wright's sermon, preached at Liverpool, on ti n : Bth, and ohjected to as blasphemously denying the doctrine of a future state, is as follows; " Hence I conclude that body and mind are both mortal ; both decay to gether, both die together, and will be both raisod to gether to life and immortality." Thus it oppears, that the preacher holds the toctrine of materialism, as main taitted by the late 1)r. Priestley. It appears we were rai,takvn with respect to the nasne of this Gentleman : the Liverpool Paper was correct : John Wrizht we do not know. THE NATIONAL REGIS' REFIEW OF NEW BOOKS. _....1.1.••••_ There is a sort of natural propensity in cettam classes of his Majesty's subjects to indulge in a laugh at the failings, the errors, and even the misfortunes of the principal personages attached to the Royal Household. We certainly cannot approve of this feeling: it but ill accords with their obedience as subjects, or their duty as Christians. The ebullitions of wit, however, often know no bounds, and the ill nature of satire is prover bial. The press teems with lampoons, satires, and bur lesque directed against the Members of the Royal Fa mily. We have recently perused a novel of this Lind, entitled " The Pavilion ; or, a Month at Brighton. A Satirical Novel, by Humphrey Hedgehog, Esq. Au thor of ' A Month in Town,' General Post Bag,' Rejected Odes,' &c. in three volumes." We will not attempt to analyze this whimsical and not always correct production. It is levelled at the Prince Regent, who will probably not much relish the satire with which it abounds, though plaistered over with the following " Conclusion, ' which is, by far, in our mind, the best part of the book. " It was a very short time after the return of the Prince to town, that a traitorous attack was made upon his life by a •et of unprincipled raffiam; yet, this attack which, thronol the knodoess of Provido.once, was defeat -41, had nu effect In altering the resolution Ito had formed to make a generous uctifire to lessen the distressts of the public; fur his royal nighties:: embraced the very tir-t favourable apportimity to convey to the public his determination to give up no les , than out fifth of the income appro i n Wed to his household expenet s by a vote of ornament. an 1X:111114o %Inch no only invited the adoption ut tithe's, but, on every tonirria docrd and loyal mind, produced the firm conviction that his roval highness had the good of the country at heart; anal, in spite of every assertion which had been made to the contrary, and corroborated by the unwise policy of ministers, pro, scssed at least that paternal principle, on the future enercise of valve!) the nal ooight ressodahly ram-Mate, in all periods of general distress, and which must give dim a eiglin to the gratitude if every thinking hull , iduid." Antirc pleasing and interesting publication has just been put into our hands, entiae.l " Melincourt. By the Author of a Headlong Hall." Titis novel is also in three volumes. It is, however, of the satiric stamp; but of' sou►.: toltrabiy chaste and very amusing nature ; and though we have no great partiality for these sort of productions in any shape, we can safely recommend " Melimmart" to the perusal of our readers, without, however, pledging o trs.:lves for the accuracy of the auth deliacationh ; unl still less of recom mending the work, witit any other view gran that of affording the reader a day's amusement at a reasonable expence. " Laou-Seng-Urh, or r An Heir in his 011 Age,' a ChinZse Dr. in,,," is a work of ntocit greater tuerit than either of the andre u. O The viex of the dramatic re presentations of the Cuinese is a truiy interesting por tion of tins elegant little work. "The Comedy of " Au Heir in his Old Age," is taken from we solar culleetiuu AS that of the " Orp tan of Cimo." It is the t.anslation of Mr. DJ% is. a writer on the estaotesii ment of the East India Company's factory at Canton, and a suit of the Director of that 114,111 . ; a young matt who greatly distinguished limisetf at the Cuile.:,.! ..f Hertfoi .1, and oue fruw Wilo.ll much curious and valuable infolunatmii may he expected, on the state of literature of C atria. The ttansla tioa Sias sent from Canton to the Cum of Directors, as a literary curiosity, and placed in their library at the India Douse; which, it is almost needless to say, is as free and de cessable to those who may be disposed to make use ut It, as any public library in the kingdom; and the Editor reels it due to the Court of Directors to add, that inimediattly on their being made acquainted with his opinion, that the play ought to be published, the original copy was sent to hint, with tin ti perinksion to print it. " Mr. Davis is gone up with Lord Amherst to Pekin, as are also Sir George Staunton, N Ir. Manning, and Mr. Morrison ; all well versed in the annul and spoken languages el China. With such assistance, how infinitely greater are the advan tages of the present Embassy, in all its bearings, than that of the Earl Macartney, whose intercourse mid communica. tiros were conunitted to the timidity and ignorance of two Chinese missionaries, who had been educated in the College Dv Propaganda Fitt—yet this Embassy laid the foundation of that know i. lige of the singular languago. of China, which is now so rapidly spreading itself over various parts ut tiie glob”." The fable of the drama is thus briefly told : " The Comedy of 6 ' An (kir in his 01J Age," is the simple representation of a a ory its domestic lift- —a plain "unvar nished tale,' in which Cainese manners and Cliniese feelings are faithfully delineated and expre.oied, in a naturist manner, and in appropriate language. Two things, however, lutist be borne in mind by time European reader,to enahlo WIN to enter fully into the spirit of this play—first, that filial piety is, a mong the Chinese, the first of virtues, and the lack of it, one of the worst of crimes, that it is the. erand basis on which all the religions, moral, and the civil institutions of the empire are founded ; ih it the greatest misfortune in life is the want of a son to humour and console Isis aged parents, and to ' bit ammaily their tombs when dead—and, secondly, that to afford every means or procuring; a son, a man may take isaciior wives or convehines, who are generally purchased from pour relations; such a ives having nu rights in their own, and their children lieutig considered as the children of the first or legi timate wife. who call her by the name of motlwr, and are entitled to the same rights and privileges as her own chil dren. The dramatis pet-sonic of this play are made up m ilt-Ay of the 'simpers ut a family in the middling rages of aOrit•lV, cionsiting of all old luau—his wife—his second or inferior wife - his nephew—his son-in law—ant his naught r The of I man, ha viug .massed considerable wealth by tra :e ' and having no sun to console him in his old age, and to per form the obsequies at his tow!), had taloa a seeou4l whose pregnancy is aatiounced in the opening of the play. In order to propitiate heaven to favour him with a son in hie . old age, he makes a sacrifice of all the small debts due to him, by burning the documents, a hit It at the same time serves to quiet some scruples of conscience as to the mode in which part of his money had been acquited. Ile then di vides his property between his wife and his married daughter, giving to his nephew, (a deceased lirother'sson), a hundred pieces of silver, and sending him away to seek his fortune, the wife, owing to an old quarrel with his deceased mother, leading hint a most lollop'', life at home. The old gentles man then sets out for his estate in the country, recommends big his pregnant wife to the humane treatment of his family, and in the hope of revisiting from theta speedy congratulas lions on the birth of a soil. lie is no sooner departed, however, when the son-in-law cannot conceal front the daughter his disappointineet at the pregnancy of the old man's second wife, as, it' she brings finth a girl. he will lose half the family property, and if a soil, the whole. Ilia wife soothes him by a hint how easily she may be got lid of,. nod the old man persuaded that she Ind soddenly dleappeared; and shortly after both the son. in-law awl the audience are left to infer that she has actually contrived to put her to death. In the mean time, the oia Wall waits the tesult in great anxiety; his family appear in succession to console him for the loss of his second wife, which lie is reluctantly brought to believe. In the bitterness of his diseppointinent, tie bursts into tears, and expresses droug suspicions of some foto play. He attributes his miss fiat tires to his former thirst of gain, resolves to fast for seven slat a, and to bestow alms publicly at a neighbouring temple, is the hope that the oujeets of his charity may treat him es a father. Among the becgars at the temple, his nephew ap pears, in the most hopeless state of poverty, being reduced to take up his holgieg tinder the furnace of a pottery; lie is onsulied by the son .n.law, and reproached by the old wife; but his uncle, mill. - ol with costip.,ssion, contrives to give I ' .a tittle money, and earnestly advises him to be punctual in visiting the tombs of his family at the approaching spring, .011 . 11/111g biro that a Joe attention to filial piety must ulti mately lead to wealth. The nephew accordiegly appears at the toattes, performs the rights of oblation, as far as his po. • city will admit, and invokes the shades of his ancestors to emmuisserate his distress, and to grant him their protection, He no sooner departs titan the uncle and aunt appear, and express their indignation that their own daughter and son. ind.w have neglected their duty, in not being there with the i mstionary offerings; they observed that, from the earth being turned tip, and paper burnt, that some needy person twist have ueen there, and conclude: it to be their nephew. The scene of the tenths, and the reflections to which it gives rise i. the old man's mind, have considerable interest, he reasoolwith his wife, convinces her that the nephew is more worthy, as well as nearer in blood, than the son-in law, she relents, and expresses a wish to make him reps, ration ; lie appears, a conciliation takes place, and he is ..gain received into the family. Soon after this, the son. in law anal daughter appear, with a great noise, and a pro. cession of village officers, to perform the ceremonies; but are mee ts. d by their par, its with bitter reproaches for Vat ir tardy piety and ingratitude, and ordered never to enter (hell doors again. On •fle old man's birth-day, how l's •1, thoy send to ask permission to pay their respects, when, to the titter astonishment and unbounded joy of the Mel man, leis daughter presents Iliac with his second wife mei her soh, now about three years of age, both of whom, it appears, had been secreted by the daughter, and sup ported, nit of affection for her father, and unknown to the husband, who had supposed them otherwise disposed of. The daug:iter is separated from her husband, and taken hack Imo If•r ; a new arrangement is made for the disposal of the old man's property, the daughter to have a fluid, for nephew a third, and the little ram a third; and the piece ethicludes with espressious of joy and gratitude tor th.• old gentleman basing DeCIII blessed with " au heir in his old age." Eighteen hundred copies of Gernutnicus were sold tin the first day at Paris. The manuscript was purchased for 4,500 francs (nearly 2001. sterling). VIENNA APRIL 3.—Those who travel through Mo dem Greece will soon discover among the people a de gree of acquired learning, which teaches us to believe, that they arc awakened to a consciousness of the worth of their ancestors, whom they eagerly seek to emulate. The number of young Greeks who reside in Germany, particularlv in Vienna and Municb, is a proof that the want of education is felt in their country. In Greece itself the most appropriate means are employed for the instruction of those who are unable to seek education in foreign countries ; ant Athens, the seat of the greatest philosophers, artists, orators, and poets of ancient Greece,. is now agaia resorted to by young men trout various pre. vinces, to be instructed in the philosophy of Plato and the eloquence of Demosthenes. We shall wen hear of new and able writ from these schools. As a proof how eagerly the learning of the Germans is used by the young Greeks fix Ike literary improvement of their country, we mention " The History of Greek Litera ture, by M. F. Sehoell," which has been translated into modern Greek by Mr. Shoalli), a young Creek Loin Smyrna, who has formed himself by travels thesugh all Germany and Turkey, and completed his studies in Munich. The first volume of this translation has al. ready been published at Vienna. An excellent preface by the translator gives a proof of the elevation of dais mind, and at the saute time a picture of the minds of those to whom he chiefly directs his glowing and !uglily figurative language. At the conclusion of his rreface, Mr. Skoufth says, "Shall we suffer foreigners to seize. on the (intellectual) culture of our county, in ordert i o r have the right to reap the fr uits tif it ? tv , , are too proud to leave to tbrei : _mers the honour of :ailing ot nation into life again !" The is lcdieated to Ma dame ltoxander de Stuurdza, La‘ly to:* Honour to her Majesty the Kmpres; of it :ssia, n•w married to the Privy Counsellor and linister of Soec, Von Ealing. at Weimar. May these taudniiic eff )rts of a nation from which civilized Europe is ent.tled to expoct so much, at least not to be thwarted by the Turkish Government.