The National Register. — London, England, 1811-03-17 00:00:00

172 TILE CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION. _wm..-__ COPY ^F A LETTER FROM KING WILLIAM THE THIRD, • C HORSEBACK, IN COLLEGE-GREEN, DUBLIN, TO XING CHARLES THE FIRST, ON HORSEBACK, AT CHAII ING•C ROSS, LONDON. F for the Natiotal Register.l It is now, brother CHARLES, just sixteen years since I had the sigh satisfaction,to receive from you, by our invisible courier, a letter of the most important nature*, and containing the most sa lutary advice to those who now are, or should be, the united subjects of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Thanks to " the Pilot that weathered the Storni" which then threatened our political Constitution with subversion and our common country with bloodshed and ruin, you have not, Royal Erother, as you apprehended at that time, been " dismounted tout your horse, and again levelled in idea, as you once was in reality." From the situation which I am still permitted to ocalpy in the famous city from which I write to you, I feel it ittipossib'e not to nice some interest in what they here call Catholic Emancipa tion ; since I am apprehensive that it may be productive of con sequences as fatal as those which you formerly expected from the views and proceedings of the jacohinical levellers of the age.— You will rot, brother CHARLES, be surprised at the lively in terest which I take in this Catholic question, as they strangely call it, when you recollect that I was specially invited over to England, from my native shores, for the purpose of protecting the Proteteant Religion in this kingdom, as established az the Sappy era of the reformation ; and when you likewise call to enind the many special acts, passed by Pat liament, for securing and perpetuating a Protestant SuccessiOn to the Crown of these Realms. Alas! brother CHAR LES, times are strangely changed.— Nothing, believe me, as you remarked in your letter to me, re specting ja6binisrn and republican levellers, " nothi 41,1: ran save" ea . feein she faischie - Cous hue-and-cry raised about Catholic EnAnn cipation, " but the steadiness of our brother G 7.0 RtiE, and the firm- , isess of his Ministers. O.IE the one gives up, in a single instance, to these factious men, or the others yield, even in c murvin leisiness, one article of their purpose," then, as you wrote to me, " all is over with the empire." And I assure you, brother CHAR LES, respeeting your own expressions, (what perhaps our weak tnis gtzided Catholics are not aware of !) that" the rep tblie.an blood hounds are still ready" to join in the first fray that may h"pj'en to turnup; and that they "would tear out the bowels of the Con stitution, if they had but once penetrated the skin !". These things grieve me to the heart. You formerly supposed that I should " think it very strange that the people were still as igno rant as ever." Indeed, my brother, we have sten still stranger things since your letter reached me ; and I am therefore not sur prised, although I must be grieved, to find that the purple eon- • filmed to be " led by a fanatic speech, delivered in the apparent' warmth of enthusiastic patriotistn, at the very nye:tent that the orator is as impure a man, and as deep-scheetnieg a deceiver as• any upon earth." Since you, brother CHAR Les, cannot have forgot the difileule ties its which you were involved front your being suspected - . 0y leaning to Popery and favourimg the professors of it, you must think, with me, that the resolute opposition made to it by our brother G F.ORGE, and his confidential servants, is highly praise worthy ; particularly When You reflect on the nearieer in which he was attempted to be cal 'led as to what they termed the wt., which the Catholics first tendered and then withdrew, aod the d%nial of which met. , ly deprived our aquAt hie): her of' an t fee -111.11 ..eanrol on the nomination of their Bishop:, thosugh the want of stiO) control trieht endanger both the Coustitutioa and the estaVliblin,ent which Us coronation engagements bound-am . to , REGISTER sli pport ! You see bow they would bane acted by him ) had be given up to them at first. _ I could add much to this letter : but the tiand when the eyes of many of our royal broths e .• cts. es d . übje will he effectually opened to their true interests, and when they will be enabled to distinguish their friends from their foes. Yes, brother CHARLES, the day is fist approaching when tfie cloven foot will be discerned,—when (and be assured of this ;) " :Pope4 will appc«r with so defurnted an aspect that it will never be. able to ,f4rce itself any more upon these Protestant nations." Lookiny to this event, I am, • . Dear Brother, Your's sincerely, GULIELMUS REX. College-green, Feb. 12, 1811. lb There appeared, in one of our Public Journals, an " Origi nal Letter from K1,14G CHARLES, on horseback, at Charing cross, London, to KING Wu-Limo, on *horseback, in College green, Dublin," dated February 19, 1795. Some sentences of that letter, marked with commas, are transcribed 14 thq prestnt. The prediction, however, At the end, is from another sources and but recently made to our *world t THE LAWS OP OPERA. Et sot& taattiii sealskin arte fetot--Maat. This Drama, which was invented at Venice, is represente4 with music; and to be impressive, must be set off with all the splendour of art, and decorations of a pomp truly regal. Operas being sung, and having the accompaniment of instt a mentil music, are necessarily composed in verse ; and that nothing which can fascinate the eye may be wanting, they aye embellished with dances and ballets, with splendid scenery, and stupendous machinery. The dresses of the actorsychorus, acid dancers, being in the most superb and elegant style, efitspire, with the surrounding scenery, to entertain the . eye alba fancy, and to produce a grand and irresistible impression. It is the aim of this diama to excite, through the medium of the senses and imagination. an exquisite and vatkpred pleasure, Peet:liar to itself in quantity and quality, and of whicl4, in these respects, it is alone capable. If nature be not consulted in diis display ; if an eccentricity, abhorrent to her simplicity be re sorted to, all that can be said is, that this is a species of refine ment above even La .Belie Nature, exhibiting a fairy scene * w:iere objects are combined upon new principles of association, and where, if pleasure be produced, the mode is not scrupu lously examined and ascertained. • 'I he exhibition of human sentiment, originating in tragic action, by singing and music, is no doubt putting nature to defiance. Yet -we have Operas of this kind, in English, by Addison; in Italian, by Metastasis; in French, by M. Quinault and Fontenelle,Alch arc certainly saf generis, and . master pieces in that description of writing to which they belong. These pieces charm even as elegant compositions; but the pre dominant pleasure undonbtedly arises from the melody of the Musk, and the magnificence of the spectacle. •To give cerisimilituae to this I)rama, and make it approach to congruity, the subject should be selected from the regions of mythology or enchantment,.. hut seldom or ever from history. Arriple materials will be thence afforded for genius to embellish, and as they are extracted from the world of fiction, probability will not be violated ; for we allow a pieternatural agency to beings beyond the diurial sphere; the eccentricity of their movement is tn unison with, that of this. Drama, and the Poet will.enjoy his charaCteristkprivile4e of l itiving to " airy nothing a loCal Habitation Ind a name." exterior spletidour of the seen-:ry, the concordant strains of vocal and imitrt) ,Meut;4l me lody.; the mbvernent .of. many twinkling . feet in the ever-vary nig maze of the .dance'; ,. gods supernal in celestial panoply de - sculling, and gods infernal ascending amid Cimmerian glootn ; t in short, all the energies of art, taste, aadlastcy, are efnploed in'