The National Register.
London, England, 1816-06-03 00:00:00

NEW ENGLISH OPERA HOUSE.

The Lord Chambetioin has at length granted a re-
stricted licence to the proprietwt of this national un-
dertaking ; and the Theatre is now in so forward a state
that a few days only are requisite to fit it for the recep-
tion of the Public. The general style of its decorations
is rich, light, and elegant ; the proscenium is beautiful in
the extreme. The roof is supported by arches, which
close upon the slips, and thus gives an air of Cmishing
and compactness to the whole, which is the perfection of
architecture. A faint rose-colour is the prevailing com-
plexion of the boxes, which in the front are ornamented
with gold wreaths, that encircle figures on a ground of
white. In addition to the performers selected from tite
London Theatres,Mr. Arnold is about to bring forward
the most popular actors from Bath, Dublin, York, and
Edinburgh. The principal female singer is a Miss
Merry, a pupil of Mr. Walsh, who is said to be a young
lady of talents and education. Report says, the com-
pany altogether is more numerous than the regular
business of the stage would require,; thus affording an am-
p:e specimen of the musical talents to be found in the
theatrical circle. Mr. Bartley, of Drury-lane Theatre,
is to be the Stage Manager ; Mr. T. Welch, Director
of the Musical Department ; and Mr. W. Penson, Leader
of the Band. Among the performers of provincial ce-
lebrity are, Mr. Wrench, late, of Drury-lane ; the Messrs.
Short from Dublin ; Mr. Broadhurst, late of Covent-
Garden; Mr. and Mrs. Chatterley, and Mr. Gomery, from
Bath ; Mr. Russell, from Edinburgh: Mr. Wilkinson, front
Norwich, Mr. Lancaster,from Swansea; Mr. Barnett, front
Portsmouth; Mr. and Mrs. Grove, late of the I laymarket
Theatre; Master Barnet; Messrs.Wheatley Nichols, Her-
ring, Isaacs, &c—The other Ladies are, Miss Kelly and
Miss L.Kelly, Mrs. Penson (from Edinburgh), Mrs. Leo-
nard, Mrs. Pincott, &c. &e.

Miss O'Neill has refined 2000 guineas, offeredly Mr.
Ellittera, for an engagement for three weeks, at the Bir-
naingham Theatre.
The Surry Theatre has fallen into the possession of
Mr. T. West, the ground-landlord, who has let it on
leatte to Mr. T. llibdin : and it is now undergoing a com-
plete and thorough repair.

OZERON'A OATH.—Poor Thompson, the author of this piece.
fell ou Sunday last a prey tti acute feelings. 'the tingenerons,
and, we may add minim 'fed attack, n hick was made on Mc-
ron on the first night, affected him very much; fur he had
been led, by favourable tit fasts of the polio inert, to expect it
would lie crowned with the most brilliant success, and had
calculated on producing ri piece annually, which would have
been a little annuity to him. The excess of hi. disappointment
could only be equalled by his tran,;wnts of joy, when, on the
secoud representation, his production was honoured with uni-
versal sovietise. Thus plunged from one extreme to the
other, he was taken alarmingly ill on Saturday, and ailed the
next day. He w:ts at Drury-lane on Friday night, and said to
Mr. Parry, that niueli was he pleased with the music'. hien
he had adapted to his ei urds, that he would ice y shortly wait
on him with another play—but illas! he is gone

•4 To anatiber and a better world."•

IVe hear, that the Aiiimtgers of Driir-lane intend to aprr
and compres!, Oberon's U.lth it,l* oi:e act, and to reit:am it for
the beoetit of the author's unhappy wile and three children,
who are left totally unpruvidcd tor.

• Vide the Play of the Stranger. adorted for the stage by Mt.
Thoirron.—.lolm Painter exi irrtl on the stage at Liverpot.jtut M.
he haul utterod the above entetter.

We unilerstaml, that the arrangements fir the mar-
riage of the Princes! Mary and the Duke of Gloucester
hare been finally determined upon.
The marriage of. the Duke end Duchesa tie Berry is.
it is said, to tae place on the 17th of twat mouth, at Not a
Dame.. _ _ _

Letter, from Madrid of the 1 etla inst. mentions that
the intended marriages arc for the present suspended, and
the ostensible reason given is, that the illness of the t'ria-
ecss C.trotta has prevented the sailing of her daughter
from the Brazils. _ _ _

Prince Blucher is at the waters of Carlsbadt on account.
of his health, which is nA vet re-establish d.

Lord Binning has accepted the office of one of the Com. -
inissioners for the Affairs of India.
%Vex-hear that Lieut. Gen. the Earl of Dalhousie is
appointed Governor of Nova Scotia, and Coltman kr 4,
the forces iu that province.—Ediu;,:tfeh ('cdraill,

AOLA'TION OF THE 17E,111
" THE PROPER STVIIT OF MANKIND IS SIAN."

Mr. F.DITOrt—IN your varied and useful paper of Sunday last,
I read the letter of your correspondent. J. W. I'., on shat he
calls a practice which " brutalizes the human character ;" and
ae 1w professes to he only seeking fur iiifirmation, though cer-
tainly in language soilless hat unseemly, 1 will venture an at-
tempt at setting hint right. 1 hope he is upen to conviction ;
Itovrever, we will try.
I will just cursorily rim over his argumet ts, and make snob
passing observations :is to me appear to apply ; reserving to
myself the privilege of entering snore fully into particulars,
should . P. express himself uusatisfitd by this conitutini-
• t 1011.
I will first tray this much for trim awl his argument; that I ne-
ver enter a Cilthf•dilli, or house appropriated to the dead, with-
out removing my hat with the most pi °found tied reverential
awe ; and that I never pass an ordinary burying-ground without
feeling a mute inexpressible veneration for the mouldering
Lanitauts of the silent tomb.
His letter is now lying before me ; but, before I enter with
Lint into detail, suffer me to generalize a little. lie and all the
world must grant me this, that Anatomy is a science secondary
only to the divine one of astronautic, the sublime study of those
spheres which revolve in bentitifel order, and harmonious regu-
larity round the immediate throne of God ; that it is a science
which clearly shows man to himself; shich tells Lim he is not
velf-created, nor the coneregating of loose atoms, nor the con-
nection of the most fortuitous eircuinstnncea ; lint the immedi-
ate handy work of his divine maker: that Anatomy shows its
time own insnfficiency, and that the piesiding finger of God is
as manifest in the most delicate port ttttt of a nerve, in the more
than delicate inosenlation of au artery with its necording rein,
in the finely messes' rd systole and ilystole of the twilit, in the
extended and tastefully painted surface of the lungs, in the
exquisitely sensitive feeling oft he brain, or is that finely finished
optical illArllment the eye, as in the perfect and Godlike whole;
and by .hewing us the beautiful symmetry, the complicated yet
correct mechanism of our own frame, must necessaiily lead us
up to the contemplation of that beneficent Being wko is himself
all perfection, and whose every act and production calls upon
as to admire and worship ; act, as genuine science ever was,
and will be, united in the closest bond, of union with trite re-
ligion, Anatomy, being one of a superior order, can never be
studied with t hninanizing our actiot,s, refining our sentiments,
and raising our affections to heal en.
I have discovered, on niy first reading, that J. W. P. i: very
fond of miming to the ancients for every thing. Iu order, then,
to narrow the argument as much as possible, and shut him
out for ever from a source which can atiord him nothing
but confusion, I will trouble him with a brief history of anato-
my. I need not go farther hack than to Hippocrates, the father
of medicine, who flourished admit lee years beti)re Christ ; who,
in spite of c Innate, prejudice, and superstition, persevered in the
sandy till he became an ornament to society And the profession,
though far from a proficient.
Pythagoras followed, and might have the same desire to en-
lighten the wend, hut certainly not the same ability ; and he
rather added to, than removed errors from the infaut science.
At this
but slow advancements, and was confined to the two schools of
Athens and Alexandria. In the former, the names of Socrates,
Plato, Xenophon, Aristotle, and 'rheophrastus, arc still highly
respected ; bat after their time, the study of natural knowledge
at Athens sank for ever. While, however, it sunk at Athens,
it shone at Alexandria with increased splendour s and Erisistra-
Ins and Hemphill's were highly distinguished for anatomical
knowledge; as by the enlightened policy and liberal patronage
of the Ptolsmies, they enjoyed ample opportunities of dissect-
ing dead bodies (the first at this school); and the consequent
improvements which anatomy received were great. After them
tame Aselepiades, Ephesius, and Celsns, the most classic writer
that ever appeared on the art of medicine. Next came I lalen,
who was physician to four Emperors. From the time of Galen
to the fifteenth century, anatomy was rather on the decline.
Towards the close of the twelfth, century, however, A lodollaliph
taught it among the Arabians, end by collecting, hones from the
burying-grounds had opportunities of discovering many of Ga-
b n's errors in osteology. In the early part of the sixteenth
century, the great Vesalitts, the remover of anatomy, who ven-
tured to trash dissection systematically, and who, by his on-
sterflil perseverance, and the assistance rut his pupil Fallopins,
roiled in such a tide of light upon the science, anti of benefit to
mankind, as to gain them immortality, and the thanks of all
good men. From this time it became a profession honoured
and respected ; and the seventeenth centnry witnessed the dis-
eovery of the most important function of animated bodies, the
circulation of the blood, by Harvey ; since whose time the men
of eminence that have shone in the profession, and the invalua-
ble discoveries they has e made, are by far hut lIIIIOVUOUS for tne
to name, neither do they need it, their vvoiks speak for
them.
Having said thus mach to sbew that from the earliest, and
even tin ()ugh the very darkest ages of mankind, Anntorny has
been eagerly sought and studied by Sages, Statesmen, and
Philosophers; and that it has been tolerated, eneimiaged,
land commended, just in proportion to the dissipation of igno-
rance, and the diffusion of useful knowledge, and not like
that groundless and fanciful theory Astrology, which has ever
flottrished in the exact ratio of the density of that dark 'sad
impenetrable night of ignorance w Inch genereted it ; and alto
to prevent J. W. P. from running Montt from century to rim-
tory, picking ep all the obscure anecdotes that can be either
eollected or invented, I will now draw my chair a little closer,
end enter freely into conversation. As to his tint embarrass-
ment, iii arcoutitiug for why the practice hes not been repro-
bated, or indeed noticed, by the pions and linuitine writers of
the present day," I answer, it is Mr this good reason, that nut
(10111 inattention (as he supposes), but that after viewing the
practice with an extended compassionate eye, they have all
been convinced that it is a practice flinch to be deplored on
recount of the frailties of the survivors, yet from its imperious
and intlispensible necessity to be tolerated: and, indeed, who,
but those of sicklied sensibility and narrowed views of huma-
nity, could wish to stop the diffusion of this most useful and
comfort-yielding science, or wonder that men with' better
beans and sounder onderstandings ehotlld bare seen it as it
really is, the sole basis of surgery; and that us they hint
valued their own health. lives, or limits, or tines- 4.1 their suf-
fering fellow-creatures, or as they admire, and wish to pronnil
gate every kind of tine science and philosophy they have,
instead of depreciating a system, without shish 1111111 MOM
again fall into barbarism, have not only refrained from com-
menting un it, lint have themselves actually entered into the
;study with all their souls.
" Serene philosophy,
Effusive source of evidence and took!
ithout thee, what were unenlightened mum t
ji roaming through the woods and wilds,
acougli ei id, tie, old of every finer art
Ana eitgance of life."