The Sun.
London, England, 1823-04-09 00:00:00

LITERARY NOTICE.

`FOR THE .SUN.
Ma. EDITOR—A. few weeks ago you gave us
some accdunt of Archdeacon NARES'S (not
Noires's) Glossary, but you gave no specimens,
except from the introductory matter. I have
since been induced to,turn tolhe Book, and think
ft may be agreeable to your readers, and to
yourself, to. have a few_of the more remarkable
articles pointed out. I take them as they occur :
" Acims. The plural ofoch, was undoubtedly a dissyllable,
pronounced aitehes, and continued to be so used to the time of
Butler and Swift, which last had in his shower in london (City.
Shower) as first printed:—
" Can by their pains and aches fin 4
" All turns and changes of the wind."
( findibr. Hi. ii. 407.)

The examples are too numerous to be quoted.
Mr. KE.Nint.t: was, therefore, certainty right in
his dispute with the public on this word ; but
whether a public performer may not, in some
cases, be too right, is another question ; yet
ach was pronounced ake, as now ; for proof of
which see AJAX.

I have turned to the City Shower hi Sir W.
Scoff is Edition of Swift, vol. 14. p. 94., and find
Swi FT'S line printed thus ; -
Old aches will throb, your hollow tooth will rage.
But /hese verses first appeared in the Taller,
No. `238, where', in the folio edition, and in the
earliest octavo, it stands,

Old a-ehes throb, your hollow tooth, &c.
So we are told in Nicutms's excellent edition of
the Taller. Now the scrupulous accuracy of
SWIFT, in words and metre, certainly removes all
doubt, if any could still exist. The confirma.
tion of ake, I find, consists in a vile pun of Sir J.
HARRINOTON'S between Ajax and Age-akes.
The article on ActrEtsses is also amusing, though
not altogether new.

" Atrr itEssEs.—lt is well known that there were none in
the English theatres till after the Restoration.
" Coryat says, in his account of Venice,—

" Here I observed certain things that I never saw before—.
for. I saw woman act a thing that I never saw before, though
I have heard that it bath been sometimes used in London ;
and they performed it with as good grace, action, and gesture,
and whatsoever convenient for a player, as ever I saw any mas-
culine actor." (Crudities, vol. ii. p. 16, repr.)

" A prologye and epilogue, spoken about June 1660, turns
particularli on this subject. These lines ate a part of the
former : _ _

I itune unknown to any of the rust,
To tell you news, I saw the lady drest,
The woman plays to-day, mistake me not,
No man in gown or page in petty-coat ;
A woman to my knowledge, yet I can't,
(If I shouid die) make affidavit on't.
" Some French women, however, acted at the Black.Vriars
(Histriomast, p. 3)5.)
" The circumstance may also he traced from passages in
the old dramatists. In the epilogue to "As you Like It," which
was spoken by Rosalind,the player says' " If I were a wo-
man, I would kiss as many of you as had beards that pleased
me, complexions that liked me, and breaths that I defied not."
" (layton censor's foreign theatres for permitting women to
act, &c. The permission of women personals' to act, (loth
very lunch enervate the auditory, and teacheth lust, while they
would but feign it." (Fest. Notes, p. 272.)
"They did, however, appear in the theatres of antiquity
(see Cie. de 011ie. i. 31. Plat. de Rep. •p. 436. Fie. Hor. Sat. 11.
iii.. 611.); but Shakspeare, who, like his contemporaries, ottd-
bated to all times the customs of his own, certainly thought of
nothing more, when he gave these words to Cleopatra :--
'The quick comedians
Extemporally will stage us and present
Our Alexandrian revels ; Antony
Shall be brought drunken forth, and I shall see
Some squeaking Cleopatra by my greatness
I' the posture of a whore.' (Ant- v. 2-801- a.)
Hart, Chun, and Burt, played female parts when boys.--
(See Ilistoriono. Pl. xii. 340, &c.) .
" James Duport, who translated the Psalms, /14e. was much
°Wended at the scandal of introducing actresses, and wrote some
indignant Alcaies on the subject, which he entitled In Ros-
cias, nostras scu Histridnea fteminas.'"
" They begin,
Nec femininum nomen hypocrite,
Nec histrio, se granunatiern
Et Priaciano, nempe solos
Ease viros decet histiones,
Hos tanturn habebant pristina
Dumcastilas salvo, atque modestia,' .
" lle concludes by giving a very singular piece of advice to
these ladies:— ...

Sin dramatis pars ease perges,
Non nisi.' " (Muse subsecivte, p. 15.)
That on Adamant may ulso be new to some of
your readers.
" ADAMANT.--The magnet; a very common usage in old
authors :
' As true as steel as plantage to the moon,
As sun to day, as turtle to her mate,
As iron to adamant.' (Tro. and Cr. iii. 2.)
As true to thee as steel to adamant).
(Green's Tu. Q. O. Pl. vii. 107.)
" Dr. Johnson has remarked this sense, and given other ex-
amples. This is decisive—
' As iron, touch't by the adamant's effect,
To the North pole doth ever point direct,
(Sylv. Dec. B. p. 64.)
The adamant and beauty we discover
To be alike; for beauty draws a lover,
The adamant his iron.
(Brown, Brit. Past. Song 1.)
" The mutual repulsion of two magnets, which takes place
in same situations, is alluded to here
..---.........--- Away,
We'll be as differing as two adamants ;
The one shall shun the other.'
(White Devil, 0. Pl. vi. 315.)
"Lyly, in a foolish sentence, founded on an error, has joined
adamant in the sense of magnet, with the mention of a dia-
mond. (Euph. L. 2. 6. and Euph. Eng. It. 1. 6.)
"Adamant is "-thus used so lately m in the English transla-
tion of Galland's Arabian Nights ; and, what is more extraor-
(Unary, it stands unaltered in Dr. J. Scott's corrected edition
(1810.) In the story of the third Calendar we have this pas-
sage :-
1 To-morrow, about noon, we shall be near the black moun.
taro, or mine of adamant, which at this very minute draws all
your fleet towards it, by virtue of the iron in your ships ; and
when we approach within a certain distance, the attraction of
the adamant will have such force, that all the nails will be
drawn out of the sides and bottoms of the shim and fasten to
the mountain, so that your vessels will fall to pieces and sink,'
p. 254.)
1' As the word is now not current in this sense, it ought to
have been changed to loadatone."
The two articles on Ajax and Jukes appriar too
long, taken together, for insertion in your Paper,
probably, when I have
If you like
tbiuletsethsepyeebimeleonnsg,
Itosiolaniel another.
loOked further, send you some more.
Your's,

EAST- INDIA HOUSE.

SUGAR TRADE:

Yesterday a ballot was taken at the East -In-
dia...House for the determinatio❑ of the following
question,
" That this Court is deeply impressed with the injustice and
impolicy of the existing restrictions on the Sugar Trade of Bri-
tish India.

" That these restrictions, while they operate most injuriously
on the interests of. the inerchahts, the ship-owners, the sugar
refiners, and the manufacturers of this country, as well as on
those of the British community at large, are peculiarly oppres-
sive and unjust towards our fellow-subjects in India, and
highly detrimental to the interests of the East India Company,
not only as a commercial bOdy, but in connection with the
prospenty of the dominions placed under their government.
" That as the inhabitants of British India have the strongest
'claims on the protection of the East India Company, it is the
!duty of this Court to afford their energetic support to all mea-
sures .that have a tendency to promote the prosperity of the
vast population over whom they preside, and who are equally
entitled, with every other class of British subjects,. to the fa-
vourable consideration of The British Legislature.
" That it appears .to this Court, that since the repeal, by the
A'ets of last Session of Parliament, of the restrictions formerly
imposed on the West India trade, no pretension exists for any
exclusive protection to the, sugars of the West India Colonies
against those of British India.
" That as the present unequal duties on the sugars of the
East and West Indies terminate in March, 1824, this Court do
earnestly recommend to the immediate attentiOn of the Court
of Directors the necessity of using their strenuous efforts with
his Majesty's Ministers to obtain an equalization of the -said
duties.
" That should these efforts prove unsuccessful, contrary to
the just expectations of this Court, the Court of Directors be
requested and enjoined to present petitions in the name and on
behalf of the East India Company to both Houses of Parlia-
ment, praying for an equalization of the duties on East and
West India Sugars, and for permission to be heard by Counsel
before the two Houses of Parliament respectively, in support of
their claims."
At six o'clock the glasses were closed and delivered to the
scrutineers, who reported the numbers to be, viz.
For the question, 479 I Against it, 189 I Majority; 290.