Star.
London, England, 1827-09-29 00:00:00

THEATRALIA.

A COMEDY WITHOUT PLOT.

It is not generally known that MotrLsY, the author
of The Widow Bewilch'd, arid four other plays is to be
enumerated in the list of autobiographers ; but the fact
is, that he wrote the minute accost of himself and his
family, to be found hot the Lives of the Pacts annexed to
Whinco)'s &ander-beg. He tells the following curious
story of his uncle, Colonel MOTLEY, who had been dis-
patched to England by JAMES 11. after his abdication.
The Earl of Nottingham was then Secretary of State,
and had obtained intelligence not only of the arrival of
the Colonel, but of the object of his journey, though
both *ere kept as secret as possible.- Colonel MOTLEY
used to spend much of his time at the Blue Posts, in
the Haymarket, with a Cornish M. P. of the name of
TREDENHAM, who had an inclination to become a dra-
matic author. Officers were dispatched to this tavern
to arrest the Colonel, and to seise his papers ; and they
arrived when he was out, but they found Mr.TitsnErs-
HAtd, whom they did not know, with a mass of writings
on a table before him. They took him into custody,
as well as his papers, and carried him before Lord Not-
tiagliam. His Lordship recognised the prisoner imme-
diately, but as the intimacy between him and Colonel
MOTLEY was well known, requested permission to look
over the documents. Mr. TREDENHAM assured him
that they were nothing but the scenes of 4 play he had
been writing ; but th 4 did not satisfy the Secretary of
State, who took time t 'examine them, and then' return-
ed the scenes of Mr. TEEDENHAM'S play, observing, that
whatever else there might be, there certainly was no plot
in them.
NAT LEE'S ARROGANCE.
Nat Lee once listen'd to a sage adviser,
Who told him he should be an earlier riser ;
That morning was the time when wits were quickest,
When ideas fiuw'il and fancies came the thickest.
At least the adviser found it so, and he
Therefore suggested such a course to Lee.
Nat, weary with his talk, so deadly wise,
Yawn'd a few times, and rubbing both his eyes,
Thus answered him—" You mean it kindly, doubtless,
But still I wish you'd mind what I'm about less:
Get up yourself and welcome—l protest
Against all interference with my rest.
Rise with the sun—salute bis morning beams—
Your waking thoughts are hardly worth my dreams.
BURNS'S COINCIDENCES.
The following coincidence between Mums (in one of
his songs), and a passage in Wycherley's Plain Dealer,
pointed out in the notes to the new edition of Dods-
ley 's Uld Plays. The words of BURNS are—

" The rank is but the guinea's stamp,
The man's the gold for a' that," Ste.
And WYCHERLEY thus gives the same thought:—
ft I weigh the man, not his title: 'tis not the King's
stamp can make the metal better or heavier. Your
Lord is a leaden shilling, which yt'u bend every way,
and debases the stamp he bears."—P. D. A. I. sc. I.
Another remarkable resemblance, almost amounting
to identity, between the same Scotch poet, and a much
older dramatist than WYCHERLEY, has been detected by
the same authority. The following lines by BURNS, are
known to every body in the three kingdoms :
" Her 'prentice ►an'
She tried on man,
And then she nude the lasses, oh !"

In Cupid's Whirligig, a Comedy, printed in 1607,
and written. perhaps, before the desth of ELIZABETH,
is the subsequent passage:—,4 Man was made when
nature was but an apprentice, but woman when she was
a skilful mistress of her art."