tion, which, though accomplished in the name, and by the agents, of the true faith, is worked throughout by machinery purely political. There are no religious dogmas contended for by the opposed parties: the dispute is, primá facie, for power, and the royal succession, and the continued supremacy, or fall, of an arch-minister to his own ambitious ends, who riots in human blood, and forges superstition's chains for the equal slavery of the monarch and the people. There are even fewer religious sentiments, than I have myself heard, and witnessed applauded, in an abundance of theatrical representations. There is love, and there is war, and the dethronement, setting-up, and deaths, of kings: and there are processions, and chorusses, and a banquet, and as full scope as modern Manager could desire for martial pageants and for magnificent scenery. So that, be the faults of my Tragedy monstrous as they will-and I contend not for a feature just particularised as constituting the shadow of a beauty-assuredly it was no "Sacred Drama of Miss Hannah More" which I presented to the Houses, nor one from whose production their managements could with justice tremble for the orthodoxy of their nightly visitants. But the star of rejection, if such star there be, was in the ascendant at my nativity: and, bowing to its resistless influences, I here close "my ower-true tale:" trusting that, THIRTEEN REJECTIONS Sufficing me, no possible temptation will prove of strength hence-forward to make me a party in adding another to the list. I had nearly forgotten to enumerate among my dramatic misfortunes, the long absence from its rightful owner of a Farce, formerly spoken of, which I entrusted some five years since to a member of the late Sub-Committee of the Theatre-Royal, Drury Lane, who has not yet found it convenient to return it. As, from not knowing this gentleman's present residence, I am unable to renew those solicitations for the re-possession of the Piece, with which for the space of two years I. was occasionally wont to trouble him, I avail myself of the opportunity now afforded me-since I think it more than possible that these Confessions may meet his eye-to request him, if he has by this time quite perused the two acts of the Farce spoken of, to deposit the manuscript with my Publisher. And lest it should be necessary, from the length of the period elapsed since I held converse with the same gentleman, to refresh his memory of myself, and production committed to him, by the mention of such circumstances as may tend to restore his recollections of both-I beg leave to remind him, that he is himself the identical "Sub," who, within the walls of Drury, returned me, as rejected, a Drama, which shall here be nameless, and who was in consequence led to honour me with his remembrance on our subsequent accidental meeting at the house of a knighted bookseller:-furthermore, that, at the meeting last spoken of, he made me the munificent donation of a free admission to the Theatre of which he was then a co-proprietor; at the same time that he most politely offered those services in the production, at his House, of any dramatic effusion I might consign to him, which were the occasion of my placing in his hands the Farce alluded to. 3 Leading Charitable Enstitutions OF BRITAIN. FOREIGNERS have remarked of our island, that its Hospitals are Palaces, and its Palaces Hospitals. Whatever may be the quantum of truth contained in the latter half of this observation, certain it is that very many of our charitable institutions make good the former. Indeed, the foundations for the relief of distress, or the recompence of sufferers in the public defence, in this country, are justly ranked among its proudest boasts: and of such, whether as regards external appearance, or the national honour and utility, none can be entitled to more worthy mention, than GREENWICH HOSPITAL. This noble structure, as an Institution for Invalid Seamen, the purpose to which it is at present devoted, was founded by William and Mary; but a part of the buildings is of the age of Charles II. It stands on the south bank of the Thames, at the distance of about five miles from London Bridge; and, viewed from |