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7<n* «yJ*Mt3 THE X1ABEB. mSL
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A BATCH OF BOOKS. Wk must announce, and ...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Shakspeaite's England. Bjirikspere's Eng...
seen < the thing before at Court . The aim of such fools was to talfc and laugh . so loud * w feeeves % f the < whole house should Jbe drawn upon them—that the poets might te ^ . wkad into writing an e pigram that woul d mak e them talk ed cf , > ox that the nlavers might recognize and point them out in the street . The fashionable ' s great desire was not to seem to resort to the Globe or the Kose , as if ( hungry d & xr such vulgar pleasures , but only as an idle gentleman , to waste a foolish hour or so when he could do nought else . Sometimes the gallant went to hiss and condemn on enemy ' s piny ; sometimes to appear literary , and induce a poet to dedicate some sonnet to him , to procure his favour and forbearance . If the dramatist-was one-who had epigrammatized our friend , or brought his red beard or thin legs . on the stage , his whole action from the first entrance would be acotnful and contemptuous . At entrance he would draw out his three sorts of tobacco and his light ; or pulling a packof cards from his hose , fall to Pximero , tearing up a court oard or two in a rage , to * he astonkdiment of the pit , just as the prologue entared i ii
, _ . .... - . , . , _ If the actor was sitting on the stage , the critic would then bring out his tables < - poeket-book ) and write sneering notes of pointless passages ; or , m the midst of the play with a screwed and discontented face , would take up his stool to be gone , drawing ; away a whole troop of friends , who were lying round him . If he could not get out or hte companions were unwilling to join toim , the malcontent would pick up a rush and tickle the ears of those who sat before him , till they laughed louder than the tragedian could sigh and groan . He would find fault with the music , declare the tests were stale , whistle at the songs , and curse the manager , because one of the actors wore a hat and feather just like that for which he ( the fop ) had but that morning given 40 s . Here is another : — At the end of the performance the actors fell upon their knees and prayed for the health and prosperity of their patrons , or the Queen , a custom retained in the " God save the Queen" that forms the last line of our playbills .
Instead of visiting our acquaintances we now send our cards , and instead of actors falling on their knees to pray for the Queen , they print " God save the Queen" on the playbills . Reflecting readers will notice with some suprise that the pages about Shakspeare are among the weakest in the volumes ; yet even on Shakspeare Mr . Thornbury has sometimes something to catch attention ; for instance : — It is a staggering reflection that neither Bacon ' s works , nor those of Sir Thomas Browne , or Hall , or Donne , contain one word about Shakspere . A few obscure and doubtful invectives of rivals , a few quoted words , a sneer of Jonson ' s that even Gifford cannot soften down , are all that we can gather from contemporary literature . What did Bacon and Burleigh , statesmen and scholars , think of a poet who turned Homer into a play and made Hector speak of Aristotle ? Was their feeling indifference or contempt ? The scholars' world and the players' world were different spneres , and , perhaps , to Bacon the plays the greasy mob roared at and applauded seemed mere occasional verse that would be forgotten when the curtain fell .
But the very worst chapter in the whole book is that on alchemy , which in an unlucky hour Mr . Tfaornbury was moved to " cram" for . He knows nothing of alchemy , and yet he writes a long chapter , not on the alchemy of Shakspeare ' s day , but on the Arabian and middle ages alchemists . " Of alchemy , " be says , a 6 one of the strangest and least excusable of human delusions , we treat somewhat largely . " Mr . Thornbury is wrong when he speaks of alchemy as one of the strangest of delusions , and wrong when he iidds , " least excusable , " and still more wrong when , ignorant of the subject , he crowds his pages with secondhand compilation , not laboriously compiled , and tliis too upon a subject not illustrating Shakspeare ' s England at alL The delusion was very natural and very excusable : nay , when we know that alchemy was the early stage indispensable to the maturity of our chemistry , we learcn to speak of it with respect . But Mr- Thornbury—it is no disgrace to him—is unacquainted with chemistry ; he is . so purely a literary , and so little of a scientific man , that he speaks of furnaces for calcination , vials ,
crosslets , stillatories , & c , as " mystical utensils" used by the alchemists . Upon knowledge so slender he should have been more modest ; yet on the next page we find him contemptuously asserting that the alchemical " theory is not yet dead ; and theoretical Liebig himself argues , that as men make diamonds they may perhaps make gold . " We know not to what passage in " theoretical Liebig" Mr . Thornbury refers , but are certain there is some confusion in his mind on the point . Men do not make diamonds , consequently Liebig could not have argued from their practice . Moreover , the opinion is now pretty general among chemists that gold wy be made , although no one yet has discovered how it is to be done ; and it is to this opinion we imagine Liebig refers . Mr . Thornbury , however , is unfortunate in his illustrations drtnvn from chemistry—so unfortunate that we are annoyed he should have ventured in that direction . "Who , a century ago , " he asks , " supposed that (/ uses could be mixed and turned into water , or that earth could be formed from water ? " We repeat the Who ? and we ask : Who in this century supposes such things ?
It is unnecessary to continue . Yet at the close of his long chapter Mr . Thornbury , contradicting his previous contempt , exclaims : — Let ub not , however , join tlie foolish cry , and deride mon who , however unsuccessful , however much ussociated with cheats and quacks , devoted their lives with such generous Bolf-devotion , actuated by so noble an aspirution . Just as the supposed fables of Herodotus have boon found truths , and the legendH of Marco Polo honest facts , bo may maturer science discover that the . alchemist had some bettor foundation for his belief than we can now understand . Who a . few years since could have . credited the almost universal presence of gold in Scotland , WaleH , England , and Ireland , in lluasia , California , and Australia ?
The other chapters are : " Witchci'aft "—aleo poor ; " Wapping in 1588 "very amusing ; " Elizabethan Countiy Life "—curious as well as amusing ; " Revels ananProgresses ; " and " Education . "
7<N* «Yj*Mt3 The X1abeb. Msl
7 < n * « yJ * Mt 3 THE X 1 ABEB . mSL
A Batch Of Books. Wk Must Announce, And ...
A BATCH OF BOOKS . Wk must announce , and dismiss in a very few words , the miscellaneous publications that have accumulated on our table . They are , for the most part , books addressed , to special readers , or books already known and now ropi'inted , or books aimed nt all readers , and not likely to find many . In the special liat -we have some religious essays of an elaborate controversial character . We hove already referred to the Oxford Sermons preachod against Mr . Jowott by Dr . Pusey , Mr . T . D . Bernard , 1 H \ ltigeaud , the
Bishop of-Oxford , D > j * . jHeurtley , Dr . Goulhum , Mr . Baring , and Mr . Mevrick , and have to J ? e , port merely that they Jaave he . en . collected in a formidable volume ( Parker ) , lundenthe editorship of the Vace-Chancellor . Another large and doctrinal -book is ^ Vlr . Donald Maedonald ' s Creation and Fall : a ^ Defence and Exposition of the First Three Chapters of Genesis ( Constable ) . The object of-this essay , which-the author says Is the natural result of his exegetical study at the Hebrew Scriptures , is to establish the authority of the early chapters df Genesis , as literal historical statements , in opposition to the philosophic interpretations of them as poems , allegories , or the exposition of a mythology . Mr . Macdonald confuses his argument at once by admitting that every word in the narrative he analyzes is not to be understood in its proper and grammatical sense . He adopts Mr . Holden ' s view that Genesis is an exact history , interspersed , with figurative and tropical phrases . We can promise the reader who chooses to follow Mr . Maodonald ' s discourse , an abundance of learning more boldly than logicallyapplied . For erudition , however , no volume that we have lately seen
surpasses Dr . Wall's third " part" of An Examination of the Ancient Orthography of the Jews , and of the Original State of the Text of the Hebrew Bible ( Whittaker ) . His intention is to show that the'Sacred Text was originally written without letters , or any other signs whatever of the vocal , considered apart from the articulate composition of syllabic sound . As to the reality and value of Dr . Wall ' s " discovery , " no opinion can yet be formed by scholars , since , in this volume , he has penetrated so profoundly into a discussion on the ancient methods of writing , the cuneiform especially , that he has left himself but one chapter for the development of his special thesis , and has been compelled to reserve his demonstrations for a separate essay . A sew edition of William M'Combie ' s Hours of Thought has been published ( Ward ) , with a second e dition of The Church of Christ not an Ecclcsiasticism , by Henry James ( White ) , and an eighth volume of the Select Works of Thomas Chalmers ( Constable ) . The wild and presumptuous book entitled What is Truth ? or , Revelation its o ? vn Nemesis ( John Chapman ) , professes to have reached a third edition .
The other new editions in our list are numerous ; some of them are important . Mr . Bohn ' s Library of French Memoirs contains two volumes of The Memoirs of the Duke of Sully , with the Preface attributed to Sir Walter Scott- The edition is to be completed in ^ four volumes , ivith a . minute general Index . A second volume of Quintllian ' s Institutes of Oratoryhas been added to the Classical Library . We should be glad to hear that ten thousand persons were engaged in the study of these matchless essays . The Classical Library contains , also , A Dictionary of Latin Quotations , Proverbs , Maxims , and Mottos , Classical and Medieval , witli a Selection of Fresh Quotations , edited by H . T . Riley , B . A . It is on a large scale , and seems to have been carefully executed . Blair ' s Chronological Z ' czbles , revised , enlarged , and brought down to the Treaty of April , 1856 , by J . W . Rosse , form a useful addition to the Scientific Library . In the Standard Library we find the
completion of M . Guizot ' s History of Civilisation , from the Fall of the Roman Empire to the French Revolution—a scholarly work , written with much art and power ; but not likely , we think , to obtain an English reputation . Mr . Edward Jesse has edited , for the Illustrated Library , a new edition of Izaak Walton's Complete Angler , to which Mr . H . Gr . Bohn has added papers on Fishing-tackle , Fishing Stations , & c , on which we are incompetent to offer an opinion . As to the Complete Angler itself , Mr . Jesse reminds us that it has been published by six different booksellers—that Scott , Sheridan , Hallam , Irving , and Lamb have praised it more or less extravagantly—that it has been annotated by Sir John Hawkins , Sir Harris Nicolas , Sir Henry Ellis , Browne , Bagster , and Rennie , and we need add , merely , that the illustrations are numerous and excellent . The concluding volume of The Nodes Ambrosiancc of P rofessor Wilson , edited by Professor Ferrier ( Blackwood
and Sons ) , has how appeared . We have nothing more to say about these Conversations , which we have not re-read , and never shall . Mr . James Donaldson lias affixed to a third volume of The Modern Scottish Minstrel , edited by Dr . Charles Rogers , a comparative criticism on Hellenic and . Scottish Minstrelsy . The result of his speculation is , that Scotch songs are unlike Greek songs , which may possibly be true . In connexion with the name of Greece , let us mention once more that J . H . and J . Parker are publishing si miniature Library of Classics , beautifully printed , with brief English notes , for the use of schools . The new volume contains the Ajaxy Eleclra , ( Edipus Rex , ( Edipus Coloncus , Antigone , P / uloctetes , and Trachitue of Sophocles . As new editions , we must not forget The Lion Hunter in South
Africa , by R . Gordon Cununing ( Murray ) , a cheap issue , including the original illustrations , and Colonel W . N . Hutchinson ' s Treatise , which may be called a standard book On Dog-breaking ( Murray ) . It is not merely a book for dog-breakers , but abounds in anecdotes and in general matter , at once instructive and amusing . But the palm , among new editions , must be given to the diamond series , Moore ^ s Lalla Jiuokh , Songs and Ballads , ^ and Irish Melodies ( Longman and Co . ) . These throe volumes—a dainty sisterhood , clad in pea-green , orange , and blue , and decorated -with gold—arc offered in a most enticing form , with frontispieces , for hulf-a-erown each . Who , then , that loves the melodious poet , will not be possessed of his works , so well p rinted , on such paper , with such graceful " gutting up , " at such a price ?
Shadows of the Past , by John Patterson ( Edinburgh : Nimuno ) , ure legendarv , historical , and fanciful sketcheH , chiefly in illustration of ? Scottish life , though Mr . Patterson dares also to write dramatically of ? Sodom and Gomorrah . In The Manchester Papers .- a Series of Oremional Essays ( Whittaker ) , Mr . J . I ) . Mo roll writes on Modern Genniin Philosophy , Mr . Pyngle Laync on Veils and Faces , the Rev . W . G . Barret on Rational and National Rucreutitms , and Mr . Albany Fonblumjuc on Circuit Customs . Mr . R . Burchett has p ublishod , iu a separate volume ( Chapman aud Hall ) his course of Lectures on Linear Perspective delivered at the truiniug school , Murlboroutf h House . Tho exposition is simple and clour . For students also , Vmey \ Knowledge Made Easy ( Pitman ) , au , eccentric Oyclopiodia of " the elements , " on a Miniature scale ; the Seaside Lesson Book ( Groombridge ) , n manual of marine common things , l > y H . G . Adams ; and the Nmosparicr Headers Companion ^ which tells tho bolioving scholar that " a
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), July 5, 1856, page 19, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_05071856/page/19/
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