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882 <Eft* %tatftt* [Sattoiday,
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BOOKS ON OUR TABLE. First Latin Reading ...
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Conversations of Goethe with JUckennan a...
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Otto Universities.—" Noble buildings! an...
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, . , ,. ... _ ,. t (iff it ^ ^ 1* t JR? V VJ/ X) I XII !#?
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THE PERFECTION OF ACTING. If you desire ...
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MIND YOUR STOPS! A pleasant little piece...
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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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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Mrs. Browning's Poems. Poems. By Elizabe...
Lucretius—nobler than his mood : "Who dropped his plummet down the broad Deep universe , and said , * Wo God , ' Finding no bottom : he denied Divinely the divine , and died Chief poet on the Tiber-side , By grace of God ! his face is stern , As one compelled , in spite of scorn , To teach a truth he could not learn . And Ossian , dimly seen or guessed : Once counted greater than the rest , When mountain-winds blew out his vest . And Spenser drooped his dreaming head ( With languid sleep-smile , you had said , From his own verse engendered ) On Ariosto ' s , till they ran Their locks in one . —The Italian Shot nimbler heat of bolder man From his fine lids . And Dante , stern And sweet , whose spirit was an urn For wine and milk poured out in turn . Hard-souled Alfieri ; and fancy-willed Boiardo , who with laughters filled The pauses of the jostled shield . " * ' 'Tis an excellent piece of work , madam , lady ; comes there more of it ? " Ay , much more ; but something every now and then we do not understand . Goethe , for examp le * would have tried the limner ' s skill , but what sort of sketch is this ?—" And Goethe—with that reaching eye His soul reached out from , far and high , And fell from inner entity . " Our Latin and our psychology are equally at fault here . Similar defects mar with obscurity several of her pages . We have not quoted half the passages we marked for the purpose ; and must positively contrive to insert a third notice of these volumes , in spite of the pressure of new publications . To leave off with an objection would be unfair to our own admiration , not to mention the reader , so we close this with a sonnet that shall sing its own praises : — " CONSOLATION . All are not taken ! there are left behind Living Beloveds , tender looks to bring , And make the daylight still a happy thing . And tender voices , to make soft the wind . But if it were not so—if I could find No love in all the world for comforting , Nor any path but hollowly did ring , "Where ' dust to dust' the love from life disjoined—And if before those sepulchres unmoving I stood alone ( as some forsaken lamb Goes bleating- up the moors in weary dearth ) , Crying , ' Where are ye , O my loved and loving ?' I know a Voice would sound , Daughter , I ah .... Can I suffice for heaven , and not for earth ' ! ' "
882 <Eft* %Tatftt* [Sattoiday,
882 < Eft * % tatftt * [ Sattoiday ,
Books On Our Table. First Latin Reading ...
BOOKS ON OUR TABLE . First Latin Reading Lessons , with Complete Vocabularies ; intended as an introduction to Ceesar . liy John Eobson , 15 . A . Taylor , Walton , ami Maberly . Another excellent educational work , by the author of those Constructive Latin Exercises formerly reviewed by us . The present is little more than a reprint of the second part of the Exercises , with a preface and a vocabulary to save reference to dictionaries . The principle upon which it is founded , viz ., that of gradual though slow ascent from the simple to complex sentences , with the incessant repetition of forms and words , seems to us the very best principle for fixing the meaning in the youthful mind .
Chapman and Hall ' s Penny Maps . Fart 5 . This excellent scries of maps sustains its character and ) if anything , rather improves in execution upon the firs 1 number . So cheap a work has never before been pub * lished , keeping in . view the style with which it is executed . Fathers of families and heads of schools must be very grateful to Messrs . Chapman and Hall . Fart 5 contains four maps representing Italy , Sardinia , and Corsica .
Conversations Of Goethe With Juckennan A...
Conversations of Goethe with JUckennan and Sorct . Translated from the German . By John Oxonford . 2 vols . Smith and Elder . Game Birds and Wild Fowl ; their Friends and their Foes . By A . li . Knox , M . A ., F . L . S . Van Voorst . The Girlhood of Shakspeare ' s Heroines . By Mary Cowdcn Clarke . Talc 1 . Portia , tlio Heiress of Belmont . W . U . Smith and Son . A Practical Treatise on Musical Composition . By G . \ V « lUilmcr . Second part . Counterpoint . Longman and Co . Glimmerings in the Dark ; or , Lights and Shailotes of the VUltnTinie . liy F . Bomner Mercwother .
Sitnpkm , Marshall , and Co . Sketches of her Majesty's Household , and a Guide to Situations in the Queen ' s Domestic Establishment . W . Sirango Jluyul Correspondence . —The Private Letters of Queen Victoria and Louis Philippe . W . Strange . Knight ' s Pictorial Hhakspeare . Tart IV . ( King John . ) National Edition . Charles Knight . Half-Hours with the Best Jut / tors . Part IX . Charles Knight . Pictorial Half-Hours . Part VII . Charles Knight . Knight's Cyvlopwdiu of the Industry of All Nations . Tart I . Charles Knight . Knight's Cyclopaedia of London , Part I . Charles Knights
PERIODICALS FOB DECEMBBB . Fraser's Magazine . The Rambler . The Reasoner . The Looker-On . Edited by Fritz and Liolett The Freethinker's Magazine . Robert Owen ' s Journal . Leigh Hunt ' s Journal . Household Words .
Otto Universities.—" Noble Buildings! An...
Otto Universities . — " Noble buildings ! and noble institutions ! given freely to the people by those who loved the people , and the Saviour who died for them . They gave us what they had , those mediaeval founders : " whatsoever narrowness of mind or superstition denied their gift was not their fault , but the fault of their whole age . The best they knew they imparted freely , and God will reward them for it . To monopolize those institutions for the rich , as is done
now , is to violate both the spirit and the letter of the foundations ; to restrict their studies to the limits of middle-age Romanism , their conditions of admission to those fixed at the Reformation , is but a shade less wrongful . The letter is kept—the spirit is thrown away . You refuse to admit any who are not members of the Church of England ;—say , rather , any who will not sign the dogmas of the Church of England , whether they believe a word of them or not . Useless formalism ! which
lets through the reckless , the profligate , the ignorant , the hypocritical ; and only excludes the honest and the conscientious , and the mass of the intellectual working men . And whose fault is it that the are not members of the Church of England ? Whose fault is it , I ask ? Your predecessors neglected the lower orders , till they have ceased to reverence either you or your doctrines;—you confess that , among yourselves , freely enough . You throw the blame of the present wide-spread dislike to the Church of England on her sins during ' the godless
eighteenth century . ' Be it so . Why are those sins to be visited on us ? Why are we to be shut out from the universities , which were founded for us , because you have let us grow up , by millions , heathens and infidels , as you call us ? Take away your subterfuge ! It is not merely because we are bad churchmen that you exclude us , else you would be crowding your colleges , now , with the talented poor of the agricultural districts , who , as you say , remain faithful to the church of their fathers . But are there six labourers' sons educating in the universities at this moment ? No ! The real reason for our
exclusion , churchmen or not , is because we are poorbecause we cannot pay your exorbitant fees , often , as in the case of bachelors of arts , exacted for tuition which is never given , and residence which is not permittedbecause we could not support the extravagance which you not only permit , but encourage , because , by your own unblushing confession , it insures the university ' the support of the aristocracy . ' ' But , on religious points , at least , you must abide by the statutes of the university . ' Strange argument , truly , to be urged literally by English Protestants in possession of Roman Catholic bequests ! If that be true in the letter , as well as in the
spirit , you should have given place long ago to the Dominicans and the Franciscans . In the spirit it is true , and the Reformers acted on it when they rightly converted the universities to the uses of the new faith . They carried out the spirit of the founders' statutes by making the universities as good as they could be , and letting them share in the new light of the Elizabethan age . But was the sum of knowledge , human and divine , perfected at the Reformation ? Who gave the Reformers , or you , who call yourselves their representatives , a right to say to the mind of man , and to the teaching of God's Spirit , Hitherto , and no farther . ' "—Alton Locke .
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€ ht & rto .
The Perfection Of Acting. If You Desire ...
THE PERFECTION OF ACTING . If you desire to see really perfect acting , rush to the Lyceum and be astonished at The Day of Reckoning Astonishment elevates your eyebrows at the Lyceum venturing upon a French drame instead of its customary farces , comedies , and burlesques—a drame , too , prohibited in Paris because of its revolutionary tendency ( poor Parisians ! )—a drame presenting the ignoble scenes of the tapis franc—a burglaryattempted assassination— scoundrelism of various kinds—and , finally , a bloody duel , cutting short the existence of—Charles Mathews of all persons in the world !—a drame contrasting the blouse and the frock
coat—the rich and the poor—the law ' s injustice and the villany of the great ;—a drnme which , in its original shape , VEnfant dc Paris , excited the invective of Jules Janin through twelve columns , to the virtuous indignation of its author , Emile Souvestre , who protested his drame was perfectly moral ;—well , this drame you find altered from five acts to three , and otherwise improved by the accomplished Planche , and presented to a thrilled Lyceum audience ! Having recovered your astonishment at this venture and its
perfect success—having been astonished at the miso en scene ( but you aro accustomed to that in this theatre )—the lasting astonishment is that Vestris should perform a pathetic noblo woman , and perform it as no actress on our stage could do it ! That is something to marvel at . Vestris , the greatest pet of the public , will startle even her greatest admirers in this part ; for , assuredly , no one ever believed her powers lay at all in that direction . Yet I assure you her acting is quite a study . My readers have learned by this time that I am not a very great admirer
of modern acting ; and if , when I do admire , I express myself enthusiastically , yet I am . not easily roused to enthusiasm ; and I declare to them that the acting of "Vestris and Charles Mathews in the new piece gave me more unmixed delight more exquisite enjoyment—than I have for a long while received from the English stage . All the freshness of early enjoyment came back upon me , and no boy ever relished his first play more !
The secret of all this r Nothing can be simpler . Vestris and Charles Mathews were natural—nothing more , nothing less . They were a lady and gentleman such as we meet with in drawing-rooms , graceful , quiet , well-bred , perfectly dressed , perfectly oblivious of the footlights . He is a polished villaina D'Orsay without conscience , and without any of the scowlings , stampings , or intonations of the approved stage villain . There are scoundrels in high life—but they are perfectly well-bred . Whatever faults there may be in their conduct , their deport - ment is irreproachable . This is the villain represented by Charles Mathews — a man of fashion , reckless , extravagant , heartless , but perfectly
unconscious of his being worse than his neighbours . Those who are familiar with , his Used Up will understand how he represents the quiet elegance of the part : but they must see him in this to appreciate his refined villany , cool self-possession , and gentlemanly devilishness . In every detail of his dress , in every gesture , and in every look I recognized an artist representing Nature . It is , of course , a higher thing to play Othello or Macbeth , and I do not wish to exaggerate the importance of this part ; but I say that in this part he plays to perfection : aTeniersmay not be a Raphael , but it is worth a hundred ambitious attempts at Raphael .
This reliance upon Nature is what touches me so in Vestris . Her character is one which in most hands would become insipid or melodramatic : a sad , neglected wife , loving another man , of whom her husband is jealous , and solacing her unhappiness by constant beneficence to the poor—a noble , loving , suffering woman , she stands there represented with a truth , a grace , a gentle pathos I have no epithets to characterize . The sad dignity with which she bears her husband ' s insults , the terror which agitates her when that husband intimates his knowledge that her lover is in an adjoining room , and that he ,
the husband , is permitted by the law to kill himthese things are represented in a manner very unlike that current on the stage—and recal the finished art of French comedy . I am well aware that a little ranting and " letting down the back hair" would have told" upon the audience with more noisy effect ; but the difference is that I carry away from the theatre an exquisite picture , on which it is delightful to dwell , which reflection tells me was perfect in its art ; and if the audience did not shout hoarse bravos at the time they felt it quite as vividly , and will go to see it again and again , certain of being charmed .
Oh ! what a contrast between the natural manner of these two and the stage manner and stage life of all the rest ! Yet the others played well too—notably Frank Matthews ( a real bit of character !) , Roxby , and George Vining . But the contrast was between sunshine and the footlights— the ruddy cheek and the rouged cheek—the grace of a graceful woman and that of an opera dancer . I insist upon this point , for the public , the critics , and the actors may here read a valuable lesson as to what constitutes acting : a thing at present they seem to have the wildest notions of , and the ignorance of the public reacts upon the performer , forcing him often to disobey his own conceptions to gain their ignorant applause . Vivian .
Mind Your Stops! A Pleasant Little Piece...
MIND YOUR STOPS ! A pleasant little piece under this title has been produced at the Olympic , as if on purpose to show how a smart pen and clever actors can dispense with novelty of incident . A village hairdresser ( the scene is a Continental one ) , presuming on his supposed position as the holder of a lottery-ticket which confers on him a chateau and a title , endeavours to put aside his engagement with an innkeeper's daughter , and makes haughty love to a baroness . The occasional compunction of the barber , who deplores the difficulty of being a gentleman without
being a blackguard , is capitally given by Compton ; and his injured affianced finds a suitable representative in Miss Louisa Howard . The discovery that a mistake has been made in the number of the ticket , which instead of being 66 is 99 , restores the barber to reason ; and a handsome present from the real winner of the chateau and the baroness allays his pain of disappointment ; particularly as , without the lady , he would have been merely the possessor of a moneyless title and an empty house . A short halfhour i 9 thus merrily run through , and a pleased audience justly applauds .
This hus been the only novelty of the week , unles 3 we except the revival of that dreary play , Richard II ; for Macready ; and the revival of that genial , mirthprovoking , most attractive farce—To Parents and Guardians—for the Keeleys and Wigan in their original characters .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 7, 1850, page 18, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_07121850/page/18/
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