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Apbxl 18,1857.] THE LEADEB. 377
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THE MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE. The Philosoph...
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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. &Askeli/S Life Of Charlotte Bronte....
. " I ' m afraid it will try my eyes too much . " - " Bat it is not in manuscript ; it is printed . " "My dear , you've never thought of the expense it will be ! It ¦ w ill be almost sure to be a loss , for how can you get a book sold ? No one knows you , or your name . " " But , papa , I don ' t think it will bealoss : no more will you , if you will let me read you a review ox two , and tell you more about it . " So she sat down and read some of tlie reviews to her father , and then giving him the copy of Jane Eyre that she intended for him , she left him to read it . When he came into tea , he said , " Girls , do you know Charlotte has been writing a book , and it ' s niuch better than likely i " The discovery of herself to her publisher as Currcr Bell is exceedingly
dramatic and interesting ; but we are already outrunning our space . Literary success did not terminate the trials of the Bronte family . Charlotte lost her sister Emily , then her last sister , Anne ; we have already mentioned the brother ' s death . The father was accompanied by his sole remaining daughter to Manchester , arid she remained with him during an operation for cataract . This time of her life seems to have been cheered only by tlie prosperity of the pen , and the pleasure which it enabled Charlotte to give to her aged father until the approach of the last year of her life . In May , 1854 , she became the wife of the Reverend Arthur Bell Nicholls ; and a very happy wife she was during a few short months ; but ere the anniversary of her marriage , she had ceased to live .
There is something inexpressibly touching m the conclusion of her life , and the desolate state in which it left her husband and her father . She had been for some time in " a low , wandering delirium . " Awakening from it for an instant , she saw her husband ' s woe-worn face , and caught the sound of some murmured words of prayer that God would spare her . " Oh ! " whispered forth , " I am not going to die , am I ? He will not separate us , we have been so happy . " Early on Saturday morning , March 31 st , the solemn tolling of Haworth churchbell , spoke forth the fact of her death to the villagers who had known her from a child , and whose hearts shivered within them as they thought of the two sitting
desolate and alone in the old grey house . .... Few beyond that circle of hills knew that she , whom the nations praised far off , lay dead that Easter morning . Of kith and kin she had more in the grave to which she was soon to be borne , than among the living . The two mourners , stunned with their great grief , desired not the sympathy of strangers . One member out of most of the families in the parish was bidden to the funeral ; and it became an act of selfdenial in many a poor household to give up to another the privilege of paying their last homage to her ; and those who were excluded from the formal train of mourners thronged the churchyard and church , to see carried forth , and laid beside her own people , her whom , not many months ago , they had looked at as a pale , white bride , entering on a new life with trembling , happy hope .
Among those humhle friends who passionately grieved over the dead , was a village girl who had been seduced some little time before , but who had found a holy sister in Charlotte . She had sheltered her with her help , her counsel , her strengthening words ; had ministered to her needs in her time of trial . Bitter , bitter was the grief of this poor young woman , when she heard that her friend was sick unto death , and deep is her mourning until this day . A blind girl , living some four miles from Haworth , loved Mrs . Nicholls so dearly that , with , many cries and entreaties , she implored those about her to lead her along the roads , and over the moor-paths , that she might hear the last solemn words , " Earth to earth , ashes to ashes , dust to dust ; in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life , through our Lord Jesus Christ . " Such were the mourners over Charlotte Bronte ' s grave .
A portrait of Charlotte Bronte is prefixed to tlie first volume of the biography , and Mrs . Gaskell considers it a good likeness ; it is by a firstrate artist , but it is not one of his happiest efforts ; it errs especially in giving an idea of length , and therefore of height . Her father thought that it looked too old , and that the features were not perfect , but that the expressionwas wonderfully good and likelier . Mrs . Gaskell thus describes her original : — She is ( as she calls herself ) undeveloped , thin , and more than half a head shorter than I am ; soft brown hair , not very dark ; eyes ( very good and expressive , looking straight open at you ) of the same colour as her hair ; a large mouth ; the forehead square , broad , and rather overhanging .
But even the graphic power of Mrs . Gaskell falls short . Charlotte Bronte - said of herself that she was " so ugly that people avoided looking towards her a second time , "—the natural idea of an artist conscious of personal defect and shy in feeling ; but it is extravagantly untrue . / The forms of the face were not symmetrical , but they were rough rather than unpleashi " . The countenance was commanding , opening into an expression of extreme , frank animated , and kindly interest ; and the upright carriage of the head gave a certain upright character to the very expression of the countenance Beneath this powerful head were shoulders not broad but rather squarely set , and a body almost destitute of thorax ; a figure , indeed , not very unlike those which Richard Doyle once rendered so familiar in his fanciful "rotesque drawings of little ladies seated on flowery arabesques , fairylike in size with a certain animated grace . The effect of the book is melancholy . A stem sense of duty nnncars to bo the one whole support for a frail nature through trials more severe than flesh is ordinarily made to bear ; a vehement disposition , chastised hv iuul consciousness ot
duty under the control of an admirable sense , and rendered almost calvm . st . c in its strictness . But this , we conceive , is only a superficial view : within that imprisonment of constraint was a really free KFJ f ? , . ° f " ft" * ' f' Ub 0 V ? . "S ' ™ *•«*• A . characS-istic S f ? IT ^ M ™! ? , ' » ot i r ccordcd in Ml ' * - Gaskell ' s volumes , was once cal ed forth accidentally at a literary party , and , slight as it is it affords " in insight into her nature Several attempts had been made to draw 01 t ' eserved young lady then the newest lion of society . She answered with her eyes rather than her lips , and appeared to bo observing lnOre than responding . A gentleman in the party hazarded an opinion that the class of artists is always , as he expressed it roughly , " vagabond , " from the twofold circumstance , that the artist hua to deaf with tlufnntivo passions of huim n nature in their Ml development , and that he has to observe in his fcSK wkh if i •? i * T' l ) criniin ( int l ™ which are seldom consistent wUh the transitory laws of usage and fashion ; hence the tendency of the
artist tribe , whether in music , painting , or poetry , to be in . one sense vagrant . The eminent litterateur to whom the remark was addressed combated it with ability and with the authority of a most prosperous and distinguished position . Gurrer Bell herself put in a remark or two—warmed into the subject—with a fire that forgot restraint , took the defence of the original position out of the mouth of the unknown gentleman -who had started the question , and pressed hard upon the polished litterateur who disclaimed the vagabondage of the artist tribe . So much for the vis of artist life in her . We have given her own testimony as to the enjoyment whieli she really received , and nothing can extinguish the force of the words which , she uttered to her husband— " We have been so happy . '
Apbxl 18,1857.] The Leadeb. 377
Apbxl 18 , 1857 . ] THE LEADEB . 377
The Mystery Of Shakspeare. The Philosoph...
THE MYSTERY OF SHAKSPEARE . The Philosophy of the Plays of Sliakspere Unfolded . By Delia Bacon . With a Preface by Nathaniel Hawthorne . Grobmferidge and Sons . Delia Bacon withholds , for the present , her historical key to the Elizabethan art of tradition , which was originally designed as the first division of this voluminous argument . It is complete , perfect , and irresistible ; yet , as a mere evidence , it is less sublime than an exalted system of critical demonstration , such as is now set forth in two books , four parts , thirty-one chapters , and an introduction , prefaced by the magnanimous irony of Mr . Nathaniel Hawthorne . Mr . Hawthorne was solicited to occupy the portal of Delia Bacon ' s palace of pure logic , and to encourage the advances of the timid visitor . _ It was an embarrassing ; situation . He could not profess himself a disciple , therefore he took rank as an admirer ; he could not
swallow the theory , so he praised the flavour . Nor could he even consent to paraphrase the new utterances of Bacon ' s authority ; consequently , the preface is crowded with extracts from the book . The unpublished historical demonstration , which the author of The Scarlet Letter has been careful not to read , has been omitted , sayeth Delia , in order that nothing may interfere with the internal testimony of her hypothesis , which , without the obstruction of facts , will lure the reader into sweet faith , whereas , lad Delia discharged her double-shotted evidences , the world m ight have been " stupified and overpowered . " This arrangement , it is hoped , will satisfy all minds of the first order , feeding on the essence of reason ; minds of the second order , insisting upon proofs , will have their turn ; but if they are stunned by the Elizabethan
key , they are not to say that Delia Bacon failed to warn them . She has discovered that Lord Bacon , conspiring with Sir Walter Raleigh , made use of ' . William . Shakspeare ' s name to conceal the authorship of the oracles , commonly called plays , in which those plotters against the human intellect embodied new religious and political creeds , suggestions of sedition , heresy , and dangerous thinkings . Her essay , therefore , is a turning out of the inner readings inj Shakspeare ' s dramas , the mysterious inclusions of one idea within another , representing a philosophy of a kind that rip professor could have ventured openly to teach in the days of Elizabeth and James . The Plays were Enigmas . So says Delia , Bacon . " It is for the public to say whether she has proved her theory , " adds Mr . Hawthorne , who then kisses hands , and bows himself out in this fashion : ¦—
In the worst event , if she has failed , her failure will be more honourable than most people ' s triumphs ; since it must fling upon the old tombstone , at Stratford-on-Avon , the noblest tributary-wreath that has ever lain there . Shakspeare ' s poetry , then , is hieroglyphic ; its esoteric value ishowfor the first time made known ; it is a beautiful form permeated with the blood of a strange and daring philosophy . But Miss Bacon ' s method itself is slightly obscure—especially her statement of the Proposition , from which we vaguely gather that the intellectual growth of the Elizabethan age , branchinto
ing allegory , fable , drama , Latin treatise , the Installation , sonnet , lyric , and syllogism , is traceable to one source , to a single designing , almost omnipotent mind ; but it confuses us not a little to discover that this single mind was the joint property of Bacon and Raleigh , and perhaps of other unknown partners . Revolution is shadowed forth in the whimsies of Titania ' s dream ; treason lurks under the Masque of Comus . Whatever Jonson may urge , until he rises from the dead and suffers cross-examination in the Delian tongue , his record may as well be kept shut , for no one will believe him—who believes Delia .
In Lear , the intellectual traitors of the age struck at the royal prerogative . " Of course it was not possible that the prerogative should be openly dealt with at such a time "— "I think the king is but a man as lam , " is consequentl y Bacon ' s mystic way of unhinging the right divine . Lear , in point of fact , is a body of philosophic lessons for the enlightenment of princes and the chastening of their pride . Here Bacon proves himself to be a Leveller , a new Prometheus , an aspiring Titan , a Benefactor , a Poet , and a Prophet , sporting with doctrines which , if publicly avowed , would bring his head to the block . In Jnliux Cecsar he explains the empirical system or treatment in diseases of the commonweal ; he is still a Literary Shadow ; in Coriolanus he propounds the scientific cure of the commonweal , his dramatic expositions forming a manual for the study of the Prince of Wales : —
But probably this Prince was not aware that his father entertained at Whitehall then , not a littrary Historian , merely—a Book-maker , able to compose narratives of the past in an orderly chronological prosaic manner , according to the received method —but a Show-man , also , an Historical Show-man , with such new gifts and arts ; u true Magician , who had in his closet a mirror which possessed the property of revealing , not the past nor the present only , but the future , " with a near aim , " an aim so near that it might well seem " magical ; " and that a cloud was flaming in it , even then , " which drizzled blood vpon the Capitol . " . This Prince of Wales did not know any inoro than his father did , that they had in their court then an historical scholar with such indomitable for
an passion the stage , with such a decided turn for acting one who felt himself divinely prompted to a purt in that theatre which is the Globe -one who had laid out nil for his share in that . They did not either of them know iortunately foi u . « , that they lmd in their rovul train such un Historic Sport-manager such a I ro . siicro for Masques ; that there was a true " Phil-harmonus" there with so clear an inspiration of scientific statesmanship . They did not know that they had in that servant of the crown , so supple , ho " patient—patient as the midnight sleep , " patient a ^ tho ostler that for the poorest piece will bear the knave by tho volume "—such a born aspirant for rule ; one who had always hia eye on the throne , one who had always lit mind their usurpation of it . They did not know that tlioy had a Hamlet
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), April 18, 1857, page 17, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_18041857/page/17/
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