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1120 THE IE APE B. [No. 348, SaiPm.v
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>,v*l i COTtttltttL ^UUWUU* »
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w Critics are not the legislators, but t...
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. . " ¦ w—: . ¦ ¦ ¦ - - " Shakspeabb in ...
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CATHERINE DE MEDICIS. The Girlhood of Ca...
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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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1120 The Ie Ape B. [No. 348, Saipm.V
1120 THE IE APE B . [ No . 348 , SaiPm . v
≫,V*L I Cottttltttl ^Uuwuu* »
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W Critics Are Not The Legislators, But T...
w Critics are not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . Tkey do aot mSe laws—they interpret and try to enforce them . —Edinburgh Bevteio .
. . " ¦ W—: . ¦ ¦ ¦ - - " Shakspeabb In ...
. . " ¦ w— : . ¦ ¦ ¦ - - " Shakspeabb in France" is daily becoming more and more of a reality , less and less of a farce . The French have given us so many occasions for hilarity in tieip criticisms , translations , and quotations of Shakskeabe , that it -will require long time and many serious efforts on their part before they will meet ¦ with , the respect certainly their due now that they have earnestly and reverently set to -work . The most recent of these well-qualified interpreters
is M . Francois Hugo , son of Victor Hugo , -who , as we learn from the Revue de Paris , is about to publish a complete translation , of Shakspbabe , made from the original folio of 1623 , and not from the modern editions . As an evidence of the " worship of Shakspeabe , " this translation from the original text is interesting ; but it will betray more veneration than sagacity in the translator if he is to follow that confessedly imperfect text . Nor do we think , except as an antiquarian curiosity , he is well-advised in including the Yorkshire Tragedy , Thomas Cromwell , and the Two Noble Kinsmen among the veritable works . We fear that France may be entering on that
course of blind idolatry which has so much obstructed the right appreciation of Shakspeabe and the Dramatic Art in Germany and England . There are hundreds , nay thousands , who will no more admit a fault in Shakspeabe than an error in Scripture . Even bad grammaT they find has an exquisite flavour ; positive mistakes are the daring reaches of genius ; revolting or foolish passages have profound meaning ; and matters of mere carelessness or oblivion are proclaimed thoughtful intentions . That ShaksPEAKEis the greatest poet the world has ever seen , is not acknowledgment enough for these idolaters ; they insist on crediting him with greatness even where he is false and feeble .
We have on several occasions expressed our conviction of the impossibility of adequately translating poetry into any language ; and the difficulties inherent in all translation become extremely complicated when the translation is from a language so rich , so bold in licence , so peculiar to an age and nation as the language of Shakspeabe , into one so timid and rigorous as French . The romantic school in France has greatly enlarged the limits of French poetry ; but no permissible latitude will enable it to embrace such forms of thought and diction as abound in Shakspjeabk .
Whatever merit M . Hugo ' s version may have in the eyes of his countrymen , he must not hope for much recognition from Englishmen , whose utmost praise can reach no farther than the appreciation of the difficulties . The specimens given in the JZevue de Paris prove M . Hugo to be a thorough master of the original , and a very accomplished translator ; and we may congratulate the French public on the possession of as good a translator as could be expected . Would that we had such a rendering of Mou ^ be , the only dramatist who can take rank beside Shakspeabe !
The mention of MoiafeuE reminds us of a humorous passage in his Festin de " Pierre , which we should like to quote at one of the meetings of that immensely foolish Manchester Society for the suppression of tobacco : Sganabelle is speaking of snuff , but his words equally apply to cigars . " Quoique puisse dire Aristote et toute la philosophie , il n ' est rien d ' e ' gal au tabac : c ' est la passion des honnetes gens , ei qui vit sans tabctc tfest jpas digne de vivre . " He develops this thesis , but we must cease quoting , reminding the reader that the grave Dr . Damon , of Atomic celebrity , found Sir Humphrey Dav y u an agreable and intelligent young man" with one serious failing—" lie did not like tobacco" —a verdict given in one of the letters recently published by Dr . Angus Smith in his valuable Life of Dalton .
In the Revue des Deux Mondes there is a piquant article , . " Madame de Stael Ambassadrtce" which prints several inedited letters written by Corinnb to Gustavus of Sweden , -when she was wife of the Swedish Ambassador at Paris . To the majority of readers M . de Staeij will be a surprise . Hitherto he has been to us a mere name , an adjective joined to that potent substantive , a woman of genius , but by itself non-existent , nonsignificant . He was , however , a veritable male , as . well as a husband ; and a man of considerable parts too , as we gather from this account of him . The principal interest , however , must of course continue to centre in his wife ; and her letters , written just on the eve of the French Revolution , convey a painful impression of the utter worthlessness of society at thnt period .
Catherine De Medicis. The Girlhood Of Ca...
CATHERINE DE MEDICIS . The Girlhood of Catherine efe' Medici , By T . A . Trollopo . Chapman and Hall . This is a very agreeable bit of historical biography , solid yet pleasant , instructive yet as easy to read as a novel—easier , indeed , than most novels . K ve v £ * 8 wore or less acquainted with Catherine when Queen of Franco ; but Mr . Trollope does not tell once again that oft-told story ; ho narrates her biography up to the period -when she ascended the throne , and there leayea her . The object of hia book has been to show how the " child was mother , tp the woman , " as Wordsworth did not say , or rather how and under what influences the child grew up . At the close of his book , he says : — fa v Surely wo hayo aoen th « fitting and perfectly sufficient preparation in the character conduct of her kinsman aad guardian , Clement ; in the writings of tho statesmen around him , whoso pages express the beat thoughts and Bentimenta of the world in
which her life had been passed ; in the quality of her convent ' education- ' VT near view and intimate knowledge of the church ; in her familiarity with the h ?\ and ex-ofiicio holiest ^ churchmen , and their thoughts and deeds ; and n the ? 6 St opposition and hostility of every partizan and friend of her familv to w Wed aspiration towards good , all hope of improvement , all struggle after promS , T * $ social , and spiritual , as expressed however imperfectly , and often absSv JlS doctrine of the followers and disciples of Savonarola . All these educatinV & fl ^ pointed steadily and consistently in one direction . And their result was to io ^ active and acute intellect wholly uninformed by any moral ideas -whatever ^ - v and wrong were practically words devoid of sense for her . Expedient ine *™^ prudent , imprudent ; wise , foolish ; successful , unsuccessful ; these and sn ^ ru qualities she understood ; and they were the only epithets she had learned Z i to human conduct . a PPv In this effort of hypothetical psychology we cannot say that Mr TrolW * has been strikingly successful , nor will we say that he has been obvimT unsuccessful . The truth is , such an effort is necessarily too coniecturalf real success . Too little is known of Catherine's character and feelines
n thmg at all of the effect which certain influences exercised upon her- so ' tih t any attempt to portion out what wa 3 due to original disposition and ' what fn external influences must inevitably remain purely conjectural . Much better , because more solidly established , is Mr . Trcllope ' s attenrot to paint the character of those times . His researches are conveyed in a p leasant picturesque style , which keeps attention alive from first to last He is never cumbrous or pedantic , and yet always , apparently , well-informed We do not pretend to gauge the extent of his knowledge 4 but , although uninformed , we can recognize in him the characteristics of one really master of the materials he handles * with ease and fulness , yet without ostentation From the glimpses he gives us of Italian life in those days we will borrow this on
TRAVELLINa IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY . . A journey from Florence to Kdme was no easy or agreeable undertaking in the sixteenth century . Of course , all possible appliances and means , which could fecilitate the passage of such travellers a . % the Cardinal de' Medici and his suite , were put in requisition . The dangers arising from the unsettled state of the country might , in their case , bo provided against . Not always , however ; for a f « w years later the chronic state of lawlessness , which was always oscillating between brigandage and open warfare , had approached so nearly to the latter condition , that Clement , on one of his numerous journeys , was obliged to come to Leghorn by sea , to avoid the ar med bands which occupied tLe country between Kome and Florence .
But the obstacles opposed to all locomotion by nature , broken loose , during centurie 3 of barbarism , from her old Roman taming , and not yet subdued anew by modem civilization , were not so easily overcome ; and rains , swamps , precipices , rivers , rocks , and mud , draggled and tore the churchman ' s purple yet more distressingly than the soldier ' s jerkin . . . . . But it may readily be conceived , that the conveyance of an infant five months old , over a road which men found it difficult to traverse , must have added to her cardinal cousin ' s many perplexities . On the occasions , rare in those days , when it was necessary that children should make a journey , they were generally carried in panniers slung over a mule ' s back . The heiress of the House of Medici ,
however , was doubtless honoured by the accommodation of a litter , capable of containing : her nurse and herself . Such machines were supported on . long poles , passing under them lengthwise , the two foremost ends of which were harnessed to the sidea of one mule , while another similarly bore the hindmost ends ; so that the animal occupied the same position relatively to their burthen as the carriers of a sedan chaii do to theirs .. The cardinal and his numerous suite , liiy and clerical , were all mounted on horses or mules ; the great man himself , and perhaps some of his more dignified ecclesiastical attendants , using the latter , and the lay commonalty the former steeds . For the Well-broken , ambling journey-mule was then in Italy , as still it is to the present day in Spain , a highly valuable animal , not only considered more decorously adapted to the staid gravity of a distinguished churchman , but also very much easier in its paces than the best broken horse . In many fresco paintings of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries , a pope or cardinal may be seen seated on a mule , in the midst of a noble and gorgeous corttge mounted on war-chargers . One of the finest of the paintings in the so-called library of the cathedral at Siena offers an example in the person of Pius the Second . "
It is one of the staple commonplaces of rhetoric to deplore our advance in material civilization as unaccompanied by a , corresponding advance in morality . We believe the advance has been as great ; but let us hear Mr , Trollope on the moral condition of Italy : — In truth the metropolis of Christendom had long before the period of Leo ' s papacy reached the point of downward progress at which ignorance of morality is generated by the absence of it . The moral sense was dead . The tone of the contemporary historians , some of them great writers , furnishes a striking evidence of the fact . Men and actions are pronounced by them to be wise or foolish , prudent or imprudent ,
expedient or inexpedient . Of right and wrong we hear nothing . The conduct of men of all sorts—of the greatest as much as of the lowest—is continually attributed in their unimpasaioned pages to the meanest and worst motives , without ft word of either surprise or indignation . Actions worthy of execration arc quietly explained to hare proceeded from the lowest and basest calculations of expediency , with the equaWe tone of a philosopher expounding the unvaried and necessary operation of a natural law . The vilest turpitude , the grossest injustice , the most revolting atrocities ate related by them with a na'ivo equanimity only attainable by genuine ignorance 01
anything better or nobler . In further illustration take this : — , One other anecdote , related by our friend Richa , from the chapter of tho conventual ways and means , is worth giving here , as curiously characteristic of the no y ^ entertained by these religious devotees of tho nature and meaning of worship , ana tho attributes of tho Creator . 1 f the It was one of those great and solemn occasions when in some urgent need ol j Florentines , the black Impvunctn Virgin was to bo brought into tho c ' ' . convents were expected to present some offering to tho favourite idol . But lC happened that tho ladies of the Murato were just then cither very poor or jcrj Btin / ry , and it was debated among them with some anxiety what they should gi and how maintain tlie credit of their house without incurring inconvenient e ^ y In this difficulty the abbess at length announced that the Mwrato would prcsen magnificent mantle to tho Virgin ; that it would not como ruinously expensive , ^ that it should hn mmifi nf ( - »» r n nlnn nlin would rommunientG to them , SOlClV 0
prayers . Accordingly the following receipt for tho confection thereof is tranais from tho original preserved in Richa ' s historic pnges : . ^ " For making the said mnntlo of six yards of rich brocade of gold , lin , ^ seventy ermine skins , embroidered with sixty-threo crowns in gold , ami eight n ^ and eighty-two precious stones , furninhod with a garniture of penrls and fl 8 ^ clnsp , with a Solomon ' s knot in gold , and a button of gems , and apang lea jvi " sorts of flowers , viz ., lilies , roaoa , carnations , jossaminos , and hyacinths , — 't « 9 l 0 U 0 ' B prayors must bo said ; —
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 22, 1856, page 16, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_22111856/page/16/
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