On this page
- Departments (1)
-
Text (6)
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
-
a** L. . C^l t» "f r" '(ibij v /vti iij* ^
-
Untitled Article
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.
-
-
Transcript
-
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.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
and the golden honey of his hives ; wandering with him from the drawing-room to the library , from the stables to the garden , coming in during the sultry part of the day ; going out again alone with a gun or a book under my arm when the sun sank a little ; or mounting my wild horse , whose thick , silky mane hung dishevelled over his shoulders and hid his eyes ; galloping away through fields of blossoming sainfoin into the ravines concealed within the woods where I was forced to lie flat over the neck of my horse that we might glide beneath ^ the branches ; wandering thus without an object , sometimes discovering a glade , sometimes a spring , sometimes a family of fawns startled by the noise ; losing myself hours that miht find
-voluntarily for I g myself leagues distant from the chateau ; walking leisurely back in the cool of the evening ; then dinner , talk , and reading , listening to the adventures of an abbe ' s life in Versailles and Paris ifnder the old regime ; growing drowsy at these narratives , and when sleep overcame me , walking up the great staircase and traversing the large rooms which led to my bed-room ; falling asleep over the pages of a philosopher or poet , to recommence on the morrow the same days and the same nights ; that was my life whenever I passed a few days in this solitude , a monastery of liberty , of sweet indolence , negligence , reading , reverie , and friendship . "
Untitled Article
BOOKS ON OUR TABLE . A Terminational Dictionary of Latin Substantives , in which the words are arranged according to their endings . By Benjamin Dawson , B . A ., and William Jtushton , M . A ., late University Scholar in the University of London . Long-man and Co . This is the first instalment of an undertaking to supply an acknowledged and extensive deficiency in our auxiliary classical literature . Works have been written , grammars constructed , and lectures delivered , with the intention of imparting an etymological knowledge of the Latin language ; but a Lexicon on similar principles and with a similar aim , has , up to the present time , been a desideratum which the student would have gladly seen supplied . Of this want the authors of the work before
us appear to have been long and painfully conscious ; and , inspired by the teaching of Mr . Long , the late occupant of the Latin chair in University College , London , they have drawn up , on the plan of Forcellini ' s Lexicon , and indeed , if we may trust their own modest avowal , compiled from that work the present dictionary of nouns : the peculiar advantages of which will be found in its assisting the student in his discovery of the actual terminations of nouns ; their meaning ; the parts of speech , and their forms to which they are attached ; their force and frequency among older or later authors ; their origin , and their roots ; and the philosophical construction of language , with a view to its complete and scientific investigation .
It is enough to say that Messrs . Dawson and Iiushton have ably and adequately performed their task , and that the student of the Latin tongue will iiot only be grateful to them for the assistance to his researches which they have given him ; but will be anxious to see them resume their labours , and complete the great work of which the present is such an auspicious beginning .
English Grammar . Simplified by Win . Manneville . The great merit of this little work consists in its abundant examples of grammatical errors frequent in conversation and writing ; and hence it may serve to correct even those writers who fancy themselves in no need of instruc tion . The Free Inquirer in Science , Politics , and Theology . No . 1 . J . Watson . This is the first number of a provincial journal , advocating the utmost freedom of thought , written with unusual excellence , and relying upon its quality rather than quantity . The article on the Theory of Development versus Special Creations , by W . Chilton , is of a higher order than one could expect to find in such small publications . If the Free Inquirer keeps up to its opening number it must succeed .
The Leeds Investigator ; Political , Theological , and Scientific JNos . 1 , 2 , 3 . JJoldsworth , Lt'odfl . This is a new periodical devoted to general criticism on the subjects named above . Mrs . Martin , having disturbed the serenity of certain functionaries in that good town , gave rise to unmanly interference on the part of the authorities and clergy . This seems to form a leading topic of these numbers .
Untitled Article
Jeremy Taylor ' s Holy Living and Dyiny , loyethcr with Prayers containing the tl'hole Duty of a Christian . ( Holm ' s Standard Library . ) II . U . Hohn . Half-Hours toitli the Best sluthors . Parts 6 and 7 . C . Knight . Pictorial Half-Hours , Part i 5 . Ditto . Novella ' s Edition oj' Mendellsohn ' s Hymn of Prahe . Parts 3 and 4 . The Musical Times . 8 t ? ptomber and October . Novella ' s Part Song Book . Parts tf and 7 . Novella ' s ( . 'lee Hive . Parts 2 , 3 , 4 , and 5 . Novella ' s Jitlition of Handel ' s Joshua . Parts 1 ; uu ] U . 2 'he Hahucmunnian h'ly Sheet . September .
Untitled Article
PitiKvSTs and tiik Peoplk . — " Clergymen of England !—look ut the history of your Establishment for the last ( iffy years , and say , what wonder is it if the nrtizan mistrust you ? Every spiritual reform , since the time of John \ V > j » ley , hns had to establish itself in the teeth of insult , calumny , nnd persecution . Every ecclesiastical reform comes not fiom within , but from without your body . Mr . Horstmm , struggling against ever ) kind of temporizing mid trickery , hns to do the work which bishops , by virtue of their seat in the House of Lords , ought to have been doing years ago .
alienated us ; never mixing with thoughtful working men , except in the prison , the hospital , or in extreme old age ; betraying , in every tract , in every sermon , an ignorance of the doubts , the feelings , the very language of the masses , which would be ludicrous , were it not accursed before God and man . And then will you show us a few tardy improvements here and there , and ask us , indignantly , why we distrust you ? Oh I gentlemen , if you cannot see for yourselves the causes of our distrust , it is past our power to show you . We must leave it to God . "—Alton Locke .
the Everywhere we see the clergy , with a few persecuted exceptions ( like Dr . Arnold ) , proclaiming themselves the advocates of Toryism , the dogged opponents of our political liberty , living either by the accursed system of pew-rents , or else by one which depends on the high price of corn ; chosen exclusively from the classes who crush us down ; prohibiting all free discussion on religious points ; commanding us to swallow down , with faith as passive and implicit as that of a Papist , the very creeds from which their own bad example , and their scandalous neglect , have , in the last three generations ,
Untitled Article
CHARLES KEAN'S HAMLET . Of all Shakspeare ' s male characters Hamlet is the most fascinating , the most perplexing , the most various , and the most thoroughly identified in the national mind with its creator ' s genius . No wonder , therefore , if it has at all times been the ambition of actors to represent it ; no wonder if actors , one and all , have failed to personate it in a thoroughly satisfactory manner . We have seen many Hamlets , both in England and in Germany : one played this scene well , another uttered that soliloquy to perfection , but they all , without exception , impressed us with a sense of incompleteness , and , to some extent , of misconception .
This by way of preface to a consideration of Charles Kean ' s Hamlet—by far the best now on the English stage . Twice within the week we have watched it carefully , and all that follows will be understood as the expression of a deliberately formed opinion . Charles Kean has , by arduous labour and constant practice in a very few parts , secured for himself all that stage practice can give a man , and it may "well be supposed that he has not studied and played Hamlet many hundred nights without having by this time settled , in his own mind , the meaning of every passage , and the effect which he is capable of giving to it . Some years ago we thought his Hamlet a very poor performance . It has become great in comparison , but it
still falls short of that standard which is set up in our minds , it does not " body forth" the poet's creation , it does not throw light upon the dark because profound passages of the text , it does not leave us satisfied . At the opening of the play Hamlet is grave with the gloom of a father's sudden death , and the gloom is deepened and embittered by the indelicate marriage of his mother with his uncle . The world has become weary , flat , stale , and unprofitable to him . Woman has , in the person of his mother , been smitten from the pedestal whereon his love had placed her , to fall down and worship , and her name has become the synonym of Frailty . Were it not that God had " set his canon ' gainst self-slaughter , " this gloom and bitterness would seek an issue in death ; but he resolves to
suffer all in silence . In the representation of this settled sorrow Charles Kean is unsurpassed . The tones of his voice in which lie answers , "Ay , madam , it is common , " and " I prithee do not mock me , fellow-student ; I think it was to see my mother ' s wedding , " together with the look of painful disbelief of Horatio—as if his soul , throwing off its load for awhile to interest itself in friendship , was suddenly checked , and flung back again upon the woe it tried to escape—were most effective touches . But this state of Hamlet ' s mind is only preparatory . It bears
the same relation to the subsequent acts as the solemn , ghostly opening scenes , with their awful revelations , bear to the scenes of madness and crime which follow . The play opens on the platform of the castle at Kisinorc . It is the depth of midnight ; the sentinel pacing to and fro is nipped with cold , nnd shivering with vague terrors : not a mouse stir , ring ! The silence is broken only by the regular footstep on the platform , and the hoarse sullen murmurs of the Baltic raving below . On this scene appears the Ghost . Ho reveals the crime which sent him from the world , nnd then the storm and terror of
the piny begins ; then come the madness of Hamlet , the conviction of the King , the murder of Polonius , the ravings of Ophelia , the gtavediggers casting skulls upon the stage and desecrating the graveyard with their jesting , Ophelia ' s funeral interrupted nnd disgraced by a hideous quarrel , nnd , finally , the general massacre of the last scene ! The same ascension from settled gloom to wild nnd whirling horror and madness mav bo seen in Hamlet . After the
visitation of the Ghost , Humlcf . is a changed man . His sorrowing nature has boui ploughed to its depths by a honor so great that his distended brain refuses every alternate moment to credit it : the shock has
unsettled his reason . If he is not mad , he is at any rate in such a state of irrepressible excitement that to feign madness seems the only possible relief to him . This is the point where our differences from Charles Kean ' s version take their rise . He may not agree with us that Hamlet was really mad though , unless Shakspeare is to be set down as a bungler , we think that we could bring a mass of evidence wholly irresistible to prove that Hamlet was in a state of cerebral excitement not distinguishable from insanity ; but we waive the point , and admit that he was perfectly sane , and still
the fact remains that , after the revelations of the Ghost , Hamlet must be in a totally different condition of mind from what he was before . That difference Charles Kean does not represent . The same gloom overshadows him when alone ; the same expression of face accompanies him . Instead of the agonized soul of a son in presence of an adulterous mother and a murderous uncle , he exhibits the concentrated sorrow of the first act , diversified only by the outbreaks of assumed madness . He does not depict the hurrying agitation of thoughts that dare not settle on the one horror which , nevertheless , they cannot escape . The
excitement , even as simple excitement , is not represented ; and thus neither the meaning of the assumed madness , nor the effects of the Ghost ' s revelations are apparent in his acting . Indeed , Charles Kean seems to have no mastery over emotion . He can pourtray a fixed condition of mind , but not its fluctuations . He can be passionate , sorrowful , but he cannot let the emotions play in his face and tones . There are flashes , but no fusion . All the early portions of Hamlet he plays with a subdued melancholy which is perfectly in place and very effective ; but one detail will explain our objections , and it shall be taken from the very scene where the change is most imperative . The Ghost having narrated his terrible
story vanishes , leaving Hamlet in a state of bewildering horror . To show how completely unsettled Hamlet ' s reason is by the apparition , we need not refer to his incoherent ramblings which draw forth Horatio ' s remark , we will refer to his language in addressing the Ghost as " old truepenny" ! " mole " ! and the " fellow in the cellarage , "—imagine Hamlet sane , and speaking thus ! The language indicates a bewilderment and distraction which the actor should make apparent in his manner ; but so far from this , Charles Kean kneels to the Ghost as he departs ; remains sobbing with his hands covering his face for a few seconds , as if grief , not horror , were the feeling of the time , and makes a literal application of the
words" Hold , hold my heart ; And you my sinews grow not instant old But bear me stilly up ! rising at the last line . All which we hold to be a misconception of the situation . Throughout the rest of his performance we miss the one essential element of a changed condition ( madness or not , it matters little ) consequent upon the revelations of the ghost . It is vehement enough — sometimes too vehement — but not wild enough — an important distinction . Nor is this wildness the only omission . Hamlet's subsequent career should be
impregnated with the horror , the feverish desire for revenge , and the alternations of doubt as to whether , after all , he is not the plaything of his own imagination , whether the ghost story is true or not : thus his tone of thought should not only be agitated , it should be intensified . Charles Kean is not mad enough , nor sceptical enough , nor intense enough . There is one " point" which he makes , and is applauded for , which we cannot understand . In the famous outburst , " O what a rogue and peasant slave am I , " he delivers the words— Vloodybawdy villain !
, Remorseless , treacherous , lecherous , kimlless villain , " with great vehemence until he comes to the word " kindless , " and then , pausing , sobs it forth into his handkerchief , as if his uncle ' s unkindness had then , for the first moment , occurred to him . But , surely , Hamlet is in no mood for tears : his sorrow lies too deep for that ; and , moreover , the word " kindless " here , we take it , means not " unkind , " but "inhuman . " Kind is frequently used by the old writers in the sense of nature , thus in Ferrex and Porrex : — " In kimle a father , not in kmdliuessc . "
Our space forbids entering upon the other details we had noted both for approval and dissent ; but we will say , generally , that we not only miss in the performance the psychological modifications above noted , but also the princely courtesy and grave gaiety , like a smile on a sad face , of Shakspeare ' s Hamlet when he unbends . The scene with Ophelia is the best , after the opening scenes , and plainly indicates the heart that is breaking underneath the harshness ;
there is also more wildness in this interview than elsewhere . On the whole , Charles Kean ' s Hamlet , though not the Hamlet of Shakspeare , ns we understand him , is a far more satisfactory performance than Mncready ' s : it lies very open to criticism as a conception , no less than in its details of execution ; but it is an elaborate and in many places eiFectivo representation of a part in which no man . thoroughly succeeds , and few men , altogether fail .
A** L. . C^L T» "F R" '(Ibij V /Vti Iij* ^
€ ht % xtB .
Untitled Article
W 2 « Bf ) $ SL . * aJl ** . [ SitfUBDAV ,
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 12, 1850, page 692, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1856/page/20/
-