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Cjie Ms.
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If sometimes , to obey conscience . A mtftt tharbugtilf imbiied with tne hi Ta ~ L of Art will desire that which is beautiful , healthy , good , and intluenLt ; " * 110 Althoug h we have generally felt the value of Art , although we continue neat the maxims about its " softening the manner , "' and controvert i literians and dogmatic sceptics who treat fiction as mischievous and U * thless , I think we seldom maintain the value of Art on true grounds . We speak of its " example , ' * or enter into vague assurances about " taste " nd " refinement ; " the * latter ground being u void for uncertainty , " the le" plea inapposite . It would be difficult to ensure the reading of
" examp the Orlando Furioso on the score of the example offered by Orlando , of Rinaldo , or Sacripante , or Angelica , or Bradamante , or Fiordilisa ; since the onduct ' of those knights and damsels errant is inapplicable to existing institutions , and departs widely from the existing code of proprieties . And vet we feel that we are the better for reading the generous romance . Why ? Because it revives , in their purest and amplest form , the instincts of humanity ; because it accustoms the thoughts to move in a train of symmetry and beauty , and * to turn from what is unsymmetrical , inorganic , unbeautiful ; and if our thoughts are trailed to grow in beauty , our desires , our asp irations , our intimate motives to conduct will be healthy and !
lifeful . Art cannot work out a logical proposition j but a proposition which we may justify by logical working out , may often be put by Art in a form so vivid as to strike upon the feelings with an electric light , and so become part of our organism . The idleness of seeking effeminately to evade every form of danger , the worse risques to which it subjects us , we may prove by all the lights of reason , of morals , and of physiology ; but the beautiful episode in the Arabian Nights—of the young man buried in the seclusion of a desert island , to avoid the knife , and there accidentally slain in sickly
helplessness by the hand of the friend who nurses him—puts the truth into a living picture that speaks . to us through our very senses . We feel it , remember it , carry it about with us . We may show the wretchedness of lying by logic and morals : we know , as a fact , that all liars are not stricken with convulsive death ; but when we see , in Raphael ' s cartoon , Ananias writhing with the agony of the Divine visitation—when we see , by the sublime aspect of the Apostles , that he has been lying in the presence of God's vicegerents—when we see the agonized man tended , not by the care and ministering sympathy of those around , but by their horror and repulsion , the sense of life within us recoils from the crime which , denying truth ,
frustrates existence—for such is always the effect of lying , so far as it works—and we are awed into a loving reliance on truth alone . Such is the feeling at fhe moment . Awaken such feelings often in the mind , and it naturally inclines to that which is truthful . Again , in presence of Giotto ' s bell-tower at Florence , so lofty , so fair , so ancient , and ever beautiful , instinctively impressed with the power of the laws of inorganic life which it brings within our cognisance , but which equally sustain the march of the planets and the distribution of the firmaments , —impressed with the power of one of bur kind to minister to those great laws , and to be
God ' s vicar in unfolding power and beauty , it would be difficult for us to do anything mean . On that white stone , not far away , says tradition , sat Dante in his greatness and his trouble—Dante , whose satires of his countrymen have grown dim in meaning to after ages , but whose simple transcripts of nobler feeling and high thought stand through all time—whose Paolo and Francesca still tell to loving hearts to what sublime discourse the sweet emotions within them may rise . Paltrinesses have happened there— petty sports , and pettier malignities , which have passed away : but the sacred presence of the departed poet remains , ever inciting generation after generation to be noble and generous .
Tenchca-s . have , too much , bestirred themselves to encourage what is good , to repress what is bad ; forgetting that a stem warped by artifice seldom retains its bent , and that an organization trimmed by cutting or binding to the fashion of a day will grow again , or is feebler than it should be in presence of difficulty . If we we were not so much to repress what we dislike , as to develope the faculties which go to make up the complement of our nature , — if we seek , as far as we may , to grow men up to the standard of their type , —we shall establish a more vital discipline , self-acting , selfdeveloping ? it is through Art that we can test that type in more than one of its phases , by Art that we can discipline ourselves to approach that type .
Kxiled from Nature in our huge quadrate labyrinths of streets , lost amid the ugly rubbish of civilization , its false allurements and depraved senses ; Art is the light at the other end which may guide us through civilization , as amid the combats and perplexities of artificial life the memory of a beloved face fixes our thought and sustains our faculties for the fight . As yet , however , it is a bratrch of government strangely carried on by a certain order whom Sand more than once calls the Gipsies of Society ; and so it will remain , until the unity of truth shall be understood . Is this to be for
ever : or arc we coming to the spot where many paths meet—where believers * Khali cease to assert that which we cannot know by presumption , where wepties shall cease to ignore that which we cannot cease to feel ? I do not know ; but this I know—that the lights of truth do not extinguish but strengthen each other ; n , s the smile of happiness adds brightness to the •' . yes of intellect , and the blush of lovixigncss makes both divine . Wherein Raphael and Nature do but confirm each other ; as testineth enduringly your Thornton Hunt .
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THE AMERICAN HAMLET . Natubalists tell us that the traveller on the Caspian shores is startled of an evening by the sounds of joy Otis laughter , seeming to proceed frdrn some excited assembly of men and women , taking existence iri Homeric fnood ; he approaches , curious ; ( ind finds amongst the slimy rocks a gathering ot enormous black toads celebrating their nttptial rites , —the laughter proceeding frorix them ! , I thought of this on Monday night , when I , fresh frOni th ! e verdant plains and sWeet umbrageosity ( I'll trouble you for that expression !) of sylvan retreats , wandered to the unfamiliar scene of Drury Lane , and heard , with startled ears , sounds such as those which saluted Dante in—( oh no , we never mention it !) Diverse lingue , orribili favelle Par 61 e di dolore , accent ! d'ira
Voce alte e fioche , e stion di man con elle— ¦» . or , in plain English , horrible sounds of forty-methodism power , mingled with the cracked Reclamation of speaking trumpets , and the clapping of approving hands—suon di man can elle ! I approached , curious , ; what think you I found there ? Toads in nuptial abandon and epithalamic gaiety P No— a " legitimate" performance of Shakspeare , on the boards which Kemble , Siddoirs , Kean , and Bunn have consecrated . The play was Hamlet . The occasion was grave ; it introduced a " great American tragedian" to the British public . . Y America ! land of hope , child of England , and nation of the * trture , i mrtns
love thee dearly , and look with anxious interest Ettter all thy new in Literature , in Art , but do not , I implore thee , send us any more " great tragedians" ! I am deeply interested in thy Hawthorne , Melville , ± » oe , Lowell , Emerson , Parker , Longfellow , Peggy Fuller ( who " conldnt abide me" ) , Cornelius Mathews ( whose strange tragedy of Witchcraft 1 have iust been reading ) , and many other writers worthy to find welcome among the best ; but if more tragedians afflict me I shall feel my love grow cold If America only knew how little we want her tragedians ! If those ^ tragedians only knew how happy we should be to ignore them ! But they don't : at , ail , . -r , ^ ! have
Hamlet , and in the dog days , too ! Mercije sors d enprevdreI only half recovered from Emil Devrient . He at any rate declaimed like a gentleman , and uttered ! the words with appreciation ; if he did not act Hamlet , he read it with a noble voice , and reasonable correctness . ± rat if with him I felt like Tennyson's Mariarina : 1 said " I am aweary , aweary ;" " He endeth not , " I said ; I said " I am aweary , aweary , I wish that he were dead /' language has ho power to express my melting ennui at Mr . Buchanan , ' « the great American tragedian . " The temperature of the house was not
eminently agreeable ; and yet the crowded audience perspirea ana applanded with an energy which denoted the character of the persevering , perspiring Anglo-Saxon . I saw very little of this performance , but more than enough to mate up my mind as to the complete absence of all the higher qualities in Mr . Buchanan . His cavernous sostenuto dfis , ohs , and ors ( or , as he pronounced the word , or-a)—his capricious intonation—the careful error of his interpretation—and the cold formality of his gestures —were anything but tragic , ideal . He is young , has a good figure , and may train into a fair second-rate actor , but all attempt at the personation of high tragic character should be abandoned by him . There was alarce played after Hamlet , but as Vivianesque patience would not endure sitting out the tragedy , I am willing to believe that it was the most humourous ! most inventive , most farcial of farces—willing to believe anything
but my capacity for witnessing it . . , Oh f to thing of my leaving those pleasant scenes , where the idle day was passed in " talking of lovely things that conquer death , " Varied by an occasional glimpse at that strange aspect of British life , known to most of my shuddering readers as " provincial tea-parties "—to quit lounging m tlio aun or sauntering in the shade , with lazy cigar , loved friend , and pleasant books , and to find oneself once more in a hot theatre , time July , listening to the " divine Shakspeare , " whom you don't want to listen to again for Bevoral yfcars ; and criticising " great American tragedians , " whom you foryerrtly hope never to see again . Now , I appeal to you , Sir , is that likely io make a critic mild , applausive , " genial r" No , Sir , no . And if I ani savage , depend on it my tone is justifiable . I should like , on reading over the proof , to mollify the sentence on Mr . Buchanan , if I can . PI can't . ]
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T II E OPERAS have wooed me , but found me coy . I . could not resist going to hear the Huguenots on Thursday , because it was the " last time thr « season ; " and the tost time I heard it , consecrated it for ever in my affections . ( It was on that occasion Fanny " refused" me . What an escape I I mean for me , not for Fanny . ) Mario was greater than ever in the passionate duet of the third act . I should like Emil Devrient , Charles Kean , or any other legitimate had actor to -watch Mario for one night , and sec what can l > 6 done by a man with real emotion in him ! On Tuesday , Grrisi wafl magnificent in that dreary opera , Anna Hol&na , but I stayed away , and onl y speak by hearsay and " foregone conclusion ; " as I do in saying how eft aw ring Charton was in Tm , Sonnamfmla , at Hrk Majesty ' s , oil the same evening . The Italian Opera Reems incessantly ihe-rcasing itA successes with ticrman , French , Greek , and English singer ^ never wittt Italians . Shortly we are to have JulHe-n's now opera . I have imm&ftjW faith in . f til ] ion ; and if the consciousness of his popularity , and the estimation in which ho is hold , have not Jbrced him into the error of writing grdnd music of the Halevy school , 1 prophecy a groat BU ' ccedB fo * Mia JLet him be JuTlion , and Iw will succeed . Vivian .
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JpaT aiy 1852 . ] THE LEASE ft __ _ *» „
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Leader (1850-1860), July 31, 1852, page 737, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1945/page/21/
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