On this page
- Departments (1)
-
Text (6)
-
^ ,_ ILXtBrUtUrw
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
-
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.
^ ,_ Ilxtbruturw
ICtferatot
Untitled Article
Shakspeare is the inexhaustible theme of English writers , as Goethe is of the Germans , and in both cases there is sufficient matter for interminable discussion on what Shakspbake wrote , and what Goethe meant . The first condition—that of a correct text—is , unhappily , not only impossible in Shakspbare ' s case , but is not in so absolute and'definite a state of impossibility that men are willing to resign themselves to it , and judge the writings only by those general excellences which- defective texts fail to disguise . Of Chaucer , of Spenser , nay , of Shakspeaite ' s own fellow dramatists , especially Ben Jonson , we have unimpeachable texts . But the greatest
poet yet known to the world is known only through a text which is hopelessly corrupt . In the new number of the Edinburgh Review there is an article of unusual excellence on Shakspeare ' s text , with especial reference to the volume discovered by Mr . Collier , containing 20 , 000 corrections on the margin . We have seen no such writing on . that volume as this in the Edinburgh , and commend all our readers to it . The writer very skilfully argues that from the nature of the case these corrections are either all conjectural , and in no wise more authoritative than the conjectures of other critics , or else the corrector must have had some authentic source from which he drew : to admit
that some may be authentic is , however , to open the door to endless dispute , since no evidence is ready to distinguish between what is conjectural and what is authentic ; and inasmuch as the nature of these corrections for the most pait points to an authentic source—in the opinion , of the Edinburgh Reviewer—the battle must now shift its ground , and critics must set themselves , if possible , to distinguish between : what is conjectural , and what authentic . The same review contains an article on Body and Mind , which will be read with interest , although not in itself remarkable ; an able review of Brewster ' s Iiife of Newton , and an intemperate review of RusMnism written probably by some R . A ., or by the irate friend of some E . A . That Mr . Ruskin lays himself open to attack in almost every chapter he writes *
no one , now-a-days , need be told : lout for an influential journal like the Edinburgh Review to print an article in which the animus is strong but the intelligence feeble , and in which Mr . Ruskin is proved to be a shallow ct prater / ' whose "jargon" oaly noodles can admire , is not to affect the reputation of Mr . Ruskin , but to discredit the Review . The contradictions which are pointed out in this article , at least those that are real , would have served as excellent indications of the caution necessary in reading Mr . Ruskin , had they been temperately put , and set in tolerable argument ; but the writer will find the public ' slow to believe him against Mr . Ruskin . " What , indeed , can any one think of a critic who retorts on Mr . Ruskin that "Maclise is certainly the artist iu the whole Royal Academy who has carried to its highest pitch that finish which Mr . Ruskin admires in the Pre-Raphaelite school !"
The Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal has nothing in it this quarter which calls for notice here except an angry and supremely foolish review of Professor Baden Powell ' s work , by a Mr . Alexander Thomson of Banchory , who is afflicted to think that a Clergyman of the Church of England and an Oxford Professor , should hold the " dreary speculations of Laplace , Lamarck :, Oken , and the author of The Vestiges . " As a specimen , at once , of Mr . Alexander Thomson ' s logic and charity read
this : •—If Professor Powell ' s theory of creation bo true , and can be proved to be true , then thore is an end of all revealed religion , and of all natural religion too , — there catraot be an Almighty personal God creating aud sustaining all thingB , Perhaps the moat painful and tlio most dangerous part of the book to common readers is the mixture of arguments tending to destroy all religion , with professions of respect for Christianity . Su rely the , author cannot be ignorant of the tendency of his own reasonings . vvivvfviWM J 'vVV VWIV « UVVVWfVt / fi'i / Oa
How characteristic this passage is of the amiable and philosophic temper rendering polemics on the Development Hypothesis so agreeable ! First , Mr . Thomson boldly asserts that the theory does away with all revealed religion , and ' * all natural religion too , " as if religion depended on a scientific hypothesis ; and , having satisfied his own mind with this logic , Mr . Thomson straightway accuses Professor Powell of hypocrisy . How sincerely he himself looks at the question , may be gathered from this : — Wo admit that wo do not find a porfeot system of philosophy , either moral or aoiontific , w tho Holy Scriptures . They wero given to man for a . higher and more important purpose than to teaoh abstract knowledge . But we do not admit that there w one word or statement in Scripture inconsistent with sound philosophy , or opposed to it ; imd wo go a step further and maintain that the steady progress of Truth in every department , —be it Biblical oritioiam , mental philosophy , physioal aoienoe , or antiquarian , research , —is rapidl y adding to tho proofs , already innumerable that the Bible contains tho words , while all nature displays tho works , of the AJmiglity Creator and Preserver of all things , aud that His words wad Hia works are over in perfect harmony—they cannot contradict each , other .
Untitled Article
WHO WROTE THE WAVERLEY NOVELS ? Who wrote the Waverley Novels ? Sting an Investigation into certain Mysterious Circumstances attending their Production , and an Inquiry into the Literary Aid whicli Sir Walter Scott may have received from many Persons . , London : Smith and Elder . Queen Elizabeth once proposed to have the suspected author of an offensive pamphlet racked in order to extort confession from him . cc Nay Madam , " said Bacon , " never rack his person , but rack his style . Command him to write another pamphlet , and I will undertake to pronounce whether he be the author of this . " Some persons who are credited with more than . their own , are obliging enough voluntarily to place themselves on the critical rack . For example , it was at one time reported that the novels of a . very fertile living author were written by his wife ; but circumstances at length induced the lady to publish a . novel avowedly her own , and that example of her quality as an . authoress set the report at rest for ever .
Unfortunately , no such test is possible with regard to those for whom W . j . F ., the author of the above-named pamphlet , claims the chief authorship of the Waverley Novels . We have uo opportunity of racking their style , for their right hand has long forgotten its cunning , and they have left nothing behind , them , which will enable us to gauge their power . Their works belong !? ta the same famous category with bachelors' wives and okt maids ' children . " We know , indeed , of a brain and hand lying these four-and-twenty years under the sod at Melrose which have left behind them indisputable proof of
a genius inspired with all the powers exhibited in the Waverley Novels , of a memory stored with all the knowledge required for writing theni i of a nature characterised by all the tastes and idiosyncrasies betrayed in them . That this brain should have produced the Waverley Novels has- hitherto seemed no more surprising to the majority of well-informed mankind than that the man who wrote Hamlet should have written As youIAJcett , than that the con ^ queror of Jena was the conqueror of Austerlitz > than that the vine which bears purple clusters one year should bear other purple clusters the next . A sufficient cause for the existence of the Waverley Novels seemed to be given in the genius of Scott .
But now we are called on to revise this opinion . According to W . JV P ., those novelsr- ^ at least the best of them produced between 1814 andl 1823 > were not written by Walter Scott , who has unfairly monopolised the credit of them , but by his brother , Thomas Scott , and Elizabeth MacCulloeh , the wife of the said Thomas ; the husband contributing the humorous character and dialogue , and the military sketches , and the wife supplying the descriptions of scenery , the feminine characters , and the construction of the plot . The utmost Walter did , it appears , was to throw in some of his dead historical lore among the living scenes that were due to-the joint genius of Thomas and Elizabeth , and to add a few limbs and . flourishes of style . But the vital part of The Antiquary , Guy Mannering , and the rest was all begotten in Canada , by a man whose hand shook with drink , and a woman who " may
possibly" have written some feeble poems and articles signed " Eliza , " in . the corner of an American newspaper . It was not ppssible for Walter Scott , a practised writer , to have produced the best of the Waverley Novels an such rapid succession , but it was possible for Elizabeth MacCulloch and her husband . And what is yet more remarkable , the man and woman , who had genius enough to produce works which won . not only a world of fame but a world of money , were contented to live an utterly obscure life , and to get nothing but a miserable gleaning of hundreds that you may count by units , while their brother pocketed his tens of thousands and carried away immortal fame as the fruit of their labours . Yet more ; Thomas and Elizabeth Scott had several children , yet none of those children have , apparently , breathed a word in vindication of their parents' rights .
Not a probable case , certainly , considering what we know of human nature . However , le vrai n ' est pas toujours le vraisemblable , and we are prepared to bow to sufficient evidence . When W . J . P . has backed hia case by adequate proof , we will unlearn half our piety towards Walter Scott , place him in a humble niche of our temple , and make room for W . J . F . ' s " strango gods " —Thomas and Elizabeth . At present , however , wo are far from feeling coerced by his evidence , and we have taken up his pamphlet , not as a matter of any importance , but simply as a literary—or rather , an illiterate—curiosity . From an editorial note in the Irish Quarterly we gather that the initials W- J . F , represent ** a gentleman who has obtained a respectable literary status , " and having been amused ourselves , we propose to amuse our readers , with the indications afforded in this pamphlet as to the amount of logical ability and literary ao quivomont with which such a " status" may bo obtained .
The chief points in W . J . F . ' s argument are—1 . That an anonymous letter , published in a Quebec newspaper m 182 D , states that the writer , saw the manuscript of the Antiquary in Thomas Scott ' a handwriting , and thai Elizabeth Scott " wrote the character of Flora Mao Ivor . " 2 . That « Thom « e Scott is pronounced by all who knew him to have possessed great humow and story-telling faculty , and that his wife had a " talent for writing * ' an * was stored with Scotch traditions . 3 . That tho dates in Jbaokhart ' s Life a * i irreconcilcablo with the production of tlie novels by Walter Scott . 4 > . T ^ ib among the letters not suppressed by JLoekhart there ia one written shortl after tho appearance of Waverley > in which Walter , urge » hia brother , to fx
Untitled Article
pass overM . Monteg ' tjt ' s article on Hamlet in the last Revue des Deux Mondes , an article which , in Prance , will be -very striking because it exposes a fallacy running through French art . Indeed this fallacy , although not s » widely accepted in England , is also frequently to be met with here . M ; Montegut protests against the notion of poetical " types . " Shakspeare , as indeed all great poets , does not paint types , he paints individuals . Hamlet is not a type of the metaphysical dreamer . He is an historical individuality—not only complex , because human , but specially complicated with the temporal conditions of his age and rank . There are points in M . Montegut's paper which will be questioned ,, but the whole cannot be read without interest .
At is not often w « can counsel our readers to read , except for amusement , tho criticisms of Frenchmen on Suakspbairiq ; l > ut wejcounseJ them not to
Untitled Article
Critics are not the legislators , but the judges ana police of literature . They do not make laws-they interpret and try to enforce , them . —Edinburgh Iteview .
Untitled Article
Apotl . * 9 y 18 S 6 . Q ^ H E A KiRA BEE . 375
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), April 19, 1856, page 375, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2137/page/15/
-