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" Shakspeabe 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 their criticisms , translations , and quotations of Shakspeabe , 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 . Fbanijois Hugo , son of Victob Hugo , who , as we learn from the Revue de PariSy is about to publish a complete translation of Shaxspeabe , made from the original folio of 1623 , and not from the modern editions . As an evidence of the " worship of Shakspeaae , " 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 thini , except as an antiquarian curiosity , lie 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 Shakspjeabe than an error : in Scripture . Even bad grammar 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 Shakspeabe is 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 Shakspeabe .
Whatever merit M . Hugo ' s version may hare 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 Revue 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 Moi < i £ be , the only dramatist who can take rank beside Shakspeabe !
The mention of Moliere reminds us of a humorous passage in his Fesl / u de Pierrey which we should like to quote at one of the meetings of that immensely foolish Manchester Society for the suppression of tobacco : Sgana-RELX . E is speaking of snuff , but his words equally apply to cigars . " Quoique puisse dire Aristote et toute la philosophic , il n'est rien d egal au tabac : c ' estla passion des honnetes gens , et qui vit sanstabac ji ' est pas dii / ne devicre *' He develops this thesis , but we must cease quoting , reminding the reader that the grave Dr . D Alton , of Atomic celebrity , found Sir IIumphkky . Davy * ' an agreable and intelligent young man" with one serious failing— " he 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 Deitx Mondes there is a piquant article , " Madame de Stael Ambassadrice ^ which prints several inedited letters written by Corinne to Gustavtjs of Sweden , when she was wife of the Swedish Ambassador at Paris . To the majority of readers M . de Si-ael 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 © f 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 that period .
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whxch her life had been passed ; in the quality of her convent ' education- ' * nT near view and intimate knowledge of the church ; in her familiarity with the Wt ; and ex-officio holiest churchmen , and their thoughts and deeds ; and inth ™ " opposition and hostility of every partizan and friend of her family to all % d aspiration towards good , all hope of improvement , all struggle after , proerea * 7 ^ social , and spiritual , as expressed , however imperfectly , and often absurdlv Iw ? doctrine of the followers and disciples of Savonarola . All these educating infli pointed steadily and consistently in one direction . And their Tesult was to W ^ active and acute intellect wholly uninformed by any moral ideas whatever ft-T and wrong were practically words devoid of sense for her . Expedient , inexneS prudent , imprudent ; wise , foolish ; successful , unsuccessful ; these and such rt qualities she understood ; and they were the only epithets she had learned to »™ i to human conduct . * PPv In this effort of hypothetical psychology we cannot say that Mr TroUone has been strikingly successful , nor will we say that he has been obviouslv unsuccessful . The truth is , such an effort is necessarily too conjectural for real success . Too little is inown of Catherine ' s character and feelings no thing at all of the effect which certain influences exercised upon her- sVthat any attempt to portion out what was due to original disposition and what to external influences must inevitahlv rpniflin-niir ^ lv r > r . niPr . Hii . ni
Muph better , because more solidly established , is Mr . Trollope'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 ; but , altlou <» a uninformed , y e can recognize in him the characteristics dt" really master of the materials he handles with ease and fulness , yet without osten . ta . tion . From the glimpses he gives us of Italian life in those days we will borrow this on
TRAVELLING IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY . ; A journey from Florence to Rome was no easy or agreeable undertaking in the sixteenth century . Of course , all possible appliances and means , which could facilitate the passage of such travellers as the Cardinal de' Medici and his suite , were put in requisition . The dangers arising from the unsettled state of the country mi ght , in their case , be provided against . Not always , however ; for a few 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 armed bands which occupied the country bet-ween Rome and Florence .
But the obstacles opposed to all locomotion by nature , broken loose , during centuries 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 niud , draggled and tore the churchman ' s piirple 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 side 3
of one mule , while another similarly bore the hindmost ends ; so that the animals occupied the same position relatively to their burthen as the carriers of a sedan chair do to theirs . The cardinal and his numerous suite , lay 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 tbe well-broken , ambling journey-mule was then in Italy , us still it ia to the present day in Spain , a highly valuable animal , not only considered more d « corously 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 cortfyc mounted . on war-chargers . One of the finest of the paintings in the so-called library of the cathedral at Siena offers au 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 ia 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 tbe 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 uriimpassioned page 3 to the meanest and worst motives , without a word of either surprise or indignation . Actions worthy of execration are quietly explained , to hare proceeded from the lowest and basest calculations of expediency , -with tlie equaola tone of a philosopher expounding the unvaried and necessary operation of a natural law . The vilest turpitude , the grossest injustice , the most revolting atrocities ars related by them with a na'ivo equanimity only attainable by genuine ignorance of
anything better or nobler . In further illustration take this : — . One other anecdote , related by our friend Richn , from the chapter of the conventual ways and means , is worth giving hero , as curiously characteristic of "the notions entertained by these religious devotees of the nature and meaning of worship , and ol the attributes of tho Creator . _ It was one of those great and solemn occasions when in some urgent need of wo Florentines , the black lmpruneta Virgin was to bo brought into the city . All tno convents were expected to present some oflcring to the favourite idol . But it a happened that the ludies of tho Murate were just then cither very poor or very Btingy , and it wns debated among them with some anxiety what they should g 1 " * » and how maintain the credit of their house without incurring inconvenient cxpons In this difficulty tlio abbess at length announced that the Murnto would present » magnificent mantle to the Vircrin : that it would not como ruinously expensive .
CATHERINE DE MEDICIS . Tht Girlhood of Catherine de Medici . By T . A . Trollope . Cliapman and Hall . This ia a very agreeable bit of historical biography , solid yet pleasant , inatruotrve yet as easy to read as a novel—easier , indeed , than most novels . 7 * f X . ane > b more or less acquainted with Catherine when Queen of Franco ; out Mx . Trollope does not tell once again that oft-told story ; ho narrates 11 er biography up to the period when she ascended the throne , and there leaves her . Xhe object of his book has been to show how the " child was mother , to the woman , " as Wordsworth did not say , or rather how and under what influences the child grew up . At the close of his book , lie says : — ° * Surely we have seen tho fitting and perfectly aumcient preparation in the character and conduct of her kinsman and guardian , Clement ; in the writings of the statesmen around him , whoso pagoa express tho best thoughts and aentimonta of tho world in
that it should be made after a plan she would communicate to them , solely out prayers . Accordingly tho following receipt for the confection thereof is transit from tho original preserved in Iticha ' s historic pages : , . x " For malting tho said mantle of aix yards of rich brocade of gold , lined wk seventy ermine skins , embroidered with sixty-three crowns in gold , and eight " un r ! and eighty-two precious stones , furninhed with « garniture of pearls nnrt " ¦ 6 ol clasp , with a Solomon ' s knot in gold , and a button of gems , and spangled witli 11 sorts of flowers , viz ., lilies , roses , carnations , jessamines , and hyacinths , —the follow prayers must bo said : — .
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1120 THE L E A > EB , [ No . 3 » 8 , ' Satttmav .
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arifciea are not the legialatora , but the judges and police of literat-ure . JTheydo not make laws—they interpret and try to enforce them . —EdinburghBeviow . ¦ . . ' ¦ ' ' ¦ . ? — ; . ¦ ... ' ¦ ' ¦
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Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 22, 1856, page 1120, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2168/page/16/
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