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" Shakspbare in France , " as we have noticed on more than one occasion , is becoming a significant phenomenon . While a Ponsabd makes himself the laughing-stock of France , as of England , % uttering nonsense about the " divine Williams , " and a Dumas adds a new and improved fifth act to Hamlet in a few hours de ce travail rapide et foudroyant which his admirers marvel at , other and more serious minds are giving patient devotion and clear
sagacity to the reverential study of our great poet . From whom ought we to expect such noble labour more than from a son of Victor Hugo ? That son , Pkancois , has just published a volume containing a complete translation of the sonnets into prose , with a very interesting Introduction ; and as the volume appears in the ' Collection Levy / price only one franc , our readers should not hesitate to possess themselves of it . The translation is admirably executed , although , of course , for an Englishman it can only have the interest of curiosity . The Introduction , on the other hand , has the interest of literary discussion . Readers will see with pleasure tlie careful study this Introduction exhibits ; and perhaps will agree with the views it sets forth . Yery ingenious , and we believe novel , is the rapprochement M . Francois
Hugo makes of Sidney ' s Defense of Poesy , and Shakspeahe s answer thereto in the prologue to the fourth act of the Winter ' Tale , where Time is made to justify every departure from the unities . More questionable to us is the hypothesis , not novel , although M . Hugo supposes it to be so , which makes the sonnets tell a distinct story . Mr . Armitage Brown has already done this , in a volume which Skakspearean students well know ; Professor Masson has also done it , in a volume still inedited ; others have had a similar conception of tlie sonnets ; but for our own parts we can only regard the conception as one of the many ingenious plausibilities of literature , not tenable in the presence of rigorous criticism . By rearranging
the sonnets according to his own fancy , and by including among them a poein from the Passionate Pilgrim , which is not Sh . akspeare's , M . Hugo does give a certain unity to these various poems , and that Linity may increase their interest ; as a matter of criticism , however , the grounds on which this arrangement is made , must , we think , be regarded as mere shifting sandbanks of plausibility in the face of the fact that the sonnets were not at all thus arranged in Shakspeabe ' s lifetime , and the fact that poets avail them selves of the sonnet expressly for occasional poems . It is a debatable question , and will continue to be dehated ; critic opposes critic ; commentator scorns commentator ; everybody differs from everybody ; as Euripides says in the Cyclops , " no one will listen to any one or anything , "—
aicovei tfoidep oiiSels ov&eyos —and M . Fbancois Hugo is as well entitled to a hearing as another . He has earned a right to be heard ; let oar readers judge for themselves ; tliey will listen , at any rate , with interest , and that interest will not be diminished by their recognition of certain accents which the celebrated preface to Cromwell have made familiar .
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We promised to return to the ' Edinburgh Essays for the purpose of considering Dr . George Wilson ' s admirable essay on Chemical Final Causes . We cannot ' afford room for the many suggestive passages we had marked , and must content ourselves with referring the reader to the essay , which is not only full of fine thoughts , but contains little which those who repudiate such inquiries will object to . The bearing , indeed , of the whole argument , namely , why do certain chemical elements rather than others enter into the composition of plants and animals ? we consider a purely otiose inquiry \ as well ask ,
why docs an acid combine with a base to form a salt ? why are chemical combinations definite P But although the question raised is essentially unanswerable , the facts elicited are of very great interest ; and no one better than Dr . George Wimon knows how to treat science so as to be intelligible to general readers : with felicitous illustrations , scientific and poetical , he brings the most abstruse questions into the clearness of day . There is a passage towards the close of his paper which , however , wo not only think unacceptable us philosophy , but which we are persuaded ho will , on reconsideration , acknowledge to be so . ^ uo so .
that when the conditions are clanged , chemical forces manifest themselv differently ; and this out of the organism no less than within it . Chlorine and hydrogen , for example , have a powerful affinity for each other ; hut T ) r Wilson knows as well as any man that these gases may be mixed together in the dark without ever uniting ; the change of condition from light to darkne is sufficient to prevent these gases from manifesting their affinity . Again certain degree of cold prevents many chemical combinations which take place at the ordinary temperature of the atmosphere . Such changes of condition are slight compared with the changes "which bodies undergo in passing into thp
organism ; so that instead of our being able to say that the properties manifested by a body when out of the organism will continue to be manifested by it when in the organism , we are never entitled to assume this a pr iori Indeed , it is owing to this very fact that the absurd idea of a "vitalforce controlling or suspending chemical force " has gained such general currencv Were Dr . Wilson ' s assumption granted , we should be able to explain all physiological phenomena deductively , from the known , properties of chemical elements ; which is not the case . We propound our objections with some misgiving , for we naturally enough suspect that Dr . Wixson must have meant something different from what he says .
I ask for an indulgent estimate of a method of research in which I have scarcely a predecessor ; but I submit to criticism examples of the method , because I believe it to be logically free from objection . It only assumes that whatever proporties a chemical element possesses before its entrance into an organism , it retains riftor its ontrance . Thus , if iron be crystallisablo , magnctisablc , clectrifiablo , oxidablo in various degrees , and ready to unite with organic matters out of the body , 1 assume that it will continue to exhibit thoso properties within it , -whatever may bo the additional properties -which it manifests in virtue of its l > eing placed in such now conditions ns can bo realised only in a living organism . When wo examine substances in n perfectly dq rk apartment , we discern no colour in them , but when we carry them with us mto a lighted room , and perceive the tints -which they then display , wo do not doubt tuat they retain all the properties which thoy exhibited in darkneas ; and that these moreover are closely connected with their asaumption of colour when light fulls upon tnem . Wo make a similar but not loss legitimate assumption , when wo take for granted that all the proportion which exist in an element when part of a dead mass , romain in it when part of a living one . Either we have altogether mistaken him , or this clear-sighted chemist luw been guilty of v , jjtnvngo oversight . One of tho first principles of philosophy ia ,
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THE NEW EDITION OF BACON . The Works of Francis Bacon . Collected and Edited by James Spedding , Uobert teslie Ellis , and Douglas Devon Heath . Vols . I . and II . Longman and Co . At length an edition of Bacon , worthy of him and of English scholarship begins to issue from the press . It is somewhat humiliating to our national pride that this our grandest name in philosophy , a name for ever on our lips , an influence for ever directing our minds , should hitherto have inspired neither of our universities nor one of our scientific bodies with the desire to do it such justice as could be done by setting forth the Opera Omnia in all the advantage of careful and competent editing . Corporate bodies have
declined , the task . Commercial speculation has declined it , not feeling sufficient confidence in public sympathy . Three private students—all honour to them . !—have taken it upon themselves ; and , to judge from the two volumes now before us , tkey _ have executed the task with a fulness , sagacity , and loving care which will leave little for successors to improve . We use a hackneyed phrase when we say no English gentleman's library should be without this edition of Bacon ; but we use the phrase with precise earnestness of meaning , for the edition is in all respects so admirable that we have only one regret , namely , the impossibility of the edition not finding its place on the shelves of every thinking man , owing to the inevitable cost of such a work .
We have gone through the two volumes pencil in hand , and possessed ourselves of all the editorial matter in the shape of prefaces and notes . Having done so , we cannot restrain the expression of our surprise thatcritics should have thought proper to put forward trifling objections to points of quite minor detail , instead of bestowing all their space in explaining the merits of this edition . Not that assent to every opinion , or approval of every detail , could be expected . When we have more than a thousand notes on various topics , it is natural that many of these notes will seem questionable ; when we have a new arrangement of materials , it is natural that some differences of opinion will be called forth . But in presence of so great a work , executed with such rsire ability and care , the obtrusion of critical objections on minor points seems to us a deviation from the true © ffice of the public press .
The present edition arranges Bacon ' s various works under tln-ee general divisions . First—the philosophical literary works addressed to mankind at large , and intelligible to all cultivated readers ; secondly—the professional works , addressed more exclusively to legal readers ; thirdly—the occasional works , such as letters , speeches , charges , tracts , state-papers , and other writings of business . The advantage of this classification is not onlv obvious in its convenience to the reader , it admits of a corresponding division of editorial labours . For the idea of any one man editing Bacon is preposterous ; and when that one man is a Birch or a Montagu , it becomes simply ludicrous . Three editors , at the very least , are requisite . Three editors have co-operated in this edition . Mr . Spedding , who is editor-in-chief , undertakes the literary and occasional works ; Mr . Ellis the philosophical works ( aided by Mr . Spedding ); and Mr . Heath tho professional works .
The two volumes already issued contain the " Novum Organum , " the " Parasceve ad Historiam Naturalem , " the "Do Augmentis , " tho " Novm Orbis Scientiarum , " the " Historia Vcntorum , " the " Historia "Vitae et Mortis , " the " Historia Densi et Itari , " the " Iriquisitio de Magnete , " tho " Topica inquisitiones de Luce et Lumine , " the " Sylva Sy lvarum , " the " Scaia Intelleetus , " and the " Prodromi . " All these works have their prefaces , explaining their relations chronological and philosophical , and arc liberally annotated throughout , llawlcy ' s Life , with notes by Mr . Spedding , is prefixed ; and Mr . Ellis furnishes a general preface to the philosophical and historical
works , in which he expounds and criticises Bacon ' s Method position . All who can make their way through Latin prose , will prefer reading the Latin versions rather than the translations which in- future volumes will be given to render the edition available even to English readers ; and , if the suggestion come not too late , wo should urge on Mr . Spedding tho desirability of reprinting at least the bulk of the notes in their respective places with the translations ; the increase of printing will be more than compensated by the advantage to the English reader . Tho printing and paper nrc ^ cxcellent , and the whole aspect of tlie edition is ono which , charms tho eye .
Descending from gonerala to particulars , we have to notice iu the prefaces and notes such copiousness and variety of erudition at the service oj such desire for precision , aa makes this edition stand conspicuous among ftll works oxecutod by Englishmen . Mr . Ellis displays an extent of accurate knowledge which jh truly remarkable . Not only does ho correct the very frequent misquotations from and references to ancient authors , and furnish parallel passives or ouriquf } rftppriicJwnicntu * whioh nlone would require con-
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208 THE XEAD ^ R . Lgg ^ jgg ^ JATURDAY ,
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Critics are not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . Theydo not make laws-they interpret and try to . enforce them . — Edinburgh Revteio . * .
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Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 28, 1857, page 208, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2182/page/16/
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