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    June 7, 1856.] T JETE X, E^. DEB, 54$

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    ITtf WtthnP yLnilUUUX *

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    » /'ritica »xe not the legislators, but ...

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    Whatever may be the melancholy truth res...

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    We arc a sad people, and, as Frotssart l...

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    FROUDE'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Uislory of ...

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  • 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.

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    June 7, 1856.] T Jete X, E^. Deb, 54$

    June 7 , 1856 . ] T JETE X , E ^ . DEB , 54 $

    Ittf Wtthnp Ylniluuux *

    literature-

    » /'Ritica »Xe Not The Legislators, But ...

    » /' ritica » xe not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They do not w make laws they interpret and try to enforce them . —Edinburgh Review .

    Whatever May Be The Melancholy Truth Res...

    Whatever may be the melancholy truth respecting the decline of the drama ra England , there is no symptom of a decline of interest in dramatic art . We n . eed not at present dwell on the abundant evidences of this interest afforded by Literature ; let us glance only at public amusements . Besides our own theatres , not in a brilliant condition , it must be confessed ,

    we have two-Italian Operas , a French theatre , and , for two years , Mr . MrrcffEix > gave us a German theatre . This season we have Ristori , and an Italian troupe . Signors Arkivabene and Fusco are lecturing on Ammeki and the Italian drama . Mrs . Kbjibie , Miss Gitn , Mrs . Ciiattbbi-et , and others , give dramatic readings all over England , and now we have to announce a new and daring effort in the same direction . A } -oung German authoress , Fr ' aulein Elise Schmidt , -who comes here highly recommended , proposes to deliver three Dramatic Readings of a peculiar character . She is to read the Prometheus of JEschyi / ds , as translated by Yoss ;

    tfee CEdipus at Colonnos of Sophocles , as translated by Donnjek , and the JSlectra of Euripides , as translated by Donseb . These plays are all arranged for the Reading by herself , and will he accompanied by Beethoven ' s , Mendelssohn's , and Vogel ' s music . When we remember what a deep and vivid impression the Antigone produced on our English pit , although cruelly mangled in the representation , we cannot doubt that the grand old Greek pjays will affect the hearts and imaginations of the most miscellaneous audience , if read with power . Fraulein Schmidt is known in Germany as the authoress of a dramatic poem , Judas Ischarioth , and of three dramas , recently published under the title of Drei Dramen .

    We Arc A Sad People, And, As Frotssart L...

    We arc a sad people , and , as Frotssart long ago noticed of us , take even our pleasure -with a dismal face—moult tristement . A sad , serious people , made sadder and more intolerable and intolerant by a puritanism which gives our saturnine qualities the pretence of something higher . How best to make each other unhappy is the ' moral and religious' " of one vast body of Englishmen ; how to make each other uncomfortable is the ' proper ' purpose of the rest . To think of our legislation and our conventional rules , to witness our Sundays and our evening parties , must perplex and daunt a Frenchman or Italian in his gayest mood . " Restraint" is the magic word which rules our life . We call mirth frivolous when we do not consider it worse ; we call dreariness dignity , and dullness wisdom . Blackwood and Fraser both touch on this point this month . The former in a paper called " The Porch and the Garden , " says well : —

    Celsus . But wisdom is generally supposed to have something to do with gravity , and good people are popularly called serious people , and gravity and seriousness are difficult to reconcile with that festive and joyous view of life , and all its circumstances , which you advocate ; besides this , it is well known that the most intellectual men are often the saddest , and this because they see the farthest into the truth of things , and it is undoubtedly true that the stupidest people are often the merriest . Tl . epoi . kmus . It was through the appearance , and not the reality of wisdom , that the owl , that gravest of birds , came to be the bird of Minerva . The gravity of the owl , and the softness and silence of his general carriage , is easily accounted for . It enables him to catch mice and small birds ; in fact , it pays . So does gravity pay amongst men , and not least in all the learned professions . Ask any fashionable

    physician , rising or risen barrister , popular preacher , or successful schoolmaster . Hie majority of mankind not being over wise , he will always best find butter to his bread who conforms , at least in externals , to their estimate . Neither need this be very hypocritical , for there may be light within when the outside of the house ia dark , and many fiuses of Englishmen are like their London houses , stilt' and dismal without , but within full of brightness and taste , and . line arts . In these cases it is a purely defensive measure , und thus excusable . Hut it is more courageous to laugh when thoro is a reason for it . The man who calls laughter an idiot in Shukspeare is King John , when on the point of committing a murder . As for seriousness , I know no other language but ours in which the word has been made synonymous Avith godliness . I take that word to be one of the greatest stumbling-blocks in the way of

    making people better . The religions of the South , however false and imperfect , certainly do take account of both sides of life , and balance their fasts with their festivals . The keeping of Christinas is almost the only sot-off against the preponderating gloom of ours . Hence comes it that human nature will assert itself blindly , and be merry and sad at wrong seasons . Wo turn Sunday into a Hamadun , und wo play cricket on Good Friday . 1 suppose the difference may in part arise from the original discrepancies of the northern and southern nature , und perhaps Heathendom may still I nfluence Christendom . The mythology of Odin uud hi . s brethren is stark and cold and awful , while that of Jupiter is joyous and festive . The very joys of the heathen northmeu wore more grim than their sorrows ; for it ia diilicult to conceive anything less cheerful than the crowning pleasure of . their paradise , which w . is to drink bei-. r out of the skulls of their enemies . It must , have \ xo . n a lingering recollection of tins Bavage blins which often induces their serious descendants to tnUe delight in picking their neighbours to pieces . And France in a pleasant paper on the " Art of Story-telling , " describes Our streets Llms : —

    You sec men hurrying through the . streotH , with an nir of alarm on their faces , as if they wore going on errands of life and death , wlutn in fuel , their entire anxiety is to finish Home , probably , very trivial ulliiir , in order to get on with something olao . Tho thoroughfares exhibit u dense population in " sort of agony ot impatience ) . Work , car « , precipitate haste , absorption of mind , me written in their eyes . 1 | ) y ~ siclans , flying about to their patients , if they do not , like Sir Richard Hlackmoro , Write epics "to tho rumbling of tluir coach wheoln , " bo Keen taking advantage of the brief intervals from house' to houtto to keep » 1 > their professional reading , prepare lectures , post diaries , and write letters . Every minute has its Ullet . 1 hero is W ) t an unoccupied head or hand- always excepting , of course , < ho drones and Imttorflios , Thoro w no rest : and leisure , in its sunny suiibo , is a luxury unknown . l ' . vcry

    other country has periods of repose and indulgence . Toil is elsewhere mitigated b \ relaxation . The sun never sets elsewhere upon a whole race of men who have been labouring without respite since the dawn . There are cymbals and trumpets , and tambourines to gladden the ears , and a thousand delassements to fill and lull the imagination . But in England , where we have plays , and concerts , and state pageantries , and anniversary dinners in abundance , the . feeling of enjoyment is evei overcast by the heavy shadows of business . We are never entirely released from oui daily responsibilities , our perpetual cares . And all this moil and turmoil , all this anxiety and heartache , to " get 1 position "—which means , to live in a large house , and give dismal dinner parties , and respect all the proprieties , and be legitimately uncomfortable all the days of your life . Leisure , the sunny repose of life , and amusement , its filip and its grace , are scarcely to be thought of . Amusement may perhaps be offensive to Heaven . It is certainly carnal . And if men once learn to be happy on this earth , to say to the passing moment , * Stay I thou art fair , ' who can . foresee the dreadful consequences .

    One of the curious perversions of our noblest faculties is that " foreseeing of consequences" which disturbs mankind with puerile terrors . To look before and after with large discourse of reason is assuredly the grand characteristic which distinguishes man from the brute , and cultivated from uncultivated man . Yet how we abuse this faculty ! If a thinker arises among us we foresee that his doctrine will " lead to Atheism ; " if a reformatory measure be proposed , we foresee that it will " lead to anarchy ; " if the bands play in the parks on Sundays we foresee they will lead to irreligion , and all other sins ; if an organ be p laced in a Scottish church there are thousands of logical Scotchmen who will foresee that it " leads to Popery . " See on this subject an exc ellent article in Fraser , on the " Organ Question , " in which

    the reviewer , too gently , yet conclusively , takes Dr . Candlish to task for his recent publication on the admission of organs into churches . It is an almost hopeless sign for a nation when men like Drs . Cumming and Cakdlish are looked up to by large classes , when bigotry so narrow can triumph by the aid of understandings so weak . Yet there is no denying the fact that the Cumming and Candlish school of writers have immense influence . And this because , while a large class sympathize with , and look up to , their miserable teaching , the larger class , which in secret laughs at or despises it , is kept silent by timid respectability . Whatever nonsense is uttered in the name of religion gains tolerance , lest in opposing it men should incur the charge of opposing religion .

    Froude's History Of England. Uislory Of ...

    FROUDE'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND . Uislory of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the . Death of Elizabeth . By James Anthony Fronde , M . A . 2 Vols . J . W . Parker and Son . If the history Mr . Froude intends to write is to be comp leted on the scale of this commencement , it will be a very valuable but somewhat alarmingly voluminous work ; but , as much of the bulk of the present volumes is entirely superfluous , there is some hope that Mr . Froude may reconsider his plan when warned of the voluminousness to which that plan must conduct him . He has , of course , adopted his plan after reflection ; the long citations of statutes , letters , and other documents usually th rown into notes , arc obviously made on principle . So history should be written , so history should be read , is the idea which has determined these citations . However plausible in theory , we greatly doubt the desirableness of this method . It not only enlarges the bulk , it increases the weig ht ot the volumes ; and that in a quite disproportionate degree , for not only have we to suffer the heaviness of the old verbose law language , but we have to

    adjust ourselves to perpetual changes of style , from Mr . Froude ' s easy and equable sentences to the long involved , quaint , tautologous sentences ot his authorities . This gives a patchy effect to the whole . As a matter ot artand history is an art—there cannot be two opinions on tins point ; and it Mr . Froude thinks it necessary for the case he has to argue that the reader should have before him the exact language of tho documents relied on , he should , we think , adopt the ordinary method of telling his story in lna own words , and throwing into notes or appendix the documentary evidence . We think , ulso , that Mr . Froude indulges too freely in comment and moral reflections . The temptation is very great ; but unless the comment be striking or elucidative , the story is hampered by it , and a certain heaviness results " A history without comment would be unendurable ; but modern historians generally fall into tho opposite error ; and Mr . Froude would improve his volumes by a severe excision of at least one half of the remailcs into which he has been temp ted , many of them see . nnrg to bo tho easy comment which a practised writer finds ready at 11 moment s notice , rather than the concentrated results of long reflection on the matter . because

    We have made this general criticism on Mr . Frouile ' s volumes , , if he detect any truth in it , » nd if it falls in with what he hears from others , or what his own subsequent reflection may suggest , his future volumes may be modified . To special criticism we do not feel ourselves competent , ihe work lies quite beyond the palo of our own studies . It has greatly instructed us , iniulu much clear which before was obscure , and given a rough shako to many old historical prejuclginents for which we can adduce novcry precise evidence . But to pronounce on tho case presented by Mr . Iroudc in favour of Henry and the English people generally would require , qu 1 c other knowledge than we can claim . He staggers us in our old traditional views : he maybe quite right in his new views ; but wo must leave it to his or cal studLs to discus the evidence . It is ab « ird to meet a . n » u . » w 10 comes from lon and ii . timiHo study of a subject , uadonno bot % « £ " than our opinion , prepossession , or prejudice , to tell bun that wo < hlie horn him , or that to think him wrong . All that we know it is c ° *» J ** ; Froude knew long ago , and over and above that he knows what we neve hub octcd ^ ml has the advanta ge of long study with a Ppecml desire to get

    at the whole secret- of the story . „„„ ... .. _ „ , Tims , also , with his admirable opening chapter on "the social condition ol

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), June 7, 1856, page 15, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_07061856/page/15/