The Press. — London, England, 1856-07-26 00:00:00

Memoirs of the Life and IVritings of James Montgomery. Longmans J. W. Parker and Son The Enigma. The Climate of Tan. PERIODICALS. Pulnam's Monthly. Sampson Low—Riddell's Magazine. Riddell and CO. PAMPHLETS. Rifle Practice. Smith and Elder—Cortjectural Restora- tion. W. and F. G. Cash—,4 Complete Guide to Government Appointments. Relff, Brothers—The National Gallery. No. 2. J. R. Smith—The Map of Italy. J. Ridgway— An Answer to the Attack of the " Daily News" on the Unity Fire Insurance—The Liberation of Abii-el-Kader. An Ode. Idacmillan and Co.-11otalet. J. B. Smith—The Euphrates Valley Route to Melia. Stanford— What should be the Price of Bread! Moore—The Progress of Preventive Medicine and Sanitary Measures. Bell and Daldy—Painting with Both Hands. Chapman and Hall—The Darkening Cloud. Wheeler ( Manchester )—Lectures on the System of Educa tion pursued in the French Military Schools. J. Ridgway — The Stepping stones to Success. W. F. and G. Cash—An Introductory Lecture on Education. Churchill—The Squab bles of the Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers. Stanford. Dramatic Songs for Soprano, Contralto, Tenor, and Bass Voices. Edward V. Fitzwilliam. D'Almaine and Co. TEXT OF SHAKESPEARE. TO THE EDITOR OF " THE PRESS." Sir,—ln the carefully revised text of the dramatic works of William Shakespeare Mr. Singer seems to be in error in supposing that the word "comma," in the fifth act of Hamlet', has remained to the present day unnoticed or without an endeavour to wards its correction, and he appears to take consider able credit to himself by suggesting the true meaning, " comere," boundary or landmark. I merely wish to romark that the word did not escape the intelligent glance of Theobald, and in the place of "comma" he substituted corn-mere, " guarantee," or " common mother," and in Warbur ton's words:—" Nothing can be more picturesque "than this image of Peace standing drest in her " wheaten garland between the two princes, and ex " tending a hand to each; in this equipage and " office we frequently see her on Roman coins, and " the poets likewise image to us Peace holding an " ear of corn as an emblem of plenty," &c. This reading is, at least, elegant and acute ; and Mr. Singer, in substituting his own ideas of the text, might, I think, have offered the public generally some little reasoning for the preference.—Your obe dient servant, H. B. TO THE EDITOR OF " THE rREss." Sir,—ln reference to the passage " take his haste," in Tinton of Athens, about which there has been so much dispute, I cannot help thinking that it is best to take a common-sense view of the phrase, and let it remain as it was originally printed, and probably as Shakespeare wrote it. " Take his time," " Take his leisure," are now common forms of ex pression ; and why should not " Take his haste " have been equally in vogue in Shakespeare's day to express " make haste "? At all events Mr. Collier's " halter " cannot for a moment be admitted. It spoils the climax of the sentence—" hang himself."— Yours, obediently, J. N. TO THE EDITOR OF "THE PRESS." Sir,—One of the changes in the text of Shake speare, proposed by Mr. Collier's MS. corrector, has been received with much applause by the critics ; it may therefore be considered bold on my part to dissent from an almost universal verdict; still trust to show some reason for thinking that an im • .provement may he made. As the text is usually printed, Tranio, in The Taming of the Shrew, is made to say to Lucentio : Good master, while we do admire This virtue, and this moral discipline, Let's be no stoicks, nor no stocks, I pray; Or so devote to Aristotle's checks, As Ovid be an outcast quite abjured,—Act i. sc. 1. Mr. Collier asks, " What are Aristotle's checks?" and be replies, "Undoubtedly a misprint for Aristotle's ethics, formerly spelt ethicks, and hence the absurd blunder." But is the word so absurd? Does it not stand here for "restraints," Tranio thus contrasting the "moral discipline" of the severe philosopher with the lighter tasks of the amatory poet? Be sides, " ethics " as proposed by the MS. corrector, will make the line too long by a syllable. But if there is a misprint, I incline to believe that the true word will be found by a reference to the very play on which, it is well known, Shakespeare founded his own drama. In The Taming of a Shrew, the first words, after the Induction, are these, addressed by Polidor to Aurehno Welcome to Athens, my beloved friend, To Plato's school, aul Aristotle's walks. The word walks, therefore, in Shakespeare's play, would exactly fit the metre and sense, as applied to the Peripatetic philosopher ; and whilst "ethics," however appropriate in sense, though not in sound, •an only be looked upon as a happy guess, the word 11, 'SHE PRESS. walks may be the word really used by Shakespeare, because we know that he must have seen it in the earlier play, between which and his own admirable comedy there is however little more likeness than between the block of marble and the beautiful figure which may be formed out of it by the sculp tor's master-hand. In this play the " old corrector " proposes to change a good old English word, where no change is required. Vincentio, angry, as he well may be, at the treatment he receives, exclaims : Thus strangers may be haled and abus'd. Mr. Collier thereon remarks, " Which is hardly verse, but the addition of two omitted letters makes it in disputably so : Thus strangers may be handled and abus'd." But in the former line the verb haled is a word of two syllables, and on that score no change is needed ; it is also more expressive than handled; it is found very often in other plays of the poet, as well as in our noble English Bible. The old play of Sir Thomas More, ascribed to the latter end of the six teenth century, opens with this line Whither wilt thou hale me ? In the comedy of Patient Grisselt, printed in 1003, we find this line : He shall not hale them thus.—Act iv. ac. 2. And again in the same scene : He brings commission To hale them hence. [Tennyson also, a careful conservator of English, has adopted this word. It is only another form of " haul."—En.] The word "lovely," frequently used by Shakespeare in the sense of " loving," meets with no favour in the eyes of the old ,corrector, who draws his pen through it, replacing it by "loving ;" and Mr. Collier approves of the change, considering lovely as a mis print in such places as, for instance, where Pe truchio, in The Taming of the Shrew, intends to seal the title with a lovely kiss.—Act iii . sc. 2; or when Helena, in A Midsummer Night's Dream, speaks of herself Hermia as Two lovely berries moulded on one stem; or where Lucetta, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, is grieved that shA Should censure thus on lovely gentlemen. But the question arises, did Shakespeare write "lovely "? if so, we must leave it where we find it. In the old Taming of a Shrew, before referred to, this very same word occurs. Alfonso, who answers to Baptista in the later play, addresses his newly married sons-in-law— Come lovely sons, Sze. It is not a sufficient reason to alter words because they do not exactly suit a modern appreciation, otherwise much of Shakespeare's text will require revision. GEORGE RUSSELL FRENCH. WHITE ANTS OF AFRICA.—In Western Africa there are at least two varieties of the white ants, which are distinguished from each other by their form, their modes and places of living, and by their peculiar habits. One of these classes is well known to African travellers for building large clay houses or turreted tumuli. These bear so much reseal blanee to the circular huts of the native inhabitants in some parts of the country, that they have been mistaken for them. The tumuli are eight or ten feet in diameter at the base, ten or twelve feet high, and terminate in a small round point. They are surrounded by half a dozen or more cones or turrets, which terminate in points at different heights along the outer surface. The interior re veals a most wonderful mechanism in the number of its avenues, cross streets, recesses, and in the most perfect arrangement of its innumerable cells. On a level with the base, and about the centre of the mound, is the palace or residence of the queen. She is ten times as large as her largest subject, is of a very uncouth form, and is scarcely capable of locomotion, but is carefully guarded by a band of faithful soldiers. It is very rarely that a queen can be made a captive. The hill must be demolished with great rapidity, or she will be borne off through some subterranean passage. This species of ant is about the fourth of an itch in length, with a fist, hard head, terminating with a pair of sharp, hori zontal pincers, something like the claws of a crab. Their pinch is very sharp, and seldom fails to thaw blood. If their habitation is broken into they get exceedingly enraged, and march out with uplifted head to attack their assailant, even should it have been an elephant that run his tusk into their quiet citadel. If one of the small turrets is broken off, a head workman or engineer moants upon the breach, surveys the damage, and by some means of commu nication which we do not understand, summons hundreds of labourers to the spot, and in the course of two or three hours all the injury is re paired. Clay is brought up from the interior, and is laid on, mouthful after mouthful, with all the skill SATURDAY, and exactness of a practised mason. There is no outlet or opening in the mound anywhere abo ve th e ground. Nor are the inhabitants ever seen except whin their habitations are broken into. Their migrations are always under the ground, and very little is known of their habits, therefore, except what is found out by demolishing their habitations —Wilson's Western Africa. usir. HER MAJESTY'S THEATRE. MADAME ADELAIDE MALNOTTI was the original Tan credi when that once popular opera was produced by the prolific Rossini at the Fenice at Venice in 1813. Mme. Belloc, or Signora Bellocchi, as she was after wards called, was the first Tancredi who tossed her plumes at the King's Theatre. Then there was the " limping " Tancredi, who is referred to by Ebers as the Signora Marinoni, in the days when a committee of noblemen tried to manage the artistes, and of course caused a European war amongst singers and dancers. But Pasta was after all the only real Tan credi, Malibran not coming up to the mark like the Italian prima donna, and Viardot, at eighteen, being ton young for the Syracusean patriot. Alboni'sfiasco in 1848 at the Royal Italian Opera everybody recollects, and the reason of it is too curious a fact to be omitted here. Alboni, whose name and fame had been made at the Covent garden establishment, obtained in 1848 most exorbitant terms from the doomed direc• tors at that time. But despite of the burdensome engagement, the contralto became most refractory. Costa had taken great pains with the mount ing, and everybody looked forward to a great hit with Alboni, who, however, on the first night, sulked and walked through the part, even singing in the most somniferous style. Never did an artiste make a greater mistake. Alboni assuredly achieved her purpose of damaging the direction, but her artistic reputation never recovered from the utter failure, and, stamping herself as no actress, destroyed her chance as an artiste to draw money singly. if Johanna Wagner had been better sup ported last Saturday, her Tancredi might have proved a hit. But Reichardt, after Rubini and Mario, in Argirio—Bouche, after Angrisani, Zuochelli, and Tamburini, in Orbazzano—and Mlle. Jenny Bauer, after Mme. Camporese, Mme. do Meric, and, above all, of the unrivalled mistress of florid vocalisation, Mme. Persiani—what could be expected of such a cast ? German gutterals and Gallic gabble made sad havoc with the choice Italian, and transpositions and interpolations tran,mogrified the Rossinian score strangely. Tancredi'a heroics are also old-fashioned, and the spangled armour of Wagner and Reichardt glittered in vain. Between Tancredi and William Tell there is an immeasurable distance. And, then, what is the use of giving such a work as the former, abounding as it does in the florid style, with singers who cannot sing their scales? Is the school of great singing going away ? How few artists are there now who can sing the Rossinian characters ! Calzolari and Belletu are amongst the best, and yet these two clever singers were not included in the cast of Tancredi. Wagner trod the stage like a hero, she handled her sword like a Guardsman at an Alma charge, she declaimed as energetically as Gough at a temperance meeting, but she sang, on the whole, without sensibility, and her organ was harsh, grating, and forced. Her dive into the depths below were such sudden splashes as to be grotesque at times. Force without feeling will not charm in the vocal art, and energy without elevation will not realise Ros sinian grace and grandeur. Mlle. Piccolomini appears to-night as Norina, in Donizetti's Don Pasquale. The last nights of the season are announced for the first week in August. MADAME. RISTORI has returned to the Lyceum for four final performances. The Medea was given last night to a crowded house. Pia dei Tolomei, Ros munda, and Franc ..sea da Rimini will be repeated on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday neat. TEE FIELDING FUND COMMITTEE have already commenced their labours. On Friday morning last a Mr. Charlton, a professional harlequin, who ap peared at Drury Lane in the last Christmas panto mime died in the Whitechapel workhouse, leaving his wife and children in a very miserable condition. The circumstance was recorded in the Globe the same evening, and it immediately attracted the attention of the committee. A member of the com mittee personally visited the wretched residence of the poor people, and within less than four and twenty hours of the publication of the para graph, an arrangement was made for the decent burial of the poor harlequin, the immediate necessi ties of his family were provided for, and steps taken for the judicious administration of a little periodical relief, until they should have an opportunity of earns ing sufficient to maintain themselves.