The Press.
London, England, 1856-06-07 00:00:00

How can the less the greater comprehend ?

That is a question which the Archbishop
should first have solved before, as proud in
his vainglorious logic as the French Atheists
worshipping a prostitute, he ventured to deify
naked reason. Is it really so easy to put a
quart pot into a pint pot ? Let that be shown,
and we shall then be better inclined to allow
that the mysteries which surround the Being
and the Throne of the Almighty who created
us can be brought within the comprehension
of the reason which is, and can he, but a scin-
tilla of His infinite intelligence. When we
know how the finite can equal the infinite, we
shall perhaps be ready to allow that the mys-
teries of religion can be brought within the
scope of mortal mind. Are there no myste-
ries which baffle even the reasoning faculties
of Archbishop Whately? Can he give us even
a feasible conception of the Eternity which
has no beginning and no end ; or of the Exist-
ence which by a daring stretch of the ima-
gination we can conceive to be superior to
Eternity itself?

To descend from the region of metaphysi-
cal theology, is it true that even in the ordinary
affairs of this world men act, or can act, on the
principle of believing nothing of which they
cannot grasp the evidence ? Our whole exist-
ence on earth, as regards earthly things, is a
life of faith. The child has faith in his parents,
the youth in his teachers, the man in his
superiors. How many persons, by evi-
dence which they can grasp, know the com-
monest facts of astronomy, as that the
moon is 237,519 miles from the earth, and
that the sun is 883,246 miles in diameter? Is
it more an evidence of folly in any man to
receive without cavil tho truths of Christianity
from those qualified and appointed to teach
them, than so to receive the facts of astro-
nomy? We do not think it necessary that all
men should be instructed in the evidences
(so•called) of Christianity. We think those
persons the happiest, the most favored—in
some senses also the wisest—who have never
troubled themselves about such evidences—
who have received from absolute trust in
those whom they love and honour, the faith of
the wise, and just, and learned; and have, as
it were, been brought into communion with
God and Christ through no grosser medium
than the intellectual aspirations and move-

545

ments of the heart which He has designed as
the purest link between Himself and His
children.

This observation on the theosophy of Dr.
Whately has been fin•ced from us by the
obtrusion of his shallow and narrow creed in
his annotations OIL Bacon's Essays. The an-
notations themselves can scarcely be con-
sidered discreditable to him, but they would
be thought discreditable to any man of more
modern date pretending to originality and
scholarship. Whately is no mcre fit to com-
ment on Bacon than " plain John Campbell "
is fit to comment on Shakespeare, though
a Campbell• Shakespeare is one of the likeli•
hoods of the publishing world.
In the first place, Dr. Whately thinks it
necessary to correct what he supposes to be
the " obsolete phraseology" of Bbcon. Ile will
have no " mysteries "in his author. He tells
us in footnotes that " unpleasing" meant in
that dark ago when Bacon wrote "unpleasant;"
that " round "—as " clear and round dealing,"
—means " plain, fair, candid ;" that " to
provoke" signifies " to excite ;" that a man's
" vocation" means his "calling ;" that
" diverse" is "different;" that to " accommo-
date " is to " reconcile ;" that "arbitrement"
is " judgment," and so on. In short, he treats
Bacon's language as scholiasts treat classical
authors. Such offensive impertinence has
never yet been ventured on by any editor in
our day. _ _

Next, he thinks it necessary to give the
English of those common Latin phrases
which Bacon, in consonance with the use of
his time, so frequently employed. Can the
Archbishop really think that any purchaser
of his bulky volume would be ignorant that
"Nun° dimittis," referred to Luke ii. 29., "Now
lettest thou thy servant " ?
But the " annotations " are the distinguish-
ing feature of the volume. As for making
any attempt to follow the sense of Bacon—to
analyse his reasoning—to cope with his asser-
tions—to expound and criticise that train of
thought which, though always luminous, is
not always luminous with light from I leaven—
that is no part of the Archbishop's intention.
His design is, not to make Whately subservient
to Bacon, but to make Bacon subservient to
Whately Having on his hands a tolerable se-
lection of scraps of logic, and odds and ends of
dogmatic philosophy and controversial divi-
nity, and political economy (mostly selected
from works which Dr. Vhately has been so
good as to give the public before), with cut-
tings from all kinds of recent publications,
be selects Bacon's Essays as a convenient peg
on which to hang all his patchwork collection.
This is the real history of Dr. Whately's edito-
rial enterprise. What led him to the choice
of Bacon's Essays, in particular, must be re-
ferred to the stone category of chance as leads
a man sometimes to walk on one side of a street
in preference to the other. Any other cele-
brated book would have served his turn quite as
well, such as Butler's " Analogy," " The Dairy.
man's Daughter,"—or works to which he refers
with eulogy in his " annotations,"—the '` Juve•
nrie Tales " of Miss Edgeworth, or the compo-
sitions, to us mare ignotnm, of Elizabeth Smith.

His complacency, considering his station,
is almost awful. In his self-sufficiency, as a
public instructor, ho beats Mr. Jellinger
Symons, which is surely saying much. Pam-
phlets which ho wrote, he himself only knows
how many years ago, as they are totally for-
gotten, he quotes almost entire, as if to show
of how much silliness he once was capable.
The quotations of Whately from Whately
make up a great part of the volume, and in
those quotations the curious may probably
discover inner quotations, Whately from
Whately from Whately. His next published
work will probably carry on this cumulative
quotation a step further, unless a gentle hint
should take effect on his mind, and induce
him to reflect that between his own and the
public appreciation of Whutely's wisdom there
is a wide and rapidly increasing divergence.

Glimpses of Life and Manners in Persia. By Lady

Shiel. London : Murray.
" GLIMPSES " modestly express the insight which
Lady Shiel gained into Persian life during the throe
years and a half that her husband, Colonel Shia!,
was English Minister at the Court of Persia. They

ng
tunity of acquiring knowledge of the interior habits
of the peocle ; and hence her book is fu!l of domes-
tic) sketches, portraits of character, and traits of
manners. The picturesque forms and habits of
Oriental life linger in Persia, and are sketched by
Lady Sheil with great distinctness and animation.
The account of a Persian breakfast in the province
of Mazanderan (page 266), and the patriotism of the
lady (268), are amusingly described. Of all her
own habits the strangest to her female friends
was her undressing at night, as they invariably rolled
themselves to sleep in their dress of the (lay. She
found the Persian women naturally shrewd, and
generally ruling their households and lords in an
arbitrary manner. She gained the impression that
Persia is in a state of decay ; the ountry is desolate,
the cities are ruinous, the population is compara-
tively scanty. Huw it is that the nations of the old
world which survive should exhibit degradation is
ait , asily explicable. We can understand better the
advance of the Weste n than the decline of the
Oriental nations—more especially when, as in the
case of Persia, the latter have preserved their inde-
pendence. The lady recounts at length the abortive
conspiracy to slay the Shah in August, 1852.
Colonel Sheil endeavoured to moderate the anger of
the Court, but in vain. "Fear," says the authoress,
" has no mercy.'• The chief conspirator was
barbarously tortured. Holes were pierced in various
p iris of his body, in which lighted candles were
placed and allowed to burn down into the flesh. The
volume is genuine, very amusing, and written with
the taste and observettun which usually distinguish
narratives of travel from a female pen.

The Old Grey Church. By the Author of
" Trevelyan." Three Vols. London : Bentley.
A DOMESTIC drama of painful interest, written with
quiet, and for the subject pleasing, propriety. The
recent case of Sir John Dean Paul perhaps suggested
the story, but Mr. Lushington lived in a harsher
time, and met with a more dreadful fate. 'the bright
spot in the tragic narrative is at the close, where the
g ntle ai d much-tried Lucy at list finds peace.
Genius c; n clioo.e what tb mes it pleases for fiction,
an l is often most su cesslul when dealing with cloud
sal atom. but m c of the success of agreeab'e
wrters must a ways depend on the geue.al cheerful.
n si of th‘lir leiatsentathms.

P. 0. Beeson—Colburiee New Monthly Magazine. Chap•
man and Hall—Muriine of Cry' Marlin. ..:napinan and
Hall—The Churchman's Magazine. Harrison—The Tram.
tirooniltridge—Oitherall's Cheater Handbook. Whittaker
and Co —The Orford and Cambridge Magazine. Bell and
Dalay—The Parlour Library. " The Heireks of Brugt s.',
'f. Hodgson—Tait'a Magazine. Partridge—The Art Jour
nal. Virtue and Ball—The Wes! of Scotland Magazine-
Hall and Virtue. The Monthly Review. J. Mitchell.

PAMPHLETS.
The Spirit of the D. bate in the House of Commons on
Education. T. Hatchard—Observance on the Proposed
Decimal Coinage. K. Langor—The Art of Dining. T.
Murray—Marengo and its Monuments. Tucker and Co.—
On Juvenile Criminals' Reformatories—Macphairs Edin-
burgh Ecclesiastical Journal. Simpkin and Manthan—
deallh, Work, and Play. J. H. and J. Parker—The Sudsy
Guide. Lougmana.

Ett prima.

LYCEUM THEATRE,RISTO RI.

THE memory is in vain taxed. We go back to the
period when as a child Mrs. Siddons was seen, on her
return to the stage for only one night, in Lady
Randolph, for her brother's benefit, the late Charles
Kemble. The stately walk of a matron advanced in
years is not forgotten. Later, we have a stronger
recollection of Miss O'Neil, in Shell's Evadne : the
intensity of passion of this actress made the deepest
impression. Since her days how many tragediennes,
native and foreign, have fretted their hour within the
experience of the present playgoing generation!
Mlle. Georges, Rachel, Pasta, Malibran, Grist,
Viardot, Wagner, Miss Fanny Kemble, Miss Ellen
Tree (Mrs. C. Kean), Miss Cushman, Miss Helen
Faucit, Jenny Lind, and innumerable names that
have gone altogether out of mind, may be cited as
great artistic celebrities ; but compare the character-
istics of all these distinguished artistes, and still
would it be difficult to assert that RISTORI resembles
any one of them in one single attribute. The Italian
tragedienne is unlike any actress who has yet been
witnessed in this or any other country. Her indi-
viduality is unquestionable—her speciality is unde-
niable. She is Ristori—site is herself—she has
copied no predecessor, she has studied in no recog-
nised school, she is essentially natural, impulsive,
intense, and sublime. She shines not by dazzling
flashes ; she is no maker of points; but her
portraitures are coherent and consistent. The entire
part which she delineates is grasped, and every
gradation of tragic sentiment is truthfully marked.
On Wednesday night, at the Lyceum, when Medea
stepped on the boards with her two children, the art-
loving public at once recognised in the stately
stature, dignified deportment, and finely-formed
features of Risto.i the reasons why the Parisians had
questioned the hereto ore undisputed supremacy of
Rachel. Who con listen to the heart penetrating
speaking contralto tones of Ristori without being at
once deeply moved? Whilst the accents and inflec-
tions are thus sympathising in their influence, mark
the mobility of the physiognomy, watch the ever-
varying expression of those fine flashing eyes ; bow
tenderness, anger, scorn, rage, and frenzy in turn
can be depicted, as th terrible emotions of Medea
are developed ! How picturesque are the poses, how
statuesque the attitudes, and graceful the carriage !
And we have, then, at last a Medea. not the heroine
of Colchis of Euripides ; not the Medea %Ouch Cli a•u-
bini has presented so powerfully id notation; not the
Medea which Simon lilayr has composed, and which
Pasta delineated, but which Grisi has always de-
clined, because she feared that her Norma was too
close in the family likeness ; but it is a flesh
and blood Medea of a French poet, translated into
choice Italian. It is not the mythical Medea
of the classics Ernest Legouve wrote for Rachel.
It is not the magician who, with her charms
and incantations, could restore to old age the
bloom of youth. And perhaps Rachel for this
reason might have shrunk alter her classic por-
traitures from descending to a mere woman, strong
in her maternal feelings, overwhelming in her de-
voted attachment to Jason, and fierce and unrelent-
ing in her vengeance, when driven to desperation by
the husband's infidelity. Legouve has made Medel
malignant only in her despair. Oa Jason he fastens
the responsibility of her alleged crimes; and her
advocate throughout the three acts is no less a per
nonage than Orpheus, a kind of Corinthian Cobdenite
during the tragedy—a prosy personage of the peace
at-any-price principles—who promenades the stage,
striving to reconcile conflicting people, at moments
when all the mischief has been perpetrated. From
the representative of Orpheus—or Morpheus, as he
should be called—Ristori received nu aid; and her
Jason was also not up to the mark. There was

toe secondary cha-
racters was prejudicial fur the great tragedienne, and
she labour-d likewise under another very serious
drawback. To the majority of the auditory Medea
was new, and it was the first time an Italian tragedy
had been heard on an English stage. The visltoni
followed, consequent y, the books so perseveringly
that Itistori was not watched so closely iu the quieter
portions of the tragedy as she was in the grand
outbreaks of passion, when the cheering became
vehement. For our ordinarily undemonstrative
audience the reception was a complete triumph. In
the scene between Creusa and Medea, in the first
act, up to the discovery that the
isobetrothedngradofuatlillye
lormer is the husband of the latter, i
absorbed the attention of her auditors until she
carne to the reply to Creusa's question as to
what she (Medea) would do if Jason could be
found at the ieet of another, and then the house
" rose " at her on the delivery of the lines that she
would, like the leopard, tear her victim limb from
limb. And in the utterance of this vehement passage
the peculiarities of Itisteri's style are fully shown.
She illustrates every word by pantomime. 'ME con-.
tinuous action is observable throughout the play.
Looked upon from an English point of view, critics
might deem the incessant movement of the head,
arms, hands, and fingers redundan , but it must be
borne in mind that the Italians indulge in agitated
pantomime even in simple convers'ition. In the
demand from Orpheus whether Jason lived, Ristori
again electrified Lime house; and in the final exclama-
tion of scorn at Creusa's declaration that she will
marry Jason, the first act closed with universal
acclamations of wonder and delight at the power of
the Italian tragedienne. The scene in the next act
between Jason and Medea was one of the finest
exhibitions of histrionic genius on the part of Risturi
we have ever witnessed. It was particularly in the
quiet touches that the acting was most to be admired.
The assumed calmness of manner, only interrupted
by sneers and sarcasms at Jason's proposal for the
separation, was remarkable for truthfulness and ac-
curate appreciation of the inner workings of the
human breast. The cc:mite:lug effects of despair at
the prospect of losing her children, and of joy at the
thought that she can revenge herself on Jason by
aiming at the life of Creusa, told powerfully in
the soliloquy. Most skilful was the hesitation at
taking the hie of her rival, when Creusa expresses
sympathy for her woes and offers her the means of
escape from the fury of the populace. Itistores exit
with the children folded in her robes, at the end of
the second act, muttering threats of vengeance, was
finely conceived. A tigress at bay, turning furiously
on her pursueru, can alone convey the notion of His-
tori's last scene, the giandeur of which is at the
height when Medea replies to Jason's demand
" Who has killed her children ? " "Thou." The
curtain fell on this marvellous pose, and Itistori's
genius asserted its undisputed supremacy and un-
upploached pre-eminence in the highest regions of
tragic art.

546 THE PRESS. SATURDAY,
ravelled overland through Russia to Tahreez in the Magazine. Hurst and Blackett—Bentley's Miscellany. I about the usual specimen of the " heavy father" in
summer of 1819, and the lady conceived, on the Bentley—Fraser's. Bosworth—Blackwood... Blackwoods the avast woo was Creon; and the Creusa (Glance)
whole, a favorable impression of Russian couriesy.
During her re-idence in l'ersiasiie took every oppor-
tunity of acquiring knowledge of the interior habits
nn. • am! !Wile.? liar hook fu!l of domes- —The Eclectic Review. Ward and Co.—Buy's Own Maga-
zine. P. G. ileetini—E.aglishictiman ti -Domestic Magazine.
in
P. 0. Beeten— Colburns Aetti
,Monthly
.Magazine. Chap.
lira., and. 11.a.11—:.11arti.t.s.of Cro 7nupin. an_ and although prepossessing, scarcely justified Jason
his infidelity. This weakness in the secondary cha-
racters was prejudicial for the great tragedienn
r, and
she laboured likewise under anion liar