The Press.
London, England, 1856-05-31 00:00:00

ID -0-1 TOIL

LONDON, SATURDAY. MAY 81, 1858.

PosTsoiti PT.

The following telegraphic despatch has come to
hand.—
Berlin, May 29.
The journey of Baron Seebach to Germany has no poll.
tical signification. That diplomatist will accompany
Count de Nesselrode his father•in-law, to Kissengen, and
will remain there for some days.

The Prince Royal of Sweden made his solemn
entry into Christiana. as Viceroy of Norway, on
Tuesday last, amidst the enthusiastic acclamations
of the people.
The Swedish Minister of Finance has given in his
resignation.

King Otho of Greece is expected to visit Vienna on
the 14th of the ensuing month.

The Imperial Prince of France was vaccinated on
Tuesday.

M. Binet, of the In'titute, one of the most eminent
geometricians in France, is dead.

The Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian of Austria
has left the Palace of St. Cloud for Havre, from
whence his Imperial H.ghness will go to Cherbourg
on board the steam frigate the Queen Hortense.
From the latter place the Archduke will return by
Brussels to Germany.

HOUSE OF LORDS-FRWAY.

PLACE PRESERVATION (IRELAND) BILL.
The motion for going into committee on this bill
gave rise to a preliminary conversation, in the course
of which various comments and explanations were
offered by Lord Donoughmore, the Earl of Besbo-
rough, Lord Campbell, Lord Redesdale, the Earl of
Wicklow, Lord St. Leonards, and other pears. The
motion was then agreed to, and the bill passel'
through committee, a provision being added limit-
ing the duration to a period of five years.
APPELLATE JURISDICTION (HOUSE OF LORDS) snu—
On the motion of the Loat, CHANCELLOR, this bill
was read a second time. The noble and learned
lord explained the provisions of the measure in
detail, observing that it was based up n the reports
lately presented by a committee of their lordships'
house.

The statement was followed by some discussion, in
which many noble lords took part. commenting
chiefly upon the proposal incorporated in the bill for
creating life peerages.
The National Gallery Bill was read a second time.
Other bills were advanced a stage, and the house ad-
journed at eight o'clock.

HOUSE OF COMMONS—Famir.
DULWICH COLLEOZ.
Replying to Mr. T. Duncornhe,
Mr. RUNES mated that a bill was in preparation,
and would be introduced during the session, relating
to Dulwich College.

THE HILITIA.
On the motion that the house on rising should
adjourn to Monday,
Colonel GILPIN called attention to the conditions
under which the militia regiments were to be dis-
embodied, and the various amounts of bounty, pay,
or allowances which the Government had offered to
the paymasters and non-comniissioned officers of
that service. He contrasted the conduct pursued
towards the militia with the terms granted to the
men and officers of the several foreign legions, and
oomplained that the foreigners were treated much
better than the Englishmen.
Complaints of similar :enor were urged by Colonel
DUNNE and other members, and elicited a reply from
Mr. F. PEEL, who explained in detail the regulations
provided for the disembodiment both of the militia
regiments and the foreign legions, and justified the
pnimpl.• on which the War-office bad arranged the
Unas offered in the several oases.
_ The subject was resumed and pursued fat 101149

THE PRESS.

time, and a further explanation given by Lord
PALMERBToIi. Ultimately the discussion ceased, and
the motion was agrerd to.

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY BILL.
On the motion for going into committee on this
bill,

Mr. BOUVERIE made an explanatory statement, no
discussion upon the principle of the measure having
taken place on the second reading. The income of
the University, he observed, including the salaries of
the professors, was 24,54101. oerantitun. This, however,
was much exceeded by the aggregate incomes of the
several colleges, which amounted to 185,0001. a year.
Comparing this large revenue with the educational
results, the contrast, he urged, was ludicrously small.
In tact the number of students► who had in recent
times been sent forth as well educated men was not
greater than it had been in 1632. Neither was the
quality of the education imparted of so superior a
degree as to make up for the deficiency in the number
of students who availed themselves of the advantage.
At a time when brain and not blood carried away the
palm in the struggle of life, it was of the utmost con-
sequence that the education afforded at the univer-
sities should be of the highest class. So low was the
repute into which Cambridge University had
fallen, that multitudes of parents who could well
bear the expense cared not to send their sons thither.
The tests applied to students who were candidates
only for an ordinary degree, after three years' resi
dence in college, were of the lowest kind, and such
as a boy of fifteen or sixteen could prepare himself
to undergo in six weeks. The antiquated consti-
tution of the University almost precluded reform
from within ; and here arose the necessity for the
changes he designed to introduce. These changes
Mt. Bouverie proceeded to describe. He proposed
to establish an elective senate, who would have
power to originate a plan of education more conso-
nant to the exigencies of the present times. The
bill would also sanction the establishment of private
halls, and do away with the restrictions against the
admission of Dissenters, so far as the University was
concerned, leaving the colleges to act for themselves
in this matter. There was besides a provision for a
parliamentary commission, with extensive powers,
which, however, he hoped and believed mould be
only exercised in the way of advice or control, and
not in any objectionable manner whatsoever.
Mr. WALPOLE thought the right hon. member had
been led into exaggeration when disparaeing the
character and results of the education afforded at
Cambridge University. The object of the bill should,
he contended, be to impose as little restriction as
possible on the colleges, leaving them w►th the
freest action that could be found cons►stent with the
improvements which it was deemed desirable to
carry out. Judging by what had been done by the
University itself within the last thirty years in the
way of improvement, he submitted that the point
was very doubtful whether a more rapid and effectual
progress would not be accomplished by continuing
this voluntary process than by imposing any external
authority. He VMS opposed to the establishment of
private halls as in the case of Oxford, but would not
now resist them, believing that it was of great import-
ance to render the two universities as similar as
possible in their constitution. There was no provision
in the Oxford Act for a parliamentary commission
to control its action, and he could see no necessity for
such a power ►n the case of Cambridge. He enter
tallied the strongest objection to this feature in the
hill, as calculated to interfere with the peace and
tranquillity which it should be their object to main-
tain undisturbed. Intimating his intention to pro
pose amendments in committee, with the view of
altering the provisions on which he had remarked,
Mr. Walpole conclu'led with a warm eulogy upon the
University, and cited the names of many eminent
men of the present and previous generations who had
received their education within its precincts.
Mr. POLLARD-URQUHART supported the bill.
Mr. HZYWOOD remarked upon the antiquated
character and obsolete purpose of various college
endowments.

Mr. J. G. PUILLIXORE defended the existing system
of oollege education.
After a few words from Mr. Wmittaw, the house
went into committee, and proceeded to discuss
various amendments upon the successive clauses of
the measure.

Clauses 2 to 20 having been agreed to, the chair-
man WHR directed to report progress.
The West India Loan Bill was passed through
committee.

The Police (Counties and Boroughs) B:11 was read
a third time and passed.
The Pour-law Amendment (Scotland) Bill was
read a second time.

The Reformatory and Industrial Schools Bill was
read a third time and passed.
The Factories Bill was read a third time and
passed.___....

The Williams Annuity Bill went through com-
mittee.
The itAiuttrued at one o'alockl

SATURDAY
..........._. 1

ESCAPE OF AN AU": MILAN POLITICAL
PRISONER.

DELICZ °RUNT, who lately so happily effected his
escape from the Castle of St. Gregorio, Mantua, has,
in a letter to a friend, glv.•n an account of the means
by which he contrived to get true. Arrested at
Hermanstadt in December, 1854, Orsini was carried
reavily chained in a cart to Vienna. After numerous
examinations, in which it appeared that the Austrian
Government knew everything concerning him, in
March, '55, he was sent to Mantua, and, with sentence
of death passed upon hint for revolutionary intrigues
at Milan in '54, he was confined in the Castle of St.
Gregorio, iii a cell six feet long by three broad. The
window, barred in with a double row of iron bars,
was six feet from the flooring inside, and about
ninety feet from the ground outside. Nevertheless
Orsini determine d upon attempting an escape. By
some means or other he bad possessed himself of
six fine saws. About the end of January, '5O, he •
writes :

I was put into cell No. 4.
athiee to escapeworstinth;e
tchaestwleindaonwd
I despaired of ever being able
was more than two yards from the ground, and to work at
it I was obliged to stand on the back of my chair. The
rows of iron bars were a yard apart: the outside grating
being one-tenth of the distance beyond. The liars were
extremely thick, especially the inside ones, and the height
from the window to the level of the ditch was thirty yards
—I myself measured it with a string.
could not work at night, because the noise of the saws,
though very slight, would have been heard by the sentinel,
who after the hair-past nine o'clock visit came every hie
minutes to the door. I worked therefore in the daytime,
and my ear had become so accustomed to the step of the
sentinel that before he opened the door I always contrived
to get down and put my chair in its place, and some Mies
I woull he walking up and down humming I covered
over the marks of my work with brick powder mixed with
black wax and bread. By thus working in the deytims in
the intervals of the visits, in twenty.four days I had cot
away seven of the outside him, and one of the inside
ones, where they were tixel into the wall, and from the
wall I hail extracted eight bricks, which I hid in 0 e straw
of my mattress. As for the cord, 1 had thought of that
before. On the let of Febraary T kept back, without
their knowing, the sheets that I ought to have sent rway
to the wash, and on the Ist of March I kept hack the
towels, which were as wide as the sheets and a little
longer, and by cutting these in strips I was able, on the
27th of March, to make my cord, fastening it with sailor's
knots. I let it down in- o the ditch to try its length, and
found it even longer than necessary. The 28th slid 29th
I passed in great fear of discovery, being more than
usually persecuted by the attentions of the sentinel, so
th it I could not attempt my escape. I therefore pretended
during those two days to be ill, and did not rise from my
bed, for fear they might chance to examine my straw mat.
tress. They had ceased, in my case, to examine the bars.
half-past nine on the evening of the 29th, at the usual
visit from the cap() oustode, I pretended to be asleep ; but
the moment they were gone, and while they were going
the round of the other visits, and so making some noise,
I rapidly removed the iron bars I bail cut—made up two
little bundles of necessary clothing—fastened the cord to
one of the remaining liars—let it down all its length
—hid in the straw the bars I had removed, and
then lay still again till the second visit, at. half•
past one. I again pretended to be asleep, and the instant
they were gone I rose, and quite calmly proceeded to let
myself down by the cord. When within six feet from the
ground I felt I could no longer sustain myself. I looked at
the depth below me, and let in”ielf drop. A sort of swoon
came over me. I however moistened my month with an
orange I had had the precaution to have upon me, and lay
for some moments quiet, to recover myself. I then dressed
myself, and wandered round and round the castle, seeking
some means to get out of the ditch, but I had so hurt my
foot in the fall that I could scarcely walk. I hoped to
escape from the ditch into the lake, but the entrance to
the lake was barred by a grat.ng. I then endeavoured,
with the help of two nails, to scale the wall of the ditch,
about six feet high, and had almost reached the top when
the foot I bad hurt failed me, and I fell to the bottom.
Fortunately there had lately been a little water in the
ditch, and the soft mud prevented the sentinels hearing
the noise of my fall. I remained there in the dread of
being retaken till five in the morning, when the city gates
were opened, and then some people went by. I called to
them, saying that the night, before I had been drunk and
fallen into the ditch. and begged them to help me out.
Sonic retuned, but at last some bolder ones helped me, and
I was dragged out with much difficulty, as I 3nuld scarcely
help myself. My hands were cut in many places. I was
very lame, and covered with the mud of the ditch above
the waist, yet in that condition I had to cross the bridge
within gunshot of the castle. What happened after that I
must not tell. In eight days I was in Switzerland, sod
able for the first time to attend to my foot. What the
Austrian* would have done or given to get me again You
can imagine. Police circular followed circular, and tele-
graphic despatch followed telegraphic despatch. All letters
were indiscriminately stepped and opened at the post-office,
and perquisitions made in every part of Mantua. but this
did not prevent the citizens from openly rejoicing over my
escape. We shall now soon meet.
May 20, IMO, Feuer: Oasts!.

In this interesting account a remarkable fact
strikes one in evidence of the popular feeling of
Italy, as evinced in Use assistance given to Orsini
by the people in Lombardy, in spite of every oder of
reward or alrost of ptui4aaltcpeut,

MAY 31, 1856.

itt atur t.

The Works of John Marston. Reprinted from
the Earliest Editions. With Notes, and
some Account of his Life and Writings, by
J. 0. Halliwell, F.R.S , F.S.A. Three Vols.
London : John Russell Smith.
(Second Notice.)
Floating reminiscences, rather than imita-
tions, of Shakespeare may he frequently de-
tected in Marston, as in nearly all these
writers. Lamb says that the situation of
Andrugio and Lucia, in Antonio and Mellida,
when the banished Duke is cast upon the
territory of his enemy, resembles that of Lear
and Kent. But the resemblance is faint ; nor
can Marston be charged with copying Shake-
speare in this instance, Antonio and Mellida
having appeared some three or four years
before Lear. A much nearer resemblance may
be traced in the Second Part of the same play,
where the ghost of Antonio's father rises and
exhorts his son to revenge his murder. This
situation, which is finely conceived and exe•
euted, was obviously suggested by Hamlet, upon
which there can be no doubt the main idea of
the tragedy is founded. Occasionally there
are verbal echoes of familiar passages in
Shakespeare, showing how current his words
had become even in his own day. Whets
Syphax soliloquises upon the wound his
" reputation " has suffered, the lamentation of
Cassia, although of a dilerent complexion, in-
stantly recurs to the reader; and thus also we
are reminded of Richard 111. when Massinissa
rushes in wounded after a fatal charge, "in his
"gorget and shirt," calling out for another
horse :
Mount us again; give us another horse !
Give me horse !
Know I sin Carthage every creature, and am graced
That I may bleed for them. Give me fresh horse !
Again, when Gisco, the surgeon who has been
employed to poison Massinissa, returns, having
failed of his purpose :
Ardroball. Gisco, is 't done ?
Gisco. Your pardon, worthy lord,
It is not done ; my heart sunk in my breast :
His virtue mimed me, faintness seized nie all—
Some god's in kings that will not let them fall.
The speech of the King in Hamlet seems at
once to suggest the original :
Do not fear our person ;
There's such divinity loth hedge a King,
That treason can but peep to what it would,
Acts little of his will.
Turiiin,g from these slight points of resem-
blance, of which there are many examples, we
will touch upon some peculiarities in Marston,
for which it would not he very easy, we sus-
pect, to find any parallels in Shakespeare.
One of these peculiarities consists in a certain
curtness of phrase by which he pounces, as it
were, upon his object, producing rather a
ludicrous effect when the subject happens to
be serious. Thus Asdruball exclaims at the
appioach of Gisco,
See him by whom Massinissa is not;
meaning thereby, see the man by whom
Massinissa has ceased to live. This is a
favorite form of expression. When Sophonisba
discovers that she has been betrayed by her
tire-woman, she calls upon Syphax to negative
the young woman's existence, and Syphax re
Joins in the same language :
Sophonisba. Let her not be.
Sypha.r. She is not!
That is to say—" Kill her;" to which the other
replies, "Consider it done !"
Very often, too, in the haste of writing for
the actors without any view to publication,
Marston repeats himself. We have an in-
stance of this in the two following passages:—
Darkness is fled. Look! infant morn bath drawn
Bright silver curtains 'bout the couch of night;
And now Aurora's horse trots azure rings,
Breathing fair light about the firmament.
:The black jades of swart night trot foggy rings
Bout heaven's brow.
The same image, relieved of the verbal repeti-
tion, is given elsewhere with exquisite beauty
of expression :
For see, the dapple grey coursers of the morn
Beat up the light with their bright silver hooves,
And chase it through the sky.

THE PRESS.

In another play the following identical lines
occur :

0 fight for Carthage !
Charge home; wounds smart not for that so just, so
great,
So good a city.

My wound smarts not, blood's loss makes me not faint
For that loved city.
Examples occur also of an eccentric species
of figure which is either very Oriental, or very
Irish. A single illustration will suffice :

Do not expostulate the heaven's will :
But, 0 remember to forget thyself;
Furget remembrance what thou once haat been.

This singular injunction is not an accidental
aberration of the poet. It is repeated under
very solemn circumstances in another play :
Madatue, 0 that you could remember to forget !

Marston, in common with many of his con-
temporaries, is open to the charge not only of
tearing a passion to tatters occasionally, but
of rendering it absurd by a kind of extrava-
gance which utterly defies description. Thus
when the Duke of Venice, a character steeped
in the blackest depths of tragedy, discovers
that his daughter is about to elope with her
lover, he breaks out into this highly comical
rant, the force of which may be realised by
supposing it t4:4 be delivered by Buckstone :
Forobosco, Alberto, Feliche, Castilio, Balurdo ! run, keep
the palace, post to the ports, tro to my daughter's chamber;
whither now ? scud to the Jew's—stay, run to the gates, stop
the gondolets, let none pass the marsh, do all at once. An•
tonio? his head, his head. Keep you the Court, the rest stand
still, or run, or go, or shout, or search, or scud, or call, or
hang, or do, do, do, su, su, an, something; I know not
who, who, who, what I do, do, do, nor who, who, who,
where I am.

Finding that these complicated orders have
failed, and that his daughter has effected her
escape, he bursts out again :

Pursue, pursue, fly, run, post, scud away!
Fly, call, run, row, ride, cry, shout, hurry, haste;
Haste, hurry, shout, cry, ride, row, run, call, fly
Backward and forward, every way about !
All this is intended to express the confusion
of ideas occasioned by an incident which
throws the whole palace into consternation,
and which baffles for the moment the plans of
an infuriated father. In such a situation the
ludicrous iteration might possibly be supposed
to have rather a natural effect, by bringing
out palpably the disturbance which sets all
the persons on the stage in motion to and fro,
in and out, tumbling over each other, and
doing nothing in the end ; but the same
doubtful excuse cannot be pleaded for those
passages of profounder interest, where we
find this same spirit of extravagance carried
into lurid excesses. The vice was not con-
fined to writers of the special idiosynct acy of
Marston and Webster, but was very generally
cultivated, and seems to have been a current
fashion of the time. Even Jonson, if he did
not run into the extremes of rant and born
bast, frequently expressed himself with a
grandeur above his occasions, and dressed
himself in stiff brocade, when an ordinary easy
suit would have been better adapted to the
scene. The simplicity, serene power, and
truthfulness of Shakespeare appear to wonder-
ful advantage in the midst of all this hyper-
bolical rage.
Another trait in which a section of the dra-
matists, at the head of which Jonson and
Marston may be placed, offered a remarkable
contrast to Shakespeare was the classical lore
with which they deluged their plays. Shake-
speare had as much of it as he wanted, and he
used it with taste and discretion ; but the
others, who had come from Cambridge or
Oxford, made a pompous display of their scho-
lastic learning, which weighed down their
dialogue like so much lead. Marston rises
beyond them all in this way, introducing in
some places whole speeches and parts of
speeches in Latin. The consequence was that
the pieces which were thus heavily freighted
never became popular. "Few of the Univer-
" sity pens," says a contemporary satirist,
" play well ; they smell too much of Ovid, and
" talk too much of Proserpine and Jupiter.
" Why, here's our fellow Shakespeare puts
" them all down ; aye, and Ben Johnson
" too."

But, in spite of these drawbacks, Marston
has great qualities. His plays are full of
power, often rising to a height of excellence
which, if he could have sustained it through-

519

out, would have placed him in the highest
rank as a dramatic poet. The inequality of
his execution alone bars his claim to that
position. Wo have left ourselves little space
for characteristic specimens, but will make
room for a short example, admirable in its
kind :

THE TRUE KING.
Why, man, I never was a Prince till now
'Tie nut the bared pate, the hended knees,
tipstaves, Tyrian purple, chairs of state,
Troops of pied butterflies, that flutter still
In greatness' summer, that confirm a prince :
'Tis not the unsavoury breath of multitudes,
Shouting and clapping, with confused din,
Tnat makes a prince. No, Lucio, he's a King,
A true, right Ki.ig, that dares do an4ht, save wrong;
Fears nothing mortal, but to be unjust;
Who is not blown up with the flattering puffs
Of spungy sycophants ; who stands unmoved,
Despite the justling of opinion ;
Who can enjoy himself, mangre the throng
That strive to press his quiet out of him;
Who sits upon Jove's footstool, as I do,
Adoring, not affecting, majesty;
Whose brow is wreathed with the silver crown
Of clear content; this, Lucio, is a King.
And of this empire every man's possessed,
That's worth his souL

Mr. Halliwell has rendered good service to
the State of Literature by this edition of tho
plays of Marston, carefully printed from the
early editions, and increased in value by a
useful introduction and some brief explanatory
notes. Our only regret is, that he did not
modernise the text, for the convenience of
readers who are not familiar with the fluc-
tuating orthography and obsolete forms of the
early part of the seventeenth century. Such
forms as the following are stumbling-blocks
to the modern reader :
Luc. No wonder, noble lord, having lost a son,
A country, crown, and—
And. 1, Lucio, having lost a son, a son,
A country, house, crown, son.
Unless the reader understood that " I " repre-
sents " Ay" the passage would be unintelli-
gible to him. As the orthography of the
Elizabethan period is purely arbitrary, and
involves no structural considerations, an
editor, especially one so thoroughly compe-
tent as Mr. Halliwell, need never hesitate in
displacing it by modern equivalents.

Memoirs of the Court of England during the
Regency, 1811-20. By the Duke of Bucking-

Two Vols. London :

ham and Chandos.
Hurst and Biackett.
THE Grenville Papers comprised in the decade
of these volumes relate to all the public affairs
of the time; there is in them inuch secret
political history, much gossip, much informa-
tion on the motives and characters of the
eminent personages who figured in the trans-
actions of the Regency. The contents are
too miscellaneous to be noticed in detail, but
attention may in particular be profitably
directed to the authentic explanation here
given of the causes which led so often to the
failure of the Whigs to obtain political power.
More than once the prize seemed to be within
their grasp , they attributed their ill luck to
the treachery of the Regent. We see in
these volumes that it is more justly charge-
able to their want of influence, patriotism,
and political foresight.
When the Prince became Regent he was
quite willing to smooth the way for the acces-
sion of his political associates to power, but
he was not willing to suddenly change his
father's system of government, nor to resign
himself absolutely into the hands of the
Whig party They wished to go further and.
faster in the way of change than he thought
either becoming or prudent Hence that
difference between him and the Grey-Gren-
ville party in the first instance, which in this
work is attributed to the agency of Sheridan.
For the details we must refer to the early
chapters in the first volume.
Apart from the Whigs was the connection,
small in numbers but powerful in talent,
headed by the Marquis Wellesley and Mr.
Canning. The Marquis was contemptuous of
the supremacy of Mr. Perceval ; he played for
the Premiership; and it is stated here that--

From the moment
State for the Foreign
policy the object of wh
to the Administration.

would hare disheartened

; SIM u Is SlAL‘ell uern 1.11151.
t he accepted the post of Secretary of
A Department, be commenced that
which was to bring back Mr. C
ion. The obstacles he encon=
rtened a less enterprising spirit; bat,