The Press.
London, England, 1856-06-21 00:00:00

On Foot through Tyrol in the Summer of 18.53.

Chapman and Hall.
Chapman and Hall.

A Vacation in Brittany.

The United States, their Constitution and Power. Kent
and CO. The Rise and Progress of British Opium
Smuggling. Seeley and Co.—Vindication of George First
Lord Dartmouth. Upham and Beet—The Irish Church
E. Wilson—The Oblation of the Elements, and the Credence
Table. Seeley—A Letter to Mr. Sergeant Shee on the
Trial of Williams Palmer. J. R. Smith—Considerations on
he late Naral War. J. Ridgway—New Facts and Figures.
E. Wilson—Society for the Encouragement of Art, E.
Wilson—Bank of England ilarometer, IsoB. Letts--Cessa•

ti on of Intercourse with the British Minister. Letts—Answer
to Macaulay's Criticism in the Edinburgh Review. J. Mur-
ray—Free Discussion rernis Intolerance. Longmans—Scot-
tish Episcopal Romanian. Nisbrtt and Co.

MR. WYLD, so famous for his topographical skill
in the days of Sebastopol seiges, Kertch and Kin-
burn expeditions, and Baltic fleet bombardments,
with praiseworthy zeal, has turned his attention to
the other quarter of the world, and brought out an
excellent, correct, and useful map of Central
America, with the territorial lines clearly marked,
the old and present boundaries of Costa Rica,
Nicaragua, and Guatemala, and the British pcp,ses-
sions in Honduras and on the Mosquito coast. The
map lays the whole Central American question
before you at a glance, and does credit to the zeal
and public spirit of the publisher.

595

THE TEXT OF SHAKESPEARE.

To pass from the particular play of Measure Jot
Measure, vome of the changes of the corrector, which
at first appeared plausible, and were received with
general favour, will not stand the test of closer ex-
amination. The passage in Cymbeline, act iii. sc. 4,
painted ordinarily, _ _ _

Some jay of Italy
Whose mother was her painting,
and vulgarly altered by the corrector to,
Who smothers her with painting,
instead of being, as appears at first sight, a most
skilful emendation or " authoritative " correction, is,
we are now convinced, much rather an instance of
the danger of dealing with the text on that prin-
ciple laid down by the reviewer, that in doubtful
passages the most prosaic sense that can be thought
of is most likely to be the true eense.

Of all writers, Shakespeare can best, from his
thorough originality, be explained by himself.
Parallel passages may be of little value when the
instances are of the most commonplace kind; but
when they are uncommon and peculiar to the writer,
these parallelisms are the most certain guide we can
have to the elucidation of doubtful readings. An ana-
logous image to the above is to be found in All's Well
that Ends Well, act. i. sc. 2. The King speaks of
the younger spirits of his Court,
Whose judgments are
Mere fathers of their garments.

These passages cannot be termed strictly parallel,
but there is such a general likeness in their imagery
RS to render them illustrative of each other. The
"jays " of Italy made themselves by their art so dif-
ferent from the work of Nature, that their painting
was their mother, as the young men of France were
so engrossed by their dress, that their judgment
was father of their garments. If we are to read
"smothers her with painting" in one case, we may
as reasonably read " Mere feathers like their gar-
ments," in the other. As much might be said for
one correction as the other, as it could be held that
these gay cavaliers, with their fringed scarfs and
plumed caps, must have had a very airy appearance.
By such prosaic corrections all the fancy of Shake-
speare might be worn away, and yet the changes
never want some such reverend brow as that of Mr.
Collier and the Edinburgh reviewer to bless and ap-
prove it with a text or a reason.
Indeed, of all extraordinary canons of criticism we
ever heard of, that, laid down by the reviewer is the
most extraordinary. He says :
We do not know whether, in severe logic, we ought not
to venture to lay down the canon, that wherever the folio
uses a forced word or phrase in lieu of a common one,
there is an A priori probability of error.
And again:—

Prejudice apart, is not the commoner word, the mote
probable one? . . What right have we to set up our
attachment for particularquaint or unusual phrases, against
a prima facie probability, once established, that a commoner
phrase—more prosaic if you will—was really used?

Rules of logic are worth very little on such points,
but. we have no hesitation in saying, in opposition to
the reviewer, that the very reverse of his principle
would be the safer rule, when we are dealing with
the writings of the highest class of imaginathe
minds. And the reason is obvious. Such minds
labour with thoughts too large for the scope (not
"scope;' ➢lr. Collier) of ordinary language to ex-
press. Their conceptions (to use Grattan's image)
swell beyond the measure of their lingual chains,
and tbey enlarge the boundaries of their tongue in
their efforts to give to their idea'

A local habitation and a name.
Bossuet accounted it a proof of the innate divinity of
the mind that it had within it more than the medium
of language would allow it to express; and, when genius
is unusually expansive, vivid, and imaginative, it will
and must burst far away from the commonplace and
prosaic conventionalities of language. If it cannot
create new words it will extend the signification of
those which exist, it will give to them a metaphorical
or spiritual sense, and wrestling mightily, sometimes
painfully, with its mother-tongue, it will strengthen
the element it contends with until it attains to some-
thing like equality with its own colossal proportions.
Seldom does a mind enlarge the bounds of thought
without enlarging the boundaries of language also.
To his contemporaries many of the expressions of
Shakespeare must have appeared more forced, quaint,
and illegitimate than they now appear to us. Is it
to be supposed that his transcribers and printers
could in all cases rise to an appreciation of his sense ?
And when they erred, is it not much more likely that
they would do so by using those expressions which
were familiar to their ear, rather than those which
were unfamiliar to it. All of them hed heard of
" breaks in ice," but probably few or none knew what
" brakes of vice " meant. "Brother" was a common
word, "rotber" very twcommon, so they chose the
former. In this way may be explained a great num-
ber of the corrcptions of the text.
In one remark by the reviewer we, to some
agree. There is a pleasure, and of a very exquisite

lose tn 0
'at nun-
s el tent,
,tlq Waite

endeavouring to bring our mind into closer com-
munion with his. Those forced and quaint expres-
sions which in the reviewer's opinion supply pre
sumptive evidence of error, are precious to us as the
throes which mark the birth of some of his grandest
conceptions; and phrases which for a time 5,3111
black and impenetrable as a storm-cloud, open, after
long watching, and pour upon the mind a stream of
Heaven's own light. It is a noble, intellectual exer-
cise, and as healthful as noble, to endeavour to sound
the depths of his mind in those passages which are
of doubtful accuracy; and though, it is true, conjec-
ture may often mislead us. yet we are disposed to
think that when a restoration of the text is made,
the reading carries with it irresistible evidence of its
truth. In fact, as a general princ'ple, it holds good
that we can more easily mistake error for truth than
truth for error :

A substitute shines brightly as a King
Until a King be by; and then his state
Empties itself, as cloth an inland brook
Into the main of waters.
Is not this true of all

substitutes for

sense, as of the substitutes for power?
We fancy that the Edinburgh reviewer has but a
very imperfect acquaintance with what conjectural
emendation has done for the text of Shakespeare.
It seems incredible that he should speak of it so con-
temptuously as he does, had he ever tracked its
labours. He gives in one part of his article a some-
what exaggerated account of the corruption of the
first folio from a foreign contemporary:—

Glaring typographical errors abound—verse is printed
as prose, anti prose as verse—the punctuation throughout
seems to have been wade at haphazard—words are omitted,
mistaken, and transposed—and sometimes the types appear
to have been jumbled together into what bears barely the
semblance of a word.
Now, what but " conjectural emendation " has re-
placed that foul text by the text we possess at present?
and, comparing one with the other, is it just to dis-
honour, as this Edinburgh reviewer does, the skill
and sagacity which have worked so successfully ?

Htusit.

HER MAJESTY'S THEATRE.

THREE Italian composers have tried their hands at
the setting of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet—
namely, Zingarelli, Vaccai, and Bellini, but neither
of these has been successful in producing a great
work. It is only when it has been found necessary
to display the dramatic powers of some singer
whose voice partakes of the two qualities of a
soprano and contralto that a Romeo has been seen
to fret a short hour on lyric boards. Pasta is
within the recollection of the elder race of opera
frequenters. Grandolphi, perhaps, is forgotten.
Malibran's Romeo is of later date; and that of her
gifted sister, Viardot, in 1818, amateurs will not
easily banish from the memory. The several
Romeo: just referred to have been generally com-
pounded from the three operas of Ztngarelli,
Vaccai, and Bellini. But in later days even the
"Ombra adorata " of Zingarelli has disappeared, and
the mixture has been confined to the first two acts of
Bellini's insipid production and to the more intensy,
but scarcely sufficiently powerful, last act of Vaccai.
In Germany, Viardot, with the double dose, gained
great glory; but at the Royal Italian Opera, in
1848, not even her genius could per-uade the
public to swallow the concoction, although sae had
Mme. Castellan as Juliet and Marini as Capellio,
Mei being the Tobaldo, and one more unen-
durable than even Reichardt. at Her Majesty's. Will
the Romeo of Johanna Wagner, in the resuscitated
" Bellini entire," suffice to render the Italian out-
pourings of the Veronese lovers acceptable here ? Or
can Wagner achieve what Viardot failed to do? It
may be doubted whether the Hanoverian prima
donna, with all her dramatic powers, can render
Bellini's Capuletti popular. Mlle. Wagner has a
tali, commanding figure, is most graceful in her
carriage, and in male attire walks the stage with
firmness and dignity. Her features are prominent,
with full Saxon eyes and hair. Her voice is naturally
most extraordinary in its compass, having all the
higher soprano notes and the deep-toned contralto
ones; but the former are hard and harsh, and the
latter, although very deep and full, are not rich. In
declamatory recitative she is most successful ; her
execution is imperfect, and her intonation precarious.
Her voice must originally have been magnificent;
but, whether from want of proper training, or from
having strained it of late years by over-exertion, it
shows symptoms of fatigue. Still Mlle. Wagner can
only be properly regarded from the German point of
View. She is not Italian born, nor has she received
an Italian mu-ical education. She is essentially a
German both in voice and style. The ultra-
expression given to the notes by drawling them out

11 II

S.

to an inordinate extent (a fault,by the way, of Sehny
Liud) fatigues the ear, at least the English ear,
now so habituated to the chasm and graces of the
Italian school of vocalisation. In acting, if Mlle.
Wagner must yield the pahn as Romeo to Pasta,
Malibran, and Viardot, for genuine tragic power, the
character is still adapted histrionically for her
dramatic talents. Her conception lacks the grandeur
of Pasta, the intensity of Malibran, and the intellec-
tuality and impulse of Viardot; butthe will of Wagner
is strong, and her physical means undeniable. The
tomb scene was the strongest evidence of her ability.
Her deep despair, the awakening to hope when Juliet's
voice is heard from the bier, and the final climax of
disappointment and desolation were fine points in
Wagner's delineation. Mr. Lumley's clever diplomacy
has at length succeeded in securing a really first-rate
prima donna for the grand and noble parts in
operas. His policy in the endeavour to engage
Wagner is quite justified ; but if such strange freaks
and fancies by opera managers did not come so often
under notice, amateurs may be well astounded at
Mr. Gye's pertinacity in seeking to have " .Johanna
Wagner" in his troupe whilst he had two such
artistes at command as Orisi and Viardot. The
amount of money squandered in litigation on Wagner,
was a perfect waste of the time and resources of a
great lyric establishment.
Of the remainder of the cast of I Capuletti ed i
Mmtecchi, it is sufficient to record that Reichardt,
the Tybalt, is a German tenor; Mlle. Jenny Bauer,
the Juliet, an Englishwoman born, with a German
voice both in training and timbre ; Signor Beneven-
tano, the Capulet, is au Italian; and Signor Bouche,
the Friar Lawrence, is a Frenchman. No olla-
podrida, mixed on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees,
has ever been compounded of more heterogeneous
materials than Bellini's dainty dish at Her Majesty's
Theatre.

ROYAL ITALIAN OPERA.
NOTHING complimentary can be written of the pre-
sent cast of Don Giovanni at the Lyceum. With
Grisi and Mine. Ney in the company, why Mine.
Rosa Devries, a Belgian by birth, who has sung in
Italian opera in the United States, should have been
selected for Donna Anna, is universally asked; but
there can be no reasonable reply found in the sing-
ing of Mme. Devries, and still less in her acting.
She possesses a fine voice, but that alone will not
constitute a Mozartian Donna Anna. Itonconi's Don
Giovanni is the only part in which he has ever failed,
but failure it is beyond a doubt. Gardoni is not the
successor to Taniberlik and Mario in Don Ottavio.
Mlle. Marai's Elvira is beyond her powers, clever as
she is. There remains, then, Tagliafico's Commen-
datore, Polonim's Masetto, Herr Forrnes's Leporello,
and Mme. Bosio's Zerlina, besides the unrivalled
band and chorus under Costa's direction, as a set off
against the other deficiencies. Graziani is not a good
actor certainly, but he sings Don Giovanni with
more than ordinary ability, and he has the voice for
the part. With Grisi and Mario in their original parts,
and Mine. Devries as Elvira, then the attraction
would be worthy of the Royal Italian Opera. Formes,
by the way, is popular in Germany as Don Giovanni.
Why not try here? Tagliafico's Leporello is admi-
rable, although it would be a matter of regret to lose
his fine singing as the Statue. The system of ex-
changing parts amongst principal singers is effec-
tively carried out on the French lyric stage, and
might be advantageously adopted here. There has
long been a talk of Mario's assumption of the Don.
Garcia, Donzelli, and Braham, the great tenors, have
been popular as Don Giovanni.