The Press.
London, England, 1858-11-27 00:00:00

THE PRESS, NOVEMBER 21, 1858.

wbich they had brought with them, wrapt in a plaid The
rain bad ceased. The broad breast of T weed " grit " with
those floods, and overflowing the pebbles for a few yards
before they reached the real margin of the stream, flowed
rapidly and strongly, with a dark, swift current, marked
with foam, which it required no small effort to strike
steadily across. The dark trees, glistening with big drops
,f niiii—the unseen depths on either side, only percep.
tible to their senses oy the cold full breath of wind which
blew over them--the sound of water running tierce in an
expanded tide ; and as they set out upon the river, the sur•
rounding gleam of water shining under their torches, and
the strong swell of downward motion, against which they
bad to struggle, composed altogether a scene which no one
there soon forgot. The boat bad to return a second time,
to convey all its passengers; and then once more, with the
solemn tramp of a procession, the little party went on in the
darkness to the grave.
Atal then the night calmed, and a wild, frightened moon
looked out of the clouds into solemn Dryburgh, in the
midst of her old monkish orchards. Through the great
gas grown roofless nave, the white light fell in a sudden
calm, pallid and silent as death itself, Set looking on like
an amazed spectator of the scene.
The open grave stood ready as it had been prepared this
morning—a dark, yawning breach in the wet grass, its edge
all defined and glistening in the moonlight. It was in one
Ad the small side chapels, overgrown with grass and ivy,
which are just distinguishable from the main mass of the)
ruin ; here the torches blazed and the dark figures grouped'
together, and in a solemn and mysterious silence these,
solitary remains of the old house of Uod looked on at thef
funeral. The storm was over; the thunder-clouds rolled
away to the north; the face of the heavens cleared ; the
moon grew brighter. High against the sky stood out the
Catherine window in its frame of ivy, the solitary shafts
and walls from which the trees waved—and in a solemn
gloom, broken by flashes of light which magnified the
shadow, lay those morsels of the ancient building which
still retained a cover. The wind rustled through the trees,
shaking down great drops of moisture, which fell with a
startling coldness upon the faces of the mourners, some of
whom began to feel the thrill of superstitious awe. It was
the only sound, save that of the subdued footsteps round
the grave. and the last heavy, dreadful bustle of human
exertion, letting down the silent inhabitant into his last
resting-place, which sounded over the burial of Norlew.
And now, at last, it was all over; the terrible excitement,
the dismal, long, self-restraint, the unnatural force of
human resentment and defiance which had mingled with
the grief of these three lads. At last he was in his grave,
solemnly and safely ; at last he was secure where no man
could insult what remained of him, or profane his dwelling-
place. As the moon shone on the levelled soil, Cosmo
cried aloud in a boyish egony of nature, and fell upon the
wet glass, beside the grave. The cry rang through all the
solemn echoes of the place. Some startled birds flew out
of the ivied crevices, and made wild, bewildered circles of
fright among the walls. A pang of sudden terror fell upon
tte rustic attendants ; the torch-bearera let their lights fall,
11111 i the chief among them hurriedly entreated Huntley to
linger no longer.
"A's done l " said Willie Noble, lifting his bonnet reve-
lently from his head. " Farewell to a good master that I
humbly hope's in heaven Lang afore now. We can do him
oar further good, and the lads are timid of the place.
Meister Huntley, may I give them the word to turn
lame ?"

The most brilliant scene in the book is at the
end of the last volume, when the melodrama is
cleared up. We should like to extract it, but
space is wanted, and the effect of it could hardly
be appreciated without a clear tinderstanding of
the chain of incidents immediately preceding it.
We have little doubt but that great numbers
will read this novel with pleasure. Its critical
defects we have been obliged to indicate, but
there are capital passages in it, and some genuine
expressions of sympathy with suffering that will
not fail to influence many readers. The authoress
nintes pathos and picturesque talent for descrip-
tion. Let her avoid melodramatic plots, and her
constituency will for many years look for increased
pleasure from the pen that wrote "Margaret
Maitland."

Sunday Evenings with Sophia. By Leonora G

Bell. London : Griffith and Farran.
The Principles of Steam. By the author of " Might
not Right." With Illustrations by J. Gilbert.
London : Griffith and Farran.

.Paul Blake ; or, the Story of a Boy's Perils in the
Islands of Corsica and Monte Christ°. By Alfred
F.lwes. London : Griffith and Farren.

---- • —•••----- - -----
Light for the Path of Life.— Designed by Samuel
Stanesby. London : Griffith and Ferran.
IT is impossible to conceive four more charming
books for Christmas presents than the publications
of Messrs. Grant and Farran, whose titles head this
notice, which we regret that want of space compels
us to make so short and so meagre. The first three
are more expressly for children, but the " Light for
the Path of Life,' consisting of quotations from
the Holy Scrip arts, illuminated with infinite taste
and brilliancy of colour, is fitting for all ages from
etx to threescore years and ten.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.
BOOKS.

The headlong Career and Woeful Ending of Pr•eocion.
Piggy. By the late Thomas Hood.—Grifilth and Ferran.
A Ludy's Captivity among Chinese Pircars.—Ruudedge.
De La Rue's Red Letter Diary and Improved Memorandum
Book, 1859.—De La Rae and Co.
Pleasure. A Poem. By Nicholas Mieliell.—Tepg and Co
Memoirs De Impiratrice Catherine 11. Par A. Herren.—
_

Triibner.
The Young Middy. By F. C. Armstrong.—Marlborough
and Co.
Three Christmas Plays for Children. By Theresa Pulszks.—
Griffith lied Ferran.
The History of llerodolus. By George Rawlinson, M.A.
Vol. M.—John Murray.
Collection of Public Statutes. Edited by James Bigg.—
Simpkin and Marshall.

Vxtsital gtbitt.

Kunst•werk der Zukunft. Von Richard Wagner.

London : Schalt and Co.
THE name of Richard Wagner, the German poet,
philosopher, and musician, has now become so widely
celebrated as to render it desirable ►hat his merits
should be more deeply investigated than they have
yet been by the critics of this country. So profound
a thinker, one so variously and highly gifted, imagi•
native, and, we are inclined to believe, thoroughly
conscientious—who exercises so potent an influence
upon public taste in the land of the Haydns, Mozarts,
Beethovens, and Goethes, is at least entitled to
respectful attention, even from those who entirely
dissent from his doctrines ; and is most assuredly not
to be put down with a joke, or annihilated with a
sneer.

As the fantastic projector of what has here been
facetiously termed "Music of the Future," Herr
Wagner is chiefly known to the British public. His
theories, very imperfectly understood, have given
rise to many jocular sallies from the light brigade of
critical witlings, whilst all the heavy artillery of un-
productive orthodoxy, charged to the muzzle with
precedents, authorities, and formularies, has been
levelled at the bold, errati' German, as it ever has
been and always will be against all who dare to think
for themselves and are burdened by fate with that
dangerous gift, an original and leading mind. It is
worthy of remark, however, that Herr Wagner never
made use of the much xidiculed expression "Music
of the Future " at all, and, what is more, never wrote
anything or projected anything specially and exclu•
sively relative to one particular art. On the contrary,
the whole object of his ambition, the one purpose of
his artistic existence, is the reunion of all the arts,
severed since the time of the Greeks, in the Lyric
Drama; and the work in which his philosophical
doctrines are set forth and his poetical dreams ex-
plained is entitled "Kunst-werk der Zukunft," "The
Future Work of Art," not "Musik der Zukunft,"
"Music of the Future." It is, perhaps, a pity thus
to spoil the subject of a pleasant joke, but even mirth
must yield to justice.
With Herr Wagner's practical " innovations" as a
creative artist we have not now to deal, our present
bus;ness being only with the philosophical work
before us ; and if our author be really so potent an
evil spirit as indignant orthodoxy would have us
think him, and it. be true that "after the praise of
"refining the taste of a nation the highest eulogy
" which can be bestowed on any author is to say that
"he corrupted it," Herr Wagner must still be a
highly important personage, and as Shakespeare
(who was not all orthodox) somewhere observes,
"Madness in great ones should not unwatched go."
The leading theories of Herr Wagner seem to be
that art is not a product of art but of nature, and
springs necessarily from civilization as man does
from nature. When (says he) creation was suffi-
ciently developed to produce man, he appeared at
once, by the law of necessity ; when civilization was
enough advanced to require the fine arts, they like-
wise sprang to life, in obedience to the same omni-
potent, inevitable decree. All art springs naturally
from " the people" (taking tbat word iu its most
comprehensive sense)—rises upwards from them—
is engendered by their wants and requirements—is
the expression of thoughts and emotions common to
the whole human race—universal in its import, one
and eternal in its truth—and cannot be forced upon
them "from above "—that is, cannot be made to
descend upon them from any egotistical aristocracy
of intelligence. True art is not an abstract idea or
science, apparent only to the hazy eyes of metaphy-
sical dreamers, or intelligible only to a "knowing
few " ; neither is it a thing arbitrarily created by the
capricious will, an egotistical car tel est noire plats&
of the mind ; but an " immediate, sensuous, real
" representation of human life "—the faithful embo-
diment and reproduction of living images, as seen in
Nature's mirror, the reflecting mind.
"The people" (says Herr Wagner) called it into
existence, " the people " are its only worthy mate-
rials, to " the people " it is addressed, and 4.‘ the

1163

people" must finally judge of its merits. In short,
according to our author, " the people," influenced by
necessity, invented society, art, the State, theology, and
religious worship, but their beautiful natural impulses
have been invariably betrayed, misdirected, or utterly
stifled by certain egotistical " knowing ones," as will
presently be seen.
Herr Wagner's beau-ideal of artistic perfection
appears to be the ancient Greek drama. In the
beginning (says he), the only natural and genuine
period of art, poetry, music, serious pantomime, and
dancing (that is, dancing in the Greek sense, as con-
veyed by the word it../Maim) were united as the
means calculated to &Ilford the fullest and most per-
fect expression to the human being in all his
artistic capability; but when subsequently these were
divided, a Babelish confusion ensued, and each art
was carried to an unnatural degree of solitary ego-
tistical perfection, intelligible only to the initiated
few, its special followers. The sister arts, unnatu-
rally severed, could no longer reciprocally explain
and throw light upon each other—the thinking,
singing, speaking, moving man could no longer be
represented in his entirety. Following the course of
events down to modern times, in which Herr Wagner
considers the evils of which lie complains to have
reached their culminating point, our author points
out how all our artistic mistakes may be referred to
the one radical error, and shows us what he considers
to be the only road to redemption.
Thus to the separation of the art-sisters be ascribed
the existence of that preposterous thing the literary
drama—the play only fit to be read, not acted ; of
scientific, " absolute " music, and that disgusting
meaningless exhibition ca/led ballet dancing.
The great, noble heart and creative brain of " the
people," whose only law is necessity, have in fact always
in every age been betrayed and falsified by the " know-
ing ones," whose custom it invariably is to form
themselves into exclusive " Guilds " for their mutual
support and protection. No sooner (continues Herr
Wagner) bad the people, following the spontaneous
impulses of nature, learned to dunce, and to express
their felings by gestures, than the "knowing ones "
seized upon the invention, and converted it into a
shamelessly " intelligent " grossly physical display,
such as deformed, bow-legged, chin-stroking pos.
turers, male or female, show us in the modern ballet.
No sooner did the people make poetry out of the ful-
ness of their hearts, than a race of literary " knowing
ones " crept into existence, and strove to convert the
divine gift into something like an abstract science
intelligible only to their own Guild ; and thus arose
such anomalous" dramas " as Goethe's Faust, which,
however, was happily driven from the stage by a
poodle as a wholesome warning to all misdirected
intelligence.
No sooner had the "people " learned to sing, than
the natural outpourings of their melodic instincts
were pounced upon as a well-tasting prey by hungry
contrapuntists, who, incapable of inventing any-
thing themselves, could only force music to sport
egostistically with itself. Now raged the efforts of
learned professors, who vainly endeavoured to turn
music, the language of the heart, into a matter of
reckoning, and to make. the world accept works of cal-
culation, resembling the complex account book of a
shrewd Hebrew stockbroker, in lieu of the divine
page inspired by nature. The people, however, could
not bear this musical imposition very long, and so
presently with one mighty puff of Mother Nature's
breath they blew the contrapuntal card-house into
the air, and the " hungry contrapuntists fled pre-
cipitately. 'fhe people were then allowed to sing
once more in their own way, but only for a short time,
however, for the "knowing ones" were soon down
upon them again in a new shape. The fate of
honest, soul-born, popular tune was next to fall into
the hands of knowing bravura" singers, who by
senseless and absurdly intelligent flourishes dis-
figured and falsified it just as much as the hungry
contrapuntists had done by their cunning Israelitish
hos,uspocus. One mechanical contrivance was merely
substituted for another. The egotistical singer took
the place of the " hungry contrapuntist."
Popular feeling was, however, again destined to
prevail, and the artistic expression of it by that
wondrous triad of composer's, commencing with
Haydn, and ending with Beethoven, led gradually
not only to the emancipation of music from the
thrall of the " Guilds," but also to the redemption
of all art. In the symphonies of Haydn (says Herr
Wagner) the rythmical dance-tune of the people
disports itself with youthful freshness and beauty ;
the ever-varying artistic treatment to which it is
subjected, although doubtless resulting from pro-
found contrapuntal calculations, scarcely appears to
be the work of such scholastic premeditation, but
has much rather the character of a spontaneous
illustration of the mazy windings and convolutions
of the harmonized or concerted dance, so completely
does the whole seem to be -ander thedominion of fancy,
so warmly, freely, and freshly does the joyful spirit
of lit( . -
we t
in

life breathe through it. In the slow movements
have the people's song amplified and developed
accordance with its inherent principles and natura,