The Express.
London, England, 1847-11-15 00:00:00

THE AMERICAN LECTURER

Sivas,ram, THE POET.—On Thursday evening
Mr. Emerson delivered his fourth Atheneum leture, on
" Sikakspera, the poet." The attendance was as numerous
as on the previous occasions. Of this discourse, which ap-
peared more suited to the tastes of all parties than either of
the three preceding one., we shall present our readers with
• somewhat more extended outline.

The lecturer commenced by saying that if we studied great
men we should nut find them lo much diatinguished by ori-
ginality as by range or extent of thought.. If we required of
them that originality which consisted in weaving like a spider
their web from their bowels, or in finding clay and then
making bricks and then building houses, no man was ever
original. The great man wee the one who was at the
centre of things—in the thick of events; and who, seeing
what men wanted, shared their desires. There was
no choice for genius ; the great man did not wake
up some fine morning saying be was full of life, and
would go to sea, and find out some hitherto unknown
shore ; but he found himself in the river of the thoughts and
events—in the forest of words, ideas, and necessities of his
contemporaries ; he stood in such a position as to be a go-
between from the want to the suiting of the want ; be stood
where all the eyes of men looked one way, sod where their
hands all pointed the direction in which he should go. The
power of every great genius lay in his sympathy for the
rooptlee i,iioriskal his
otoe of
ttoeto materials
ai in,
had whoOMUethi, sionocl
he entered into their labours. Great original power,
one would almost say, consisted in not being self-willed,
but in being in every degree receptive; in letting the
world do all. The history of Shakspere and of the Eng-
lista drama, which had been prosecuted with such eagle-
eyed research ever since the time of Malone, had yielded
very unlocked for results, and precisely in accordance with
this view Shakspere came at a time it seemed when the
people were importunate for dramatic entertainments. At
that period the court took offence easily at political allusions,
and attempted to suppress them; the Puritans and religious
among the established church saw in dramatic representa-
tions sedition and sin, and would a"so suppress them; but
the people would have them. The people tad tasted this
new joy; and as we could not hope to suppress newspapers
in the present day, neither could power or authority then
suppress the organ which was at once the newspaper and
Punch of Shakspere's day. This secure position which the
stage held was el the fine Importance to the poet who worked
for it ; he lost no time in making idle experiments, and after
a little, finding that he did not prosper; but here was his
audience and expectation prepared for him. Mr. Emerson
then alluded to the manuscripts to which Shakspere must
have had access on his entrance upon his theatrical
career at the Globe. Shakspere evidently thought the mass
of old plays corpus rite, on which any experiment could be
fairly tried. The rude warm blood of the English character
circulated in the plays as in the street ballads. The poet on
every account needed such basis supplied to him from with-
out—the basis of popular tradition on which his art might
work, and which, again, might restrain his art within the due
temperance ; otherwise all his powers and elegancies were
superfluous. Thus did the people supply him with solid
ground and foundivion for his airy devices. lie (Mr. Emer-
son) conceived that the value of a popular basis to the new
poem, was precisely analogous to the dependence of sculpture I
on architecture. The inestimable advantage which the sculp-
tor
found in architecture, the poet found in the existing dra-
matic materials of the theatre. Hardly* single drama of Shsk-
spere's could be deem, d to be of his own original invention.
His basis he found in prompters' books, and an that circle of
histories, foreign and domestic, current in England; and he
was wise enough to snow that tradition supplied a power '
superior to that which invention could. In that day the
petulant demand for originality was not so much premed as in
these days. The great poet who appeared in barbarous, igno-
rant times, had this advantage—he absorbed all the light that
was anywhere radiating in this sphere. Every intellectual
jewel, every flower of sentiment, it was his office to bring
to the people; and, therefore, he was little solicitous
whence his thoughts bad been derived; they would be
equally welcome to his uncritical audience. Such was
the happy position of Homer; and Chaucer, like all gay
geniuses, was a huge borrower. The poet stole with
the apology that what he took was of no worth where he
found it, and of the greatest value where he left it.
Indeed, it was coming to boa practical sort of rule in lisera-
ture, that a man haying shown himself capable of original
writing was at liberty henceforth to make whatever he found
his property. It seemed that thought WAS the property of that
man who could adequately place it. Thu., members of the
legislature represeuted the thought, and spoke for thousands.
So Shakspere's works were not one man's labour, but the
sentiments of thousands concentrated in one. Our Bible was a
wonderful specimen of the strength and music of the English
language, but it was made not by one man, or at one time,
but its execution extended over long periods and generations
of men, till it was brought to its present perfection. There
never was a time when there was not some translation in ex.
istenee. So with the Liturgy; it was not written at one time.
So with the explicit language of the law; it was the work of
all the sharp-sighted and strong-minded men that had li eed in
all countries where the l.sp governed. The world took liber-
ties with the world's books. He who was not ashamed to
owe his originality to his age, stood in the next age as the
true recorder and repreeerimile of his own. Mr. Emerson
then alluded to the meaty particulars which have been
handed down to us relative to the life of the great poet.
It was a matter of grave comment whether he robbed an
orchard, whether he ',inched, or whether he left kis second
best bed only to his wife. Whilst he had recorded and illus-
trated to tediousness everythiog relative to Queen Elizabeth,
King James, and other individuals of the court—beings we
should never have missed, had their names not seen the I
light—the founder of another dynasty, which alone would
cause the Tudor reign to be remembered,—the man who
carried the Saxon race in him by the experience which
fed him, and on whose thoughts the eyes of the world,
were to be nourished—was pined by unnoticed. No-
body suspected that he was the poet of the human race.
Bacon, who took the inventory of human understanding
I for the times, who recorded both what was done and what
was deficient in science, never mentioned him ; and Ben
Jenson evidently considered himself the better poet of the
I two. If it needed wit to recognise wit, Shakspere's times
must have been capable of recognising him, for his times
were prolific of great men. Since the constellation of great
men, at the time of Pericles, in Greece, never was such so-
ciety in the world, and yet the genius of the men who com-
posed it failed them to find out the best in the universe.
(Applause.) Our poet's mask was impenetrable; his incog-
nito was complete. It was not possible to write the history
of Shakspere until now. He was the father of German litera-
ture, and Colridge and Goethe were the only ca Ulm who had
expressed the impressioneof his times with any fidelity. The
lecturer having further blamed at the scanty materials of
Shakspers's history which have come down to us, said that, at
all events, it appeared that he was a good husband, with no
reputation for eccentricity or excesses. But we had no clue
to that which gave the particular direction to his powers ; no
light at all was shed as to the origin of that which had so
much interest for us. It was the very essence of poetry to
spring like the rainbow daughter of wonder from the invi-
sible. Mr. Emerson spoke of beauties of the poet which the
player in his hemisphere knew not of. One golden word
sprang out immortal from wretched mortality. He re-
membered once going to hear the Hamlet of a famed per-
former—the pride of the English stage—and all he then
heard and remembered of the tragedy was that in which the
tragedian had no part ; it was simply the magical expression
to the ghost—
" What may this rneen,
That thou, dead come again, in complete steel,
Itevialt'st thus the allmrees of the moon."
The dissolving power of Shakspere's imagination would, in
a moment, reduce the big reality to be the glimpses of the
moon. This magic dispelled the poor illusions of the green-
room and the actor. After some further remarks, the lec-
turer said Shakspere was the only biographer of Shakspere ;
and though our external history of him was so meagre, we
had from himself really the information which was material
—which, if we were about to meet the man and deal with
him, to be the companions of his sphere, would most import
us to know. We had his recorded convictions on those
questions which knocked for answer at the heart of every
tboaghtful man—life, death, love, wealth, poverty, the prizes
of life, and the ways whereby to come at them; all those
things were unlocked and opened which affected man's for-
tunes, as also those mysteries and demoniacal powers which
defied our science. What mystery had he not signified the
knowledge of? What office or function, or district of
man's work, had he not remembered ? What counsel had
be not given ? What maiden had not found in him finer
delicacy ? What lover had not found himself out-loved ?
Whom had he not instructed ? Mr. Emerson then pro-
ceeded to make a few general observations, stating that
Shakspere surpassed all other distinguished persons, parti-
cularly in his omnipresent property ; he was also strictly
impartial ; having no peculiarity he had nothing particular
to tell, but all wail duly given. The great he told greatly ;
the small subordinately ; he was wise without emphasis or
assertion ; strong as nature was strong who lifted the land
into mountain slopes without effort by the same rule
as she floats a bubble in the air, and likes as well to do
the one as the other. (Applause.) The lecturer thought
there was nothing comparable in literature to Shak-
spere, for expression, for strength, for delicacy. Men had
existed who affirmed that they had heard the language of
angels, and talked with them, but on their return to the
natural world, though they retained the recollection of those
conversations, they found it impossible to translate those
things that had been said into human thoughts and words,
but Shakspere, like one arrived into some heavenly sphere of
sensation and existence, had learned the superior diction, and
when he returned to this world he retained the fine veal
power which had been opened to him above. The poet's
I sonnets, though their excellence was eclipsed by the splen-
dour of his dramas, were equally inimitable. In him was
to be found no trace of egotism. One more royal trait he
would stop to specify ; he meant Shakspere's cheerfulness of
thought. His name suggested joy and emancipation to the
heart of man ; if he should appear in any company of human
mule, who would not march in his troop ? (Applause.) But
how stood the account with this great benefactor when pon-
dered over in solitude and silence? As chief poet of the
world, he might well draw attention to the wonderful
problem which rendered the poets and the mystics en
one side or the other. As long as the question was
of the comparative talent and intellectual power, the
world of man bat not his equal; but when the ques-
tion was one of his (Mr. Emerson's) life he found he
could spare him. What signified the Twelfth Night, Mid-
summer Night's Dream, or the Winter Evening's Tale. It
was plain to him who meditated these things that they com-
prehended merely half views, that the world still wanted its

poet and priest in one—ons greet reconciler who should not
stop short with Shakepere nor with Swedenborg, but one
who should see, and speak, and act with equal inspiration.
If there wee knowledge which would burn the sunshine,
there wee light which wu more beautiful than private affec-
tion, and there was love which wu compatible with universal
wisdom. (Applause.)

IRELAND.
DUBLIN, Nov. 13.
The month still continues troubled under the opera-
tion of the Poor Law. The Rathkeale guardians, to
the number of twenty-four, have resigned, alleging
as a general reason, the difficulty of the emergency
and the increase of responsibility. The Listowel
board (Kerry) have fallen into a more agreeable
temper, and agreed to impose the long-withheld rate
of three shillings. Concord is thus restored between
them and the commissioner,. On the other hand, the

neighbouring board of the Killarney Union ferments
with indignation against Messrs. Redington and
Twislcton for having issued a circular' calling on the
board to provide for the relief advances, notwithstand-
ing the three shilling tax.
Even the industrious North shows symptoms of
disorder on the poor-law question. On Thursday last
the Ballymena workhouse was besieged by a crowd
of paupers demanding work or out-door relief. They
were offered the accommodation of the house—but

thiaV was----rettoKtell—reft;:cl,--ancl they departed, i
threatening plunder to the bread shops, The menace,
however, was not put Into execution. The weaving
trade is said to be in a very bad state in the neigh-
bourhood of Ballymena, coarse cloths having declined
more than one halfpenny per yard in the last three
weeks, with very few purchasers. Weavers in conse-
quence, after sale of the web, have not more than a
shilling for the week's labour. Repugnancy to the
workhouse in the north springs from a feeling of in-
dependent self-respect—elsewhere it is associated with
a vagrant love of liberty, and a violent dislike of
workhouse restraint

The Evening Mail announces the resolve of the
Dublin conservatives to prosecute a petition against
the return of Mr. Reynolds.
Mr. Baldwin, the assistant barrister for the east
riding of Cork, has accepted the inferior county of
Louth, in consequence of ill health. The emoluments
are leas by 5001., but so also are the trouble and time.
Cork will be offered to some senior chairman, an'
office requiring great temper, tact, and a reasonable
degree of knowledge.
A struggle is about to begin in parliament between
the citizens of Derry and the Irish Society, relative to
the charter of the latter and the rights of the former.
The Derry corporation is also to apply for a city im-
provement bill.
One of the persons arrested for the murder of
Major Mahon, and lodged in Roscommon gaol, has
died there from fever.

The conduct of Mr. Ormsby Gore, an absentee and
extensive landed proprietor, to his tenants in Leitrim
has provoked some harsh comments in the English
and Irish press. He was charged with evictions
under very cruel circumstances, and loud, in conse-
quence, was the outcry. Hie agent, Mr. Lawder,
makes out his case in extenuation. Charge the first :
That where a year and a hells rent, up to September
last, was due, he refused to accept less than a fall
year's rent from any person holding less than twenty
acres.—Answer : That not one of them offered a single
shilling ; and though threatened with eviction, " never
showed the least desire to pay anything." Charge
the second: That the aged and persons in fever were
dragged from their beds.--Answer: No single sick
person was turned out; and the only " aged man "
whom Mr. Lawder saw, walked quietly oat of his
cabin. Quiet implies contentment, and surely there
could have been little peace of mind in the
breast of the aged man in leaving for ever his humble
roof-tree. In several instances Mr. Gore's Leitrim
tenants are stated to owe from twelve to fourteen
years' rents, a proof of singular clemency, misery, or
mismanagement. As a general reply to the imputa-
-1 tion of cruelty, the agent publishes a notice by Mr.
Gore, dated the Bth inst., in which he offers to the
evicted tenants, as well as to those who may hereafter
be in a like state, to enable them ti emigrate next
spring, and " in the mean time to provide for them
the mean. of procuring habitations.'
A benevolent quaker, Mr. Robinson, of Clara Mills,
among other remedial measures of which he has a
large store not usually in the best working order,
suggests, among other thing., that when parliament
legislates for the labouring classes, they will specially
enact that five labourers on every hundred Irish acres
shall have one acre each at the rent paid by the prin-
cipal tenant for the remainder. The operation of this
wholesome provision would be a better acquaintance
between landlord and labourer, bringing more comfort
to the latter, and making the former more the pro-
prietor.
The Central Board of Health has been recruited by
the appointment of Sir Henry Marsh. The other me-
dical members are Sir Philip Crampton and Dr.
Corrigan.

ENFORCEMENT OF 11l POOR-ILATE.—The commissioners
of poor laws in Ireland, carrying out in its full sense the te-
cent pledge of his Excellency Lord Clarendon, that the poor
law should be rendered so fully effective so possible, have
issued instructions to the several inspectors of unions through-
out Ireland, enjoining vigour in soliciting and enforcing pay-
ment of the rates by individual rate-payers without fear or
favour.

SCOTLAND.
EDINBURGH, Nov. 14.
Fever of a type more than ordinarily virulent is
prevailing in Perth. A correspondent of the Mail
says that four individuals employed in coffining a
physician who died of fever were all seized with the
malady, two of them having fallen victims. In
another fatal case the medical attendants recom-
mended that the dressing of the body should be dis-
pensed with altogether. Built on the margin of a
river, and surrounded on all sides by hills, the posi-
tion of Perth is not, perhaps, generally salubrious,
but still its freedom from manufactories, and nu-
merous public walks, should make it healthy were
sanitary facilities in existence. But it seems the
police commissioners have no fund, at their disposal,
and that their duties fall on the magistrates, who do
not appear to regard this part of their functions as of
direct obligation. Stirling, at the head of the Forth,
is no better than Perth at the bead of the Tay. "So
crowded is our churchyard," says a local writer,
" that there is not room to get down between the
tiers of coffins on each aide of the grave being dug.,
Hence with every shovelful of earth there are thrown
up fragments of coffins and other paraphernalia of
the dead? Such a state of matters is disgraceful in
a small town where ground is both plentiful and
cheap.
The recent local elections have excited the usual
amount of quarrel on general and temporary sub-
jects. In Perth the changes in the magistracy have
set the church and dissent by the ears. It appears
that ever since the reformation the provosts have
belonged to the established church, and consequently
they and their brother magistrates have been heralded
to church by the town serpents halbert in hand ; bat
last Sunday, the new provost and three of the bellies
being dissenters, the town serjeants walked to chunk
alone, and took their seats behind the empty Innis-
terial pew, the Sabbath meditations of the good
burghers of St. Johnstoun's being greatly disturbed
by the novelty of the proceeding.
It would seem that for some time past it has been
the custom to elect the Lord Rector of the University
of Glasgow for two years, and as Lord John Russell
has held office only for one year, it is reckoned
unhandsome to bring forward an opponent this ses-
sion. In ordinary times the honour is not of much
consequence ; but at present, when there is a like-
lihood of the subject of university tests being probed
to the bottom,the vote and influence of the Lotd Rector '
is of some moment. Lord John Russell would be for
abolition as probably as his opponent, Mr. Mare,
would be for retention.
Mr. E. F. Maitland, late editor of the Yorth British
Recietc, and brother of the solicitor-general, has been
appointed an advocate-deputy in room of Sheriff
Davidson; and Mr. P. Shaw has been appointed
sheriff of chancery under the Lord Advocate's new
Service of Heirs Act, which comes into operation on
the 15th.

EOIIOE COUIKSHANICS BOTTLE."—Lord Robertson,
one of the ordinaries of the Court of Session, has granted an
interdict against the sale of a pirated edition of Cruakshank's
famous work.
SUPPOSED 1111:6DEIL—WS, Edinbu•gh Adrertiser, un-
derstand that an individual, who followed the vocation of an
erant vender of gingerbread, was apprehended in town
on Monday forenoon, on suspicion of being concerned in the
supposed murder of the woman whose body was lately found
in the Union Canal. It la said that she was last seen alive
in his company, and several other circumstances have tended
to fix the suspicion of guilt upon him. The case is at pre-
, scat undergoing investigation by the authorities.