The Sun.
London, England, 1829-05-08 00:00:00

FINE ARTS.

SPIRIT OF THE PLAYS OF SHAKSPEARE.
By F. HOWARD. 'No. XII.

Mr. Howard, with a spirit and perseverance that
we cannot too highly commend, has here pre-
sented us with another number of his Shakspearian
Illustrations, which we should have noticed long
ere this, had not the late extraordinary and unpre-
cedented mass of Parliamentary intelligence en-
grossed our columns to the exclusion of all other
matters. The present number consists of illustra-
tions of the " Two Gentlemen of Verona," and
" Love's Labour Lost," both which plays, as the
reader will probably recollect, abound in rich and
various materials for the artist. Mr. Howard has
made the most of these, and put forth a number no
wise inferior to his former series. Indeed, in the
delineation of character, we are inclined to think it
the best he has yet published. Our limits will not
permit us to particularize further.

LITERATURE.

THE FOREIGN REVIEW.—No. VI.

This periodical is rapidly improving in the
extent, quality, and variety of its information.
We have few, if any, of those prosing though
learned papers that filled the earlier numbers ;
these have made way for dissertations equally
well-informed, but of a more condensed and
judicious character. The first article, headed
" Russia, Turkey, and India," is penned in a
strong spirit of hostility to the Russians. The
author sketches the progress of that immense
Empire from the reign of Peter the Great down
to the campaign against the Turks last year—
dwelling with particular force on the subjugation
of Sweden and the dismemberment of Poland—
and views throughout its gradual advance
towards civilization and European influence,
nothing but treachery, bravado, sycophancy, and
intolerable despotism. The present position of
Russia, with regard to Persia, is traced with an
able hand ; the author scouts the idea that the
latter Power can possibly be subjugated by the
former, observing that—

" Though the regular army of the Persians be small, the
country is most difficult of invasion or conquest. Leaving
out of the question the astonishing scarcity of water, the
Persians are capable of giving such a reception to the
Muscovite hordes, as they themselves once gave the French
on the occasion of their memorable and disastrous retreat
from Moscow. Prince Abbas Mirza has organized an army
of somewhere near 30,000 men after the European disci-
pline, and the registered militia amounts to about 70 or
80,000 cavalry, and 150,000 infantry and when we
consider that every man is a soldier by habit, and that
there ate innumerable tribes of rugged, untameable wan-
derers, who would shed the last drop of their blood for
those hills and vallies, endeared to their hearts, by the en-
thralling superstitions of youth, and the tenderest recol-
lections of manhood, we may naturally conclude, that
Persia is a country invulnerable either to the force, or the
golden bribes of any European assailant. Persia, to be
subjugated, must be civilized, and that consummation must
be the work of centuries, inasmuch as she has, of late
years, rather retrograded than advanced in the path of in-
tellectual culture ; and, indeed, ere any form or order can
be introduced into the country, Alcides must assume a se-
cond incarnation, for the purpose of cleansing all their
abominable Augaean stables of dreadful corruption, in reli-
gion, in morals, and in polity. But even supposing that
civilization were practicable, the time necessary for its ef-
fectual operation would be so considerable, that many
mighty revolutions may have worked their evils in Russia,
and shattered the empire of the haughty Czars into frag-
ments. That Persia was conquered by the armies of the
Macedon youth,' is most true; but Persia was then a
compact kingdom, and the inhabitants obeyed him for
want of some other claimant, whose title should be more
indefeasible. At present the country is divided amongst
a thousand tribes of hardy warriors, ready and capable of
hurling destruction through the ranks of any insolent
invader."

On the subject of the Turkish campaign the
Reviewer is equally sceptical. The downfall of
Constantinople, he conceives, is not yet at
hand, least of all will its conquest be achieved
by the Russians during the reign of the present
Emperor. " If," says our author, " Nicholas
persist in the war, ruin must finally be his re-
ward, and if Russia remain at peace, ere half a
century shall have progressed over her head,
she will have become more-of-im---Asiatic -than
a European power." " Symbolism and Mytho-
logy " is a rambling, speculative, metaphysical
sort of dissertation, fitter for a single volume
than the necessarily limited pages of a periodical.
It is replete with knowledge, drawn from an in-
finite number of sources with much pains, no
doubt, and adroitness, but the subject is of far
too visionary and comprehensive a character to
be adequately discussed in a single paper.
Klopstock's Life and Odes" is intelligent and
interesting, giving us a delightful picture of the
author of the Messiah in his private life, parti-
cularly of his strange platonic amour with Fanny
Schmidt, a young lady who it seems would
gladly have met with more nature and less
platonism in her imaginative admirer. " Arabian
Literature " is a delightful paper, full of novelty
and entertainment. Our only regret. is, that it is
short. " Voltaire " is a lucid, impartial, and
comprehensive analysis of the mind of one of the
most extraordinary writers that the modern world
has seen. The author is full-informed with his
subject ; there is no hesitation, no obscurity,
no special pleading in his remarks ; he speaks
out manfully, and with considerable effect. The
leading defect in Voltaire's mind, he considers to
be his want of earnestness, of that intense power
which at once enables its possessor to attain the
empyreum of intellect. His adroitness, however,
in concealing the weak side of an argument, od

et
putting forth all its strong poittts, the Rene!
looks on as unrivalled. We quote
the
ing remarks in allusion to the "French Revolu-
tion ;" they are marked by a -keen !pint of

sagacity :
" Voltaire has many elements of goodness, butosti .fig
loosely ; nothing is combined in steadfist.-ttitiee; 1111
true, he presents in general a surface of smoothness, el 6"?..
tured regularity; yet, under it, there is not the
rock-bound strength of a world ; but the wild .tiunnits Uf
a chaos are ever bursting through. He is a tnea ut
power, but not of beneficient authority; we fear, but
cannot reverence him ; we feel him to be st,ontgerf
higher. Much of this spirit snort
sion might be due to nat ;, I";
is due to the age into whre
of diseprd and ; tbeapproaeb o ••••3a j
human affairs. Already we discern in ; - • „
of the French Revolution ; and wonder, eq
forget iow entangled and hidden themeaning"ef the Pr
sent generally is to us, that all men did not foresee "1
comings on of that fearful convulsion. On the one halt'
a high all-attempting activity of intellect; the tnee.
retnptory spirit of inquiry abroad on every subject; tlll,'lr
human and things divine alike cited without wileglih
before the same boastful tribunal of so-called reason, if.lPuin
means here a merely argumentative logic; the street
mind excluded from his regular influeock in the AfilLe.
and deeply conscious of that injury.- Ott . the.o7..
hand, a privileged few, strong in the subjection of
many, yet in itself weak; a piebald, and for Most lam. g
altogether decrepid battalion, of clergy, of purblind '. 1
bility, or rather of courtiers, for as yet the nobility
mostly on the other side: these cannot fight with le&
and the day of persecution is well nigh done. cbd:
whole force of law, indeed, is still in their hands* 47,
the far deeper force, which alone gives efficacy to law,
hourly passing away from them. Hope animates and
side ; fear the other ; and the battle will be fierce IP'
desperate. For there is wit without wisdom on the part
of the self-styled philosophers ; feebleness with eiteeres
tion on the part of their opponents; pride enough ee
hands, but little magnanimity; perhaps n where 01
pure love of truth, only every where the puma, MOSt Ire
dent love of self. In such a state of things, therekt
abundant principles of discord : these two,:afluenceeitnt
like fast-gathering electric clouds, as yet _Ws oppee7:-,0,
sides of the horizon, but with a malignity of .013".,.41,41
which boded, whenever they might meet, a. -sky 04'11 41
and blackness, thunderbolts to waste the earth, as f
sun and stars, though but for a season, to be
.btu 791 i
/991 i
from the heavens. For there is no conducting
to unite softly these hostile elements ; there ,ie •
virtue, no true wisdom, on the one side Gl...the-t '
Never, perhaps, was there an epoch, in the history of 1". 14
world, when universal corruption called so loudly for re'-
form ; and they who undertook that task were tnell
insically so worthless. Not by Gracchi, but by,Cst:
lines ; not by Luther., but by Aretines, was Europe to
renovated. The task has been a long and bloody one; *Du
is still far from done."

If ever individual was the author of a 113-
tional revolution, Voltaire was that one. He it
was who collected all the scattered elements °'e
discord, and sent them forth to the world con-
densed, and pointed, and rendered perspicuous
and intelligible, through the medium of his un-
rivalled ingenuity. He it was who first threw 10
fire-brand into the Church and State ; who mar-
shalled the commonality against the aristocracy
of France (though he himself was from first to
last an aristocrat in feeling, habit, and intellect)?
who taught the people to think and act for then!'.
selves, and when he had thus put arms into their
hands, died and made way for the revolty
tionists. That he was aware of the vast uns"
chief he was creating, we doubt. Voltaire,
though a keen, was not a far-sighted politician.
It was his vanity that first prompted him to turn
reformer ; it was his vanity that gave him power?
though it sprung from weakness ; it was his vannY
in short, that made him a Deist, because, in fa-
vouring Christianity, he imagined himself ackno.w-
ledging the supremacy of a Being inferior to him-
self. Poor—drivelling—self-opinionated—self-
adulatory witling ! The sh )ck he once gave—the
misery he once caused to Europe has abated,
while the doctrines of " that fellow," so he pre"
sumptuously styles our Saviour, still continue
to bless, protect, bind together, and humanize
society, and will do so to remotest generations.
" Brunswick and Hanover" is a recapitulation
of the circumstances that occasioned the late
absurdities of the Duke of Brunswick. It is an
article worthy of its subject. Altogether the
present number is in every respect vastly stiPe:
rior to its predecessors, and may vie in acute
ness, knowledge, variety and style, with either
the Quarterly or the Edinburgh Reviews.