New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1853-11-14
EDrToPIsL B0oK..v0TES.


Foam Mr. ! h. Steel, we have received the
following:
,ar,. xorks Of Shakespeare the text regulated by
IN. reetiv discovered folio OF 1882 containing early
,..,r.cript lamentations with history OF the stage,
life Of the poet and introduction to each play by
Payne Collier Esq, r. s. A To which added CLOS
s..l and other notes and the readings of former ed
tons In eight volumes Redfeld ITO and 1l2 Nassau
street New York, 1857 10 mo
q Life in the Mission, the Camp aud Zenaua or Six
years in India By Mrs. Colin Mackenzie, In vols.
limo Redfeld ITO and 1l2 Nassau street, New York
1853 ~ PIP 342 and 3I9
8 The Odd Fellows Offering, for 1854 contributed
chiefly by members of the With elegant i'stra
ticns Twelfth volume, New York, Edward "aNseei Ia
Fulton street 1884, vo. PIP $40
/. OF the gentle Shakespeare, this is a neat and
n convenient edition Its type is pretty fair
and of a readable size; and yet the volumes
are easily held. 1t does not always please one
to have whole folio to sustain in his fingers or
To lug about book which is a. porters load
But besides these advantages, Redfeld's re print
offers others, in its accessories OF biography,
various readings, brief marginal notes, etc In
n word, as one of the cheaper kind of annotated
Shakspeares, this is to be commended though,
of course, except for special purposes, not to
be put in parallel with many previous larger
and finer ones, of far ampler auxiliary matter.
The present offers, however, popularity and
temptation as yet set before us by no other
American edition: we mean, of course, the
newly discovered readings, by Mr.. Collier
Those, by their multiplicity and novelty. have
excited very general attention. How far they
will reward it, we will not pretend to say. For,
content with the abundant beauties to be found
in all the versions Of Shakespeare, we have been
accustomed to trouble ourselves little about
the word-catching and conjectures of his text ::
the more especially as, besides that they all
must often be confessed to eavei it unintelligible
or to present but slight or questionable emen-
dations, We must really regard him, with all
his vast merit, as writer too rapid and heed
less to let it be supposed that his real context
does not abound in faults.
In some respects, too, we permit ourselves to
think that the long prevailing idolatry of which
this darling of our literature has been the OBJ
ject has prsjudiced that literature. 1t has led
to too general neglect of many other great
early writer's. This, to be sure, is an effect of
his supreme excellences. But his genius, again,
has popularized defects and even vices in him
and injured criticism and taste amongst us. 1t
is unfor tunate when languages greatest author
abounds in examples of incorrectness and ILL.,
taste, almost as much as in delightful passages
For when be has grown to be the universal pet,
the object of blind alteration, that happens
which occurs to us all when we are too much in
love: we begin to take every defect for beauty
for 10 hos aho,,t ~.
great bard may be seen in the fact that there
perhaps does not exist one of those many collec-
tions called Beauties of Shakespeare" which,
save for its title, one might not suppose meant
to bring into single body all his worst pas
sages. In a word, Shakespeare, with all his
greatness, stands an especial wonder and ano-
maly he is, in literature, the only example of
prodigious genius, whose taste bore no proper
tion to his other powers; SO that he astonishes
us with the greatest beauties, side by side with
the greatest blemishes. From all this it has
followed that he has had imitators without num-
Der: for his faults made him seem but too init
able and as none could reach his excellences, I
his defects have perhaps had more influence over |
our letters than the purer qualities of his poetry
1t is, however, rather idle to criticise one who |
seems really to have been born to set all rules |
of art at defiance and to be the glory and the !
despair Of the tongue and its authors.
Ii. OF Mrs McKenzie's book, we can say but |
a word, and that only of disclaimer We are |
but little acquainted with either those late |
English operations of conquest in India, or those
missions going hand m hand with them of which
she treats. Both are interesting; but We have
never attempted to follow either For we seldom
occupy ourselves with things, no matter how
much buzz they make, which we know that we
shall not have the means of comprehending with
any certainty. Such were the late English wars |
in the East; such the present revolution in the |
land Of croekery; such is the Turco- Russian |
question last, in especial, we despair of |
until our neighbors of the Picay-
une, bending all their force to it, shall have
cleared it up.
iii. The third book on our list belongs to a
class Of works whichit were mistake to read
They are only meant to be looked at the pic
lures should attone for the pages The volume
is showily decorated, within and without. 1t
seems, however, to be chiefly designed for the
gift-book Of the benevolent and useful order
under whose name it appears.