Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1871-02-21
SEWANEE.
Progress of the OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES
by the Professor of Modern Lam
guages-A Criticism Upon Shak-
speare

by the Professor of Modern Lam
guages-A Criticism Upon Shak-
sPeare
To the Editors of the Union and American:
SEwANER, Tenn, Feb. IA, 1871
Hoping that our introduction to your
worthy paper may be pleasant and profit
able, l take the liberty of laying before
your readers few words concerning our
mountain home.
Sewanee, though so little known in
Tennessee, is destined to occupy in the
future position, as a college, second to
none, either North or South. Starting
two years ago with five professors and
nine students, the past year found en-
oraced IN its corps of professors body
OF men whose learning and talents would
command the respect and admiration of
the most cultivated circles of Europe and
America, while its roll of students pre-
sents the names of no less that 175 young
men, gathered from almost every State of
our noble Southland. Such rapid IN
crease in students speaks in the highest
terms OF the University, and sets forth
Its merits far better than words can ex-
press.
lis situation as the seat of a university
Is unrivalled, and possesses no equal,
either in the old world or new. Removed
far from the low and debasing influences
of large city, it combines the strict re-
tTement, necessary for the studies of the
scholar, with small and as select a body
or residents as would challenge the com
petition of the world 10 produce its equal.
The Climate is mild and pleasant; sick
ness seldom visits US, and with one ex-
ceptlon, in which we lost one of our fair
est flowers, death is yet a stranger in our
midst. But the excellencles of our noun
IAN need no comment, they speak for
Themselves, and its rising reputa-
uun shows the estimation in which it is
held by the outside world.
Saturday evening a small, though select
and appreciaLve, audience met in the
Grammar School Building of the Univer-
sity, and were RECALLED with enc of the
most eloquent discOurses ever delivered
on the mountain. The orator was our
Professor of Modern Languages, and well
known as one of our most learned men,
not only in the literature of the present
Gay, but in that of former ages, when
GreciAn poets sang and philosophers
wrote.
Starting with the maxim of Bacon, that
knowledge is power" he closed his elo-
quent and instructive Grafton with the
following interesting and new views of
one of our greatest geniuses, Shskspe are.
Coming as they do from the pen of
one who claims not England as his home,
they invest our boosted genius in a new
and strange light, which, though it can
but prove distasteful to the majority of
English readers, still bears the ,tamp Of
conviction with it, aud forces US to the
condemnation of what we hitherto cOu-
sidered perfect in every respect. The
Doctor spoke as follows on this subject.
''No one, Ipresume, will imagine from
these remarks that l wish to depreciste
the divine art of pOesy, or the labors
of those illustriOus bards
who rolled thsir numbers down the tide of
time
And woke the echoes cf eternity
Il say with Wordsworth, himself one of
that glorious band, Blessings be on them,
and immortal praise. But for that
very reason do lament that these no.
bic eDdowments of our nature should
have been so wofully debased, that gen.
ius should have so often stopped from
the highest heaven of inspiration to trail
its glitIering wings in the very mire of
moral pollution, and that in consequence
some of the richest parts of our liters-
ture should be virtually sealed against
the purest aud most conscientious part of
the community. What wise father would
read withOu; selection, even, Shakespeare,
our greatest genius, in the hearing of his
innocent children Many of US are
probably familiar with Campbell's Ger
trude Of Wyoming. In that exquisitely
finished poem, we have picture Of fe-
male loveliuess and purity that has
never been surpassed. Gertrude in her
Pennsylvania paradise looks like Wis
gin Eve. But how is she employed in
her beautiful boWeri The liVelong sum
mer's day she sits entraDCed in the peru
sal of one wOndTOus book, and that book
l. Shakespeare. Now have as great an
aversion to cant as any other man ever
hat, and yet must say that this has al
WAYS looked to me like q moral blot in
tits otherwise perfect picture. For "a
diant as the page of Shakespeare is, re-
ple;e with wonders, and rejecting as in a
mirror the variegated scenery of nature,
there is yet pollution in that page which
contrasts with the lovely scene and its
occupant like the serpent's trail IN Para
disc. How lamentabie is this, that beauty
in her bower cannot make genius her
bosom friend, without fear of pollution,
and that the nOblest production of art
should be considered as an intruder
among the fairest works of nature"
The foregoing is only a small portion
of this admirable lecture, which left only
one wish in the minds of the audience,
viz: that we might be favored soon with
another from the same source.
'ESAY."