The Albany register. [volume] (Albany, Or.) 1868-18??, 1873-02-28
/" THE LOST ARTS.
EXTRACTS FROM A LECTURE BY
WENDELL PHILLIPS.

The following lecture on "The
Lost Arts" by Wendell Phillips,
is replete with entertainment and
instruction, and is we'll worth read
ing. Mr.. Phillips, during the pres
ent lecture season, has delivered
this interesting review of his sub
iect before crowded houses in the
principal cities east Of the Rocky
Mountains:
EVERYTHING Is BORROWED.
You may glance around the
furniture Of the palaces in Europe,
and you may gather all these uten-
sils of art and use, and when you
have fixed the shape and forms in
your mind, | will take you into the
Museum Of Naples, which gathers
all remains Of the domestic life Of
the Romans, and you shall not find
single one of these modern forms
Of art Or beauty or use, that was
not anticipated there. We have
hardly added one single line or
sweep Of beauty to the antique.
Take the stories Of Shakespeare,
who has, perhaps, written his forty
odd plays. Some are historical.
The rest, two thirds Of them, he
did not stop to invent, but he found
them. These he clutched, ready
made to his hand, from the Italian
noveliSts, who had taken them be-
fore from the East. Cinderella and
her slippers is older than all his
tory, like half a dozen other baby
legends. The annals Of the world
do not go back far enough to tell
us from where they first came.
All the boys plays, like every
thing that amuse the child in the
open air, are Asiatic. Rawlinson
will show you that they came some
where from the banks OF the Ganges
or the suburbs Of Damascus. Bull
wer borrowed the incidents of his
Roman stories from legends Of a
thousand years before. Indeed,
Dunlop, who has grouped the his
tory OF the novels Of all Europe
into one essay, says that in the ma
tions of modern Europe there have
been $50 or 300 distinct stories.
lie says at least 200 Of these may
be traced, before Christianity, to the
other side Of the Black Sea. II
this were my topic, which it is not,
| might tell you that even our
newspaper jokes are enjoying a very
respectable old age. Take Maria
Edgeworth's essay on Irish bulls
and the laughable mistakes of the
Irish, Even the tale which either
Maria Edgeworth or her father
thought the best is that famous
story Of a friend writing o letter as
follows: "MY DEAR FRIEND: |
wou'd write you in detail, more
minute'y, if there was not an inn
pudent fellow looking over my
shoulder reading every word"
wNo, you lie-i've not read a
word you have writtenp1 Laugh
ter. This is an Irish bull, still it
is very old one. 1t is only $50
years older than the new Testament.
Horace Walpole dissented from
Richard Lowell Edgeworth and
thought the other Irish bull was the
best--of the man who said 81
would have been very handsome
man but they changed me in the
cradle" [tirea: laughter.l That
comes from Dou Quixote, and is
Spanish; but Cervahtes borrowed
it from the Greek in the fourth ceu-
tury, and the Greek stole it from
the Egyptian hundreds Of years
back.
GREEK JOKES IN THEIR DoTAGE.
There is one story which it is
said Washington has 10 ated Of o
man who wentinto aninn and asked
for glass Of drink from the land
lord, who pushed forward a wine-
gluss about half the usual size
the tea-cupS also ii that day wep
not more thar half the present size.
The landlord said, "l'le glass out