6

From Fraser's Magazine.

and telling me summut about the weather (as if I odd now, were n't it? I never thought of taking the could not see it for myself), he took a chair, and sat fellow, and getting married; for all, I'll not deny, I down by the oven. Cool and easy!' thought I; had been thinking it would be agreeable to be axed. meaning hisself, not his place, which I knew must be But all at once, I could n't abide the chap. Sir,' pretty hot. Well! it seemed no use standing waiting says I, trying to look shame-faced as became the for my gentleman to go; not that he had much to occasion, but for all that, feeling a twittering round say either; but he kept twirling his hat round and my mouth that I were afraid might end in a laugh— round, and smoothing the nap on 't with the back of 'Master Dixon, I'm obleeged to you for the complihis hand. So at last I squatted down to my work,ment, and thank ye all the same, but I think I'd and thinks I, I shall be on my knees all ready if he prefer a single life.' He looked mighty taken aback ; puts up a prayer, for I knew he was a Methodee by but in a minute he cleared up, and was as sweet as bringing-up, and had only lately turned to master's ever. He still kept on his knees, and I wished he 'd way of thinking; and them Methodees are terrible take himself up; but, I reckon, he thought it would hands at unexpected prayers when one least looks for give force to his word; says he, Think again, my 'em. I can't say I like their way of taking one by dear Sally. I've a four-roomed house, and furniture surprise, as it were; but, then, I'm a parish-clerk's conformable; and 801. a year. You may never have daughter, and could never demean myself to dissent-such a chance again.' There were truth enough in ing fashions, always save and except Master Thurs- that, but it was not pretty in the man to say it; and tan's, bless him. However, I'd been caught once or it put me up a bit. As for that, neither you nor I twice unawares, so this time I thought I'd be up to can tell, Master Dixon. You 're not the first chap as it, and I moved a dry duster wherever I went, to I have had down on his knees afore me, axing me to kneel upon in case he began when I were in a wet marry him (you see I were thinking of John Rawplace. By-and-by I thought, if the man would pray son, only I thought there were no need to say he were it would be a blessing, for it would prevent his send-on all-fours-it were truth he were on his knees, you ing his eyes after me wherever I went; for when they know), and maybe you'll not be the last. Anyhow, takes to praying they shuts their eyes, and quivers I've no wish to change my condition just now.' th' lids in a queer kind o' way-them dissenters does. I can speak pretty plain to you, for you 're bred in The above is a bit of honest, unlicked, unthe church like mysel', and must find it as out o' the painted nature; as good, after its kind, as the way as I do to be among dissenting folk. God forbid sturdiest Flemish housewife to whose thick legs I should speak disrespectful of Master Thurstan and and blunt features Maas did full justice, or as Miss Faith, though; I never think on them as church the inimitable Meg Dods of "St. Ronan's," in or dissenters, but just as Christians. But to come Scott's novel. back to Jerry. First, I tried always to be cleaning at his back; but when he wheeled round, so as always to face me, I thought I'd try a different game. So, says I, Master Dixon, I ax your pardon, but I must pipeclay under your chair. Will you please to Pictures from Sicily. By the Author of "Forty move? Well, he moved; and by-and-by I was at Days in the Desert." London: Arthur Hall, him again with the same words; and at after that Virtue and Co., 25 Paternoster-row. 1853. again and again, till he were always moving about WHEN a man uniting in his own person the poswi' his chair behind him, like a snail as carries its session of good literary capabilities and first-rate house on its back. And the great gaupus never seed talent as an artist, sets forth on a travelling-exthat I were pipeclaying the same places twice over. At last I got desperate cross, he were so in my way; pedition with the intention of perpetuating, both so I made two big crosses on the tails of his brown by pencil and pen, the scenes, the incidents, and coat; for you see, wherever he went, up or down, he the impressions of his journey, we are justified in drew out the tails of his coat from under him, and expecting something more than an ordinary book stuck them through the bars of the chair; and flesh as the result of his labors. It would seem that and blood could not resist pipeclaying them for him; Mr. Bartlett, while engaged in the preparation of and a pretty brushing he'd have, I reckon, to get it the present volume, had been fully aware that off again. Well! at length he clears his throat un- great things were expected of him. At any rate, common loud; so I spreads my duster, and shuts he has done what very few men could do; he has my eyes all ready; but when nought comed of it, I surpassed himself on this occasion, and produced opened my eyes a little bit to see what he were about. a series of pictures which, now that Turner is My word if there he was n't down on his knees right gone, none of our artists, with the exception, perfacing me, staring as hard as he could. Well! I thought it would be hard work to stand that, if he haps, of Pyne, could be found to equal. He has made a long ado; so I shut my eyes again, and tried painted the atmosphere with a truth and delicacy to think serious, as became what I fancied were com- which in some of these southern landscapes gives ing; but forgive me! but I thought why could n't the eye a range of thirty or forty miles in the the fellow go in and pray wi' Master Thurstan, as space of a few square inches; the exquisite feelhad always a calm spirit ready for prayer, instead o'ing shown in the management of the distances is, me, who had my dresser to scour, let alone an apron in fact, worthy of the highest praise. In matters At last he says, says he, Sally! will you of architectural detail he is equally successful, as oblige me with your hand?' So I thought it were, a single glance at the frontispiece, the interior of maybe, Methodee fashion to pray hand in hand; and the Chapel Royal at Palermo, will show that enI'll not deny but I wished I'd washed it better after graving presenting as near an approach to the black-leading the kitchen fire. I thought I'd better effect of color as it is perhaps possible to give in tell him it were not so clean as I could wish, so says black and white alone. Again, the effect of time I, Master Dixon, you shall have it, and welcome, if I may just go and wash 'em first.' But says he, upon the crumbling columns of many a Grecian My dear Sally, dirty or clean, it's all the same to temple, which has stood the storms and wrecks me, seeing I'm only speaking in a figuring way. of twenty centuries, is so happily rendered that What I'm asking on my bended knees is, that you'd one might almost swear to their date without please to be so kind as to be my wedded wife; week recurring to their history. Mr. Bartlett has been after next will suit me if it's agreeable to you! My fortunate in his engravers, who have entered into word! I were up on my feet in an instant! It were the spirit of the artist, and done justice both to

to iron.

CCCCLXI. LIVING AGE.

VOL. XXXVI.

35

Mr. Bartlett falls in with some Germans.

themselves and him. The literary portion of the seemed quite ridiculous compared to that which it work is in no way unworthy of the pictorial-in had taken us to climb up. one sense even that is pictorial, for the author paints, and must paint, whether he handles the pencil or the pen. One or two of his pen-pictures we will transfer to our columns. The following is a description of the population of Naples :

Our way lay along the sea-shore, through the noisiest quarter of Naples, and of what that is nothing but experience can convey an adequate idea. The noise of London is caused by the monotonous roar of thousands of vehicles incessantly rolling over the pavement; the sound of the human voice seems rarely heard. But here it is the very reverse. To hear for the first time the confused babble of innumerable voices which arises from Naples, you would suppose that it could be caused by nothing less than a general insurrection. The most ordinary transaction is accompanied by an infinity of passionate outcries, ludicrous superlatives, and almost frenzied gesticulation. The voice is pitched in a high shrill note, which the least excitement exalts into a downright scream, and the Neapolitan is thrown into a state of excitement even upon the most trivial cause. Where that is wanting I have heard them yell for the mere pleasure of exercising the lungs. Clamor, in short, is to this people a necessity of existence. In this climate, moreover, among the poorer classes, half the avocations of life are carried on almost or wholly in the street, where they work at their respective trades-cook, wash, eat, scold, fight, and perform almost all the suggestions of appetite and the functions of nature in the sight of every passenger. Such a burrow of filth as the lower part of Naples is hardly to be paralleled elsewhere; the fry of its population may be likened to the maggots with which a decayed cheese is all in a ferment-as nasty, as closely packed, as busy and as happy.

We must accompany the author and artist in his descent from Mount Vesuvius, after having a

peep

into the crater.

Of all travelling companions, commend me (says he) to the Germans; there is about them a plainness and heartiness congenial to John Bull. And then the economy of the thing! only leave them to manage the expenses, to do battle with the innkeepers, and you will come off at least a third cheaper than in your own character of an Englishman. One of these gentlemen was a savant from Berlin, a man of immense information, but of almost child-like simplicity of manner, and as full of animal spirits as a schoolboy broke loose for a holiday. . . . When the account was presented, it was his custom to pore over it long and intently; then, pointing to it with his finger, he slowly lifted up his eyes to those of the trembling waiter, with a solemn intensity of stare, as if to petrify the wretch who could dare to present so infamous and extortionate a demand. The battle then began in earnest, every item being disputed with the utmost fierceness and tenacity, the conflict ending in a considerable reduction; the innkeeper, knowing that if he charged the articles at less than prime cost he would have to take something off, having prudently put down more than he expected to get, although not more than he would have been perfectly contented to

receive.

The following is a picture of sunrise seen from the summit of Mount Etna; we question if the pencil could have painted it better:

It was between three and four; the stars were rapidly disappearing from the paling sky, while the eastern horizon began to redden faintly with the dawn. Everything in the vast gulf below was dark and formless-the sea barely distinguishable from the landvast, whitish clouds, like wool-sacks, floating solemnly above it. A few bars of crimson soon appeared in the eastern horizon, the sea-line became defined, the jagged edges of the distant mountains of Apulia We had now to descend the mountain upon the side cut against the sky. At this moment our guides facing Pompeii, opposite to that by which we came shouted to us to stand upon the edge of the crater, up, and utterly unlike it, being, in fact, a long and and look out over the interior of the island, which steep inclined plane of deep, loose volcanic dust, with- stretched away to the westward like a sea of rugged out a single block of lava or impediment whatever; summits, blended in the shadowy mists of dawn. so that we might have rolled a ball nearly from the Just as the sun rose, an immense shadow of the most top to the bottom. By the guide's direction, we there- exquisite purple was projected from the volcano half fore adopted a suitable style of descent. Driving his over the island, while without its range the light heels into the sand, and leaning back to preserve his struck with magic suddenness upon the tops of the equilibrium, he darted forwards, or rather down-mountains below-a phenomenon so admirably beauwards, at railroad speed, disappearing amidst a cloud tiful that it would more than have repaid us for the of dust, which seemed to roll after him down the side labor of the ascent. of the mountain. A moment's hesitation, and we dashed after him in like manner, and speedily found, that, once committed to the descent, it required the utmost exertion of the muscles, like those of an unhappy victim on the treadmill, or the traveller when the bottom of his chaise fell out and he had to run for his life, to keep on with unfaltering velocity and increasing momentum to the goal. A single pause or hitch in the flying descent, and we should have flung off at a tangent, heels over head, performing endless gyrations and summersaults, till abruptly pulled up by the first obstacle to our headlong career, with the breath beaten out of our bodies. Tremendous was the excitement of the race. Our coat-tails flew out behind; our hair streamed in the wind; our straw hats, threatening to take flight, were wildly grasped by one hand, while with the other we controlled our movements as with a rudder; our legs going like the strokes of a piston, and our lungs in a perfect roar of laughter; albeit, half-suffocated with the dust of our own raising, we happily achieved the descent without a single trip or tumble, in a space of time which

But we have trespassed upon our space, and must forbear any further extracts. The relation of the author's tour is preceded by an historical summary, by means of which the reader may renew, at a very small expense of labor, his knowledge on the subject of ancient and classical Sicily, and trace the principal events which have happened upon the island from the time of its first colonization by the Athenians down to the massacres of the brutal and bloody Bomba. He may then, in the company of the lively and intelligent author and artist, visit every place worthy of note, and become intimately acquainted, as well with the eminently picturesque aspect of the island, abounding in Grecian and Norman antiquities, as with the social and domestic life of its modern inhabitants. The volume is in all respects admirably got up, and fitted for what it is designed for— a really handsome present.

Volume Fourth.*

From the Spectator.

republicans, when personally respectable, seemed Lamartine's Restoration of Monarchy in France. to have the most disinterestedness and principle. By the nature of the case, or by a formed design, a character of meanness or littleness perTHIS volume commences with the ministry of vades the entire action. Where the actors are Villèle, and closes with the close of its subject-not dramatically exhibited as vicious or morally the forcible end of the Restoration by the Revolu-weak, they are painted as incapable. The "glotion of July, and the embarkation of the dethroned rious three days" themselves appear as a very old king and his family at Cherbourg. The principal intervening subjects, in foreign affairs, are the invasion of Spain to restore Ferdinand, Greece with the battle of Navarino, and the conquest of Algiers. At home, the narrative is occupied with the intrigues or violence of factions rather than of parties, the "characters" of successive ministers, the death of Louis the Eighteenth, and the strange infatuation both civil and military which led to the downfall of the monarchy of the elder Bour

bons.

sorry affair. Charles and his ministers are exhib ited as bigoted, besotted, and blind to consequences, rashly provoking an insurrection, yet making no provision to meet it. The bulk of the legitimists are described as treacherous and silly; the party that afterwards became Orleanists, as incapable, fearful, waiting upon Providence, and forced at last to decide by the resolution of two or three men. The humbler republicans and imperialists, assisted by the gamins of Paris, who chiefly did the fighting, appear more respectable The work is more cumbrous than heretofore. from their active courage; yet even the combat In part this is owing to the nature of the events. itself is treated as something like a riot, that would Civil affairs, especially relating to a foreign coun- never have broken out, or might easily have been try, and dealing with debate or intrigue, can never put down, had the ministry prepared a sufficient have the interest which attaches to a great mili- force and a proper commander; nay, Marmont, tary narrative. A portion of the defect is due to though his heart was not in the work, might have the author. For he handles his subject too much done better had not his troops been too much in detail, at least for English readers; drawing spread. A kind of halo is thrown over some of portraits of ministers and politicians, forgotten the royal family, by their courage, their misforhere, and at a length which belongs rather to the tunes, and their alleged personal virtues; but it minuteness of biography than the breadth of his-is produced at the expense of their discretion and tory. The same error is visible in his political common sense.

66

narrative; it is too detailed, and too much en- The exception to this implied universal censure cumbered with speeches. Perhaps, too, the is Louis the Eighteenth. He stands forth in quorum pars fui" appears disadvantageously in Lamartine's pages as a moderating and controlling the form of personal feeling. The diminished power; capable, with less infirm health and longer interest, however, is mainly owing to the smaller life, of amalgamating the Revolution and the Resinterest of the persons and the actions, seen from a toration and founding a solid constitutional govpresent point of view. They may have interest ernment, instead of merely keeping parties quiet enough hereafter, when the entire result on France by his prudence. As Lamartine, in a former will be perceived, and their influence estimated as volume, painted the monarch in youth, manhood, part of a fearful whole. and exile, so he now limns him in and death; ascribing to him a simplicity of habits which will be new information to many.

lar

age

Yet the book is not without the importance which arises from a political moral. Throughout the whole narrative, that blind and reckless spirit The court by its splendor certainly recalled that of of faction is visible which has cast so much dis- the Grand Monarque; only that, behind all this officredit on parliamentary government in France, cial and external pomp of his palace, Louis XVIII. and, by leading to the notion that it was impossi-preserved some images of his original mediocrity, and ble, has caused its destruction. Louis the Eigh-some habits of private life, retired and studious, conteenth appears to have been blameless. His whole tracted in the changeable residences of his long exile. reign was one of prudent resistance to extreme The king loved to remind himself of his proscription. measures; sometimes of resistance to liberal rash- All the great offices of the court had been reëstabness, ever to the violent measures of the old no-lished, and restored to the great families by whom blesse and the priests. Even the earlier portion of Charles the Tenth's reign was moderate, though a monarch with his ideas and advisers would be sure eventually to have gone; but impulsive vivacity furnished even him with some excuse for anger, though not for folly. The worst feature throughout, however, is the want of principle and self-respect in French politicians. The two extremes were always ready to coalesce to gain a victory over an opponent, even when the opponent's measure was approved by one party of the coalition. Every sect seemed utterly careless of the consequences of their acts; they would destroy anything, without regard to what they should erect, or whether anything could be erected. The

*The History of the Restoration of Monarchy in France. By Alphonse de Lamartine, Author of "The History of the Girondists." Translated by Captain Rafter, Author of "The Queen of the Jungles." Vol. IV. Published by Vizetelly and Co.

they had been held before the revolution. The titucised them ostensibly with solemn regularity; but possessors of these honorary employments exertheir functions were nothing more than show with the king, who required the presence but rarely the services of these great officers of the crown. In the midst of his vast apartments, and by the side of his bed of state, all was solitude, where every night a little truckle-bed on castors was brought in for the king, with green curtains, resembling a child's bed. On retiring to rest, he appointed the hour at which his attendant should awake him the following morning for the business of the day. At that hour precisely, etiquette resumed its empire; his servants entered the chamber, lit the fire, opened his bedcurtains, brought him water to wash in a silver-gilt basin, drew on his stockings, dressed him, presented him with holy water, and waited in silence while he offered up his mental prayer, fixed by etiquette as well as piety for the first act of the king on his awak-ing.

After he had made the sign of the cross, the king ordered the door to be opened to the officers of his

household, and to the great dignitaries of the court, by recalling Madame du Cayla, who had been the church, and the army, who had the privilege of removed from court. At her persuasion he conentering the royal bedchamber; princes, ambassa-sented. dors, cardinals, bishops, dukes, marshals of France, lieutenant-generals, first presidents of courts of jus- She then retired; and the king, having immediately tice, peers, or deputies. These courtiers formed a summoned M. de Villèle, terminated with him all circle, or passed before him, whilst his pages and his those affairs which he wished to leave in a finished valets-de-chambre finished his toilette, held the look-state behind him. "Henceforward," he said to him, ing-glass for him, and brought him, on golden trays, "you will transact business with my brother. I the coats, the decorations, and the sword, in which he have nothing further to think of but the great busiwas dressed for the remainder of the day. He occu-ness of death; and I do not wish to be distracted in pied himself in this manner till the hour of déjeuner that by worldly cares, which are now at an end with with the members of his family or with those person-me." He expressed with sensibility to this minister ages whom the privileges of their respective offices and his colleagues his satisfaction with their services, authorized to partake of this first royal meal; and he and dismissed them as at the conclusion of a final proceeded, accompanied by this cortége, to the break- council. He then summoned to his bedside the obfast-room. All the royal family, some of the great scure and pious priest whom he had made his conofficers of his household, and the principal officers of fessor, and opened his soul to him in private; after the royal guard on duty, were admitted to his table, which, he directed the usual pomp and solemnities which was sumptuously served. Louis XVIII. for the deathbed of kings to be prepared; and while whom popular rumor, maliciously spread by pam- the royal chaplain, the cardinals, and the bishops, phileteers, accused of intemperance and a revival of were assembling at the door of his bedchamber, to the sensual refinements of Suetonius-only regarded perform those funeral offices, he summoned all his the luxury of his table as a piece of royal pomp; he family to his presence. eat nothing but two fresh eggs, and drank nothing but a small glass of foreign wine, poured out by his cup-bearer.

It was about sunset on the 15th September, 1824, and the king was just waking from a long, lethargic slumber, which had made his attendants believe it was The intellectual society, and the reading of Louis his last. His eyes had resumed their usual brightness, XVIII. before and during the Revolution, and his his voice was clear and distinct, and his countenance philosophical studies during his exile, had liberated displayed his customary firmness and presence of his mind from many of the official superstitions of his mind. His brother was kneeling and weeping at the childhood; on the other hand, his character of Most foot of his bed, the Duke and Duchess d'Angoulême Christian king, to be kept up in the face of Europe were praying by his side, and between them and the and of France-his relationship to the royal martyr-Count d'Artois was the Duchess de Berri, holding her his ancient alliance with the religion of St. Louis-his two children by their hands; the courtiers and attrain of bishops-his title of restorer of the throne tendants stood at a distance, so that they might see and the altar-his intercourse, epistolary and social, but could not hear the last farewell of the dying king in foreign countries, with the great writers, anti-rev- with his family. A few words only could be distinolutionary and anti-philosophical, such as De Bonald, guished. These were the adieus of a brother, an De Maistre, and De Chateaubriand-and finally, his uncle, and a friend, but especially of a sage and a court and his government, full of the representatives monarch desirous of leaving behind him the wisdom, of the clerical party, and the strength which the the experience, and the foresight, necessary for the Restoration derived from this conscience-ruling party guidance of the throne. "Love one another," be -had, if not converted, at least constrained Louis said, "and let this affection console you for the disXVIII. to an official orthodoxy which clashed with his asters and the ruin of our house. Divine Providence preconceived ideas, but which was becoming to his has replaced us upon the throne. I have been enreign. During its first years, he spoke of religion as abled to maintain you there by moderate measures, a king when in public, as a philosopher in private, which have deprived the monarchy of no real power, but always with decency, and like a sovereign who but have given it the approbation and support of the looked upon the church as the great progenitor of his people. The charter is the best inheritance I can dynasty and the great etiquette of his court. Such give you; preserve it, my brother, for my sake, for was Louis XVIII. since 1814 and 1815. His public the sake of our subjects, and for your own! And life was conformable to these dispositions of his mind; also," he added, raising his hands and blessing the the assiduous exercise of divine worship formed part young Duke de Bordeaux, who was held forward by of his kingly ceremonial, and he attended it with all his mother towards the king, for the sake of this the solemnity of Louis XIV. In private life he pre-child, to whom you will transmit the throne after my served his freedom of thought, and even indulged in son and daughter!" (titles of affection which he gave that light raillery at popular superstition, and those to the Duke and Duchess d'Angoulême). Then, occasionally bitter smiles at the prostration of his looking at the Duke de Bordeaux, he said, May you, brother before the clergy, which exhibited the philo- my child, be more wise and happy than your pasophical independence of the man under the external rents!" respect of the Bourbon and the sovereign. He did The rest was inaudible, being muttered in a low not, like Louis XIV., give up his conscience to a Tel-voice to the nearest and most afflicted group of the lier; for though he had an official confessor, as a royal family; nothing was heard but repeated adieus, necessary adjunct to the royal household, he never sighs, and sobs, around the bed and in the halls. appeared at court, nor did he govern the king's con- The princes and princesses arose, and, retiring a science, or exercise any influence over public affairs. little, made way for the cardinals and bishops, who An humble and obscure priest, exiled to the attics of came to administer the last offices to the king. the Tuileries, and a stranger to every ambitious faction of the clergy, had been chosen by the king for the sanctity of his life and the disinterestedness of his faith; a man of God, concealed, for the religious consolation of the prince, behind the curtain of the temple, and in the deep shadows of the palace.

The king was quite aware of his approaching end; but, according to the historian, neither his family nor the dignified clergy could get him to receive the last sacraments. It was only managed

66

He received these sacred ceremonies with collected piety and undisturbed attention; responding sometimes himself by verses from the Latin psalms, to those chanted by the bishops and cardinals. He thanked them, and took an eternal farewell of the officers of his household. One individual who mingled where the king's eye recognized him, prayed and wept with them, and was concealed amongst the crowd over his master and his benefactor. This was M. Decazes; to whom the jealousy of the ultra-royalists and the hostility of the courtiers only permitted this

stolen farewell of a king who had loved him so much, | theatres is too short to admit of any wide conand whom he had himself loved as a father. jecture as to the time when the corrections were

M. Portal raised the bed-clothes, and, turning round, said, "Gentlemen, the king is dead;" then, bowing to the Count d'Artois, he concluded, "Long live the king!"

The narrative exhibits the same carelessness with regard to exact statements, or the author's poetical tendency to adorn them, which was displayed in the previous volumes. For the closing scenes of Charles the Tenth's reign he has enjoyed access to some private documents, and for the whole period he has possessed the advantage of personal observation.

For

After these ceremonies and adieus, the dying mon-made. arch, surrounded only by his brother, his nephew, Such are the external claims to authenticity the Duchess d'Angoulême, and some attendants, con- which the emendations possess; and in a very tinued in a lethargic state, broken by intervals of striking manner, we think, the internal evidence consciousness, without pain, delirium, or affliction. At daybreak on the 16th September, the day he him- bears out these claims exactly. The corrections seem to us to be divisible into three classes. self suggested to his medical attendants as likely to terminate his physical powers, his first physician, the first, some kind of authority must have been drawing aside the bed-curtain, felt his pulse to ascer-resorted to, since here whole lines are restored, or tain if it still beat; the arm was still warm, but the entirely new expressions substituted, that have too pulse was no longer perceptible. The king was in his visibly the trick of Shakspeare's hand to have final sleep. owed their origin to any other. In the second, we have innumerable indications not only of an actor's thorough knowledge of the plays, but of the probability of his having detected by the ear, in the course of a stage experience or by communication with the old actors, not a few of the extraordinary number of printer's errors in the folio, and of the invaluable assistance, in correcting other errors, which he obviously derived from a mere fearless exercise of his own simple common sense. In the third, we venture to think, the same qualities are displayed with some drawbacks, and, on the whole, a less favorable effect. A certain freedom of alteration is observable here where none was necessary, the corrections are not always happily made, and a severer discrimination might Mr. Collier has perhaps thought himself entitled have been used in determining their value than to apply. Compared with what we have called the first and second classes, however, the examples in this third are singularly few. In every sense they are the exception to the rest. Out of the thousand and more suggestions contained in the book before us, they might almost be counted on ten fingers. And in the general remarks with which Mr. Collier has prefaced the volume-his latest and most valuable discovery in a field where every gleaner or cultivator has to confess the weightiest obligations to him-nothing can be more manly or modest than the surrender of the text of his own edition to the irresistible testimony thus borne against it. He now sees, and frankly confesses, the error of having allowed himself no room for speculative amendment, even where it seemed most called for.

From the Examiner.

a

Notes and Emendations to the Text of Shakspeare's Plays, from Early Manuscript Corrections in copy of the Folio of 1632, in the Possession of John Payne Collier, Esq., F. S. A., forming a Supplemental Volume to the Works of Shakspeare by the same Editor, in eight volumes 8vo. Whittaker and Co. Printed also for the Shakspeare Society.

Ir is not for a moment to be doubted, we think, that in this volume a contribution has been made to the clearness and accuracy of Shakspeare's text by far the most important of any offered or attempted since Shakspeare lived and wrote.

The history of the volume is to be stated in a few words. Four years ago Mr. Collier bought of Mr. Rodd, for a few shillings, an ill-conditioned, imperfect copy of the folio of 1632 (the second folio), which, on first looking into three years after he bought it, he found to contain innumerable manuscript corrections, erasures, and even added lines, in the handwriting of the time. An attempt to identify the corrector with any known person has failed. That he bore the name of Thomas Perkins," which is written in the volume, is all that can with accuracy be said. But it seems more than probable that he was a connection of the celebrated actor, Richard Perkins; -it appears certain, from the marginal directions and erasures in many of the annotated plays, that he was himself an actor, with whom the volume was matter of study for the purposes of his profession; and from these two presumptions the inference follows that he may not only have heard the plays acted by the original performers in them, but is likely to have had access to the authorized or manuscript copies deposited in the leading theatres. While Shakspeare yet lived, indeed, the present annotator might have witnessed the performances of his plays-nay, might himself have acted in them; for the poet had been dead only sixteen years when the second folio was published, and, even if the handwriting were less satisfactory on this point, the interval between the appearance of the book and the suppression of the [

Over and over again, in speaking of the editions of Shakspeare recently submitted to the public, we have taken the liberty of pleading the claims of the earlier commentators against a too common habit with the later editors to abuse and discredit them. Over and over again we have endeavored to point out that those commentators were not such great fools as appeared to be supposed, and that the plan of restoring the ancient readings from the folios and quartos, however laudable in itself, might be greatly overdone. Shakspeare's earlier crítics committed some very grave faults, as well as some very great absurdities, as this article will show; but their labors were uniformly directed to win a truer appreciation for the poet, and give extension to his fame-nor in this can they be said to have failed. What they did, what they overdid, what they left undone, have been the guides and incentives to all later inquiry. Such inquiry has not seldom been confused, indeed, by the very pains and labor of their multiplied suggestions; but here, in this volume of Mr. Collier's, we have them unexpectedly brought to the test of an earlier critic's unhampered common sense, exerted long before any of them were born, and the result is that in several thousands