FIELD-PREACHING. "And this our life, exempt from public haunt, THE cassock'd priest's grave homily Field-preaching has more eloquence. A budding leaf, a blade of grass, And therefore sometimes I am found, Or when within the pillar'd fane Adorn with pomp the common doom: Some rural haunt displays to me And many a grave and solemn sign. And as the woodland path I tread, Where late the new-blown flowers were gay, Say not I break Divine commands ! There is a house not made with hands, And there are hearts that worship there! THE FATHER OF THE ENGLISH DRAMA.* SIMULTANEOUSLY with his volume on Corneille, M. Guizot has published a corresponding essay on Shakspeare. This also, is a "rifaccimento," or enlarged copy of an earlier treatise on the same subject, given to the world in 1821, as an introduction to the French translation of Shakspeare's complete works, of which he had then undertaken the office of editor. His edition is based on an antecedent one by Le Tourneur, commenced in 1776 and finished in 1781. Le Tourneur's translation is in prose, extending through twenty volumes in quarto;t as nearly literal as possible, and occasionally absurd enough to gladden the heart of the bitterest anti-gallican who might wish to hunt out an opportunity of scoffing at the pretensions of our lively neighbours, as regards their power of transfusing the peculiarities of English idiom into their own language. The phraseology invented for the monster Caliban, the grammatical confusions of Dogberry, the humour of Falstaff and his companions, are too essentially indigenous to retain their vigour when engrafted on a foreign soil. They become like pictures damaged by repairs, and defaced by retouching; so that the depth and colouring have faded into a meagre outline. But Le Tourneur, though dull and uninspired, was at least honest and laborious, endeavouring to render, with the strict fidelity of truth, what he was unable to convey with the brilliancy of reflected genius. If he wanted the power to embellish, his distortions arose from mistake or incompetence, rather than from malice prepense. It was not so with Voltaire, who either was, or pretended to be, shocked and disgusted at the irregular flights of Shakspeare's discursive imagination. He had brought himself up in a conviction that the classical unities of Aristotle and the French school, were indispensable, hallowed, and infallible. That any departure from them was ignorance, and any encouragement of such violation, barbarism. He denounced the noblest master-pieces of the great English dramatist, as "monstrous farces;" and dissected "Hamlet" in an ingenious anatomy, of which it is difficult to say, whether wit or falsehood, is the leading characteristic. It has been charged on him, and not without foundation, that he purposely depreciated and misrepresented Shakspeare, to deter his countrymen from reading his productions, and thus be enabled to reserve to himself an untrodden field, in which he could pillage at pleasure, and without detection. That he copied from Shakspeare, is more evident than that he either understood or improved him. Of this "Le mort de Cesar" may be quoted as a good illustrative example. Although quite conversant with the English language, which he could write with tolerable elegance, Voltaire was too much trammelled by early opinions and national prejudices, to understand or tolerate the lofty, unfettered fancy, which spurned restraint, soaring above established rules, and creating new ones. On this subject, as on many others, the brilliant infidel wrote more rapidly than he thought profoundly. His effervescence overlaid his judgment. With quick and dazzling abilities, his knowledge derived from study was shallow and sophistical. Dr. Johnson described * Shakspeare and his Times. By M. Guizot. London, 8vo. 1852. + There was a subsequent edition in thirteen volumes, 8vo. him justly, as "vir acerrimi ingenii, sed paucarum literarum." His learning was all on the surface. A gilded coating with copper underneath. Ready wit joined to intrepidity of assertion, will always command advocates and carry popularity; but the reputation founded on this basis often breaks down under cross-examination. It is more deceptive than solid, shadowy rather than substantial. Voltaire's libels on Shakspeare have been repeatedly combated and disproved; and seldom more ably than in a volume by Mrs. Montague, a literary as well as fashionable celebrity of her day, and foundress of the blue stocking club. In her house, that fair and frigid sisterhood first held their weekly assemblies. The laws of the society admitted young and blooming votaries, as well as elderly ladies of both sexes. The honour of the name rests either with the beautiful and fascinating Mrs. Jerningham, or the erudite naturalist, Benjamin Stillingfleet, who both made themselves, or their legs, remarkable by wearing cerulean integuments. According to Boswell, Stillingfleet was in such request at these parties, that if by any accident he was absent, there was a general exclamation, "We can do nothing without the blue stockings." * And so the appellation became generic. Mrs. Montague's work appeared first in 1769, has lived through six editions, and may be selected from a pyramid of crumbling, useless emendation, as one of the few corner stones of endurable material. Before the complete translation by Le Tourneur, twelve plays of Shakspeare had been done into French, by different hands, and appeared in a collection in eight volumes, by De La Place (1745-1748), called "Le Théâtre Anglois." The first four volumes were entirely Shaksperian. The plays selected being "Othello," the three parts of " Henry the Sixth," Richard the Third," Hamlet," "Macbeth," "Cymbeline," "Julius Cæsar," "Antony and Cleopatra," "Timon of Athens," and the "Merry Wives of Windsor." This effort expired almost at its birth, and is seldom, if ever, mentioned or referred to by contemporaneous or subsequent writers. Between 1769 and 1792, Ducis perpetrated horrible mutilations and fricassees of "Hamlet," "Romeo and Juliet," "Le Roi Lear," " Macbeth," "Jean sans Terre," and "Othello." They were received with favour by the Parisian pit, who persuaded themselves that they saw "le divin Shakspeare," in full glory, when the powers of a great actor were called in to embellish these incongruous attempts at imitation. Except from the titles, and an occasional resemblance in plot and subject, it would be difficult to recognize the source from whence they are derived. The genius of Talma, seconded by Mesdemoiselles Georges and Duchesnois, obtained for them an ephemeral credit and currency, which have dwindled away with time, improved knowledge, and more accurate taste. We have long accorded to the French, undisputed supremacy in the proprieties of stage costume. Their Roman togas, imported with the peace, have superseded those of John Kemble, so long looked upon with reverence as models of historic research in re vestiariâ, but now exploded. Nevertheless, we saw Talma, with our own eyes, enact Macbeth, at the Théâtre François (1815) in a green doublet or tunic trimmed with fur, tight pantaloons, and Hessian boots. But no doubt he could have produced authorities for thus clothing a Celtic thane co-existent with Edward the Confessor. To M. Guizot must be ascribed the merit of being the first French critic and annotator who has faithfully expounded Shakspeare, and pointed * See Miss Hannah More's poem entitled "Bas Bleu," for an account of the most eminent personages who were members of this society. out clearly wherein the strength of our great dramatic poet lies, and through what peculiar channels it is developed. In this study the German writers have far excelled, as well as preceded, the French; and by some enthusiasts, who are easily satisfied, and caught by novelty, are declared to have gone beyond ourselves. They are said to understand and appreciate Shakspeare, better and more thoroughly in Vienna, Berlin, and Dresden, than we do in London, Dublin, or Edinburgh. Goethe's "Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship" is often set forward as containing the truest and best analysis of "Hamlet" which has ever been written. "It may be so," as old Lear replies to the Duke of Albany, but we are "free to confess we are not among the convinced. The translations of Wieland, Esschenbourg, Schlegel, and Tieck, have been bepraised as superior to the original. Let us imagine, if we can, an exotic interpreter expressing the thoughts of Shakspeare with more truth and vigour than he was capable of doing himself. In German literature, Shakspearean essays are highly esteemed. The body of miscellaneous criticism by Schiller, Lessing, the two Schlegels, Horn, Ulrici, Tieck, Schick, and other authors of established repute, has, by the estimate of many judges, cast into the shade, the more bulky and ponderous lucubrations of the Uptons, Heaths, Greys, Tyrwhitts, Warburtons, Edwardses, Richardsons, Drakes, Douces, Coleridges, and Chalmerses, of English controversial celebrity. If two-thirds, at least, of the entire mass, foreign and domestic, could be either lost or forgotten, we are profane or ungrateful enough to think the poet would be a gainer, his readers would have a better chance of understanding his supposed obscure passages, and he would express his satisfaction visibly, if such communications from the dead to the living are ever permitted. Never was author so smothered up under attempts at elucidation. That the German literati, and educated classes among the German public, admire and feel the genius of Shakspeare, we "powerfully and potently believe;" but they are accustomed to think so long and debate so gravely on the plainest questions, that they become bewildered by sheer waste of reflection. They refine and sublimate on the most self-evident hypotheses until they lose sight of them altogether; imagine some recondite philosophy which never crossed the imagination of the writer, elicit important discoveries which evaporate in nothing, and float perpetually, as Lord Byron says, "Like Pyrrho, on a sea of speculation." According to the eccentric, but clear-headed satirist, this is an agreeable voyage enough, but then he adds: "But what if carrying sail capsize the boat? Your wise men don't know much of navigation; And swimming long in the abyss of thought Is apt to tire;" that obvious by which he implies - and we heartily concur with him definitions are generally correct, and that it is wiser, as well as more comfortable, in nine cases out of ten, to adopt simple reasoning than to toil after obscurities. All the German criticism we have ever read, on Shakspeare, appears to us, without exception, to be deeply coloured by the bias of national character. A desire to create occult meanings where none exist; an endeavour to mystify and transcendentalize into a subtle metaphysician, the clearest, the simplest, the most intelligible, and the most healthy spirit that ever drew inspiration from the font of nature. Above all other writers, we think Shakspeare invariably selected the easiest expressions to convey his thoughts, the plainest language in which to clothe his boundless imagery. Harmonious in versification, nervous and varied in style, but never weakened by inflation or redundancy. We are neither offended by the pedantry of the schools nor the assumptive perplexity of deep learning. Where a sentence occurs, not easily explained, the diffculty often rises from an accidental typographical error, or from the misuse or absence of punctuation; faults which originate in the carelessness of printers and editors, but are not justly chargeable on the author. With powers of imagination never equalled, Shakspeare is essentially the poet of reality, and of every-day reality. He does not deal in heroes and heroines of romance, but in the men and women of actual life. His characters are distinct and identical. They are never repeated. Hamlet, Othello, and Macbeth, Lear, and Richard the Third, are only to be met with in the plays which bear their names. His Romans speak and act like veritable types of the age and country they represent. We recognize among them no petits maîtres of the court of Louis the Fourteenth, no dreamy mystics from Göttingen or Jena. The classical worthies of Corneille, Racine, and Voltaire, represent one nation, and a single, though numerous family. They are unmistakable Parisians, in language, manner, and sentiment. In the German drama, the leading character, the protagonista of the scene, embodies an abstract idea, a system of philosophy, a scheme of politics, a metaphysical argument, or a general compound of inductive science. People who cannot exactly understand this, are astonished, and believe because they are puzzled. One of the most desirable helps in the study of Shakspeare, is an edition without explanatory notes. It is as healthy and invigorating as the practice of the doctor who trusts to nature and cures without physic. We scarcely know whether to smile or grieve when we find the manly sense of Dr. Johnson lending itself to the solemn absurdity of Warburton, in these words: "This is a noble emendation, which almost elevates the critic to the rank of the author." Where the principles of taste and rules of composition are so diametrically opposed as in the dramatic schools of England, France, and Germany, it becomes difficult to follow out a comparison. Each is marked by distinct features, which appear not to be derived from the other. M. Guizot is fully aware of this, and argues with much ability and acute judgment to show how, why, and in what there is such an impassable gulf of division between the genius of Shakspeare and that of Corneille, Racine, and Voltaire. "At the present day," he says, "all controversy regarding Shakspeare's genius and glory has come to an end. No one ventures any longer to dispute them; but a greater question has arisen, namely, whether Shakspeare's dramatic system is not far superior to that of Voltaire? This question I do not presume to decide. I merely say that it is now open for discussion. We have been led to it by the onward progress of ideas. I shall endeavour to point out the causes which have brought it about; but at present I merely insist on the fact itself, and deduce from it one simple consequence, that literary criticism has changed its ground, and can no longer remain restricted to the limits within which it was formerly confined." These limits are broken through, or rather, are effaced by the general spread of knowledge, which |