The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865

V >> Various >> The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19

FOOTNOTES:

[F] Mr. Riethmueller, in his volume on "Hamilton and his Contemporaries,"
coolly assumes that Hamilton would have opposed the late war for the
maintenance of the Union, had he been living! Anything more absurd than
such a view of Hamilton's probable course, under circumstances like
those which occurred in 1861, it would be impossible to imagine.
Hamilton would have been the firmest supporter of the war, had he lived
to see it, or had such a war broken out in his time. His principles
would have led him to be for extreme measures. It is easy to see why Mr.
Riethmueller thus misrepresents Hamilton's opinions. Living in London,
where it is thought that every foreign nation should submit to
destruction, if that be desirable to England, he wrote under the
influence of the place. The English do not take the same view of
Secession, when it comes home to them. They think as unfavorably of that
repeal of the Union which the Irish demand as we thought of that
dissolution of our Union which South Carolinians demanded; and they
moved against the Fenians much earlier than we moved against the
Carolinians. Mr. Riethmueller's assumption is pointedly disclaimed by
General Hamilton's representatives, who declare that it is a palpable
misrepresentation of their father's views: and no one who is familiar
with Hamilton's writings and history can honestly say that they are
wrong. To say that Andrew Jackson, who crushed Nullification, would have
been a Secessionist, had he been living in 1861, would be a moderate
assertion, compared to that which places Alexander Hamilton in the list
of possible Secessionists, had he survived to Secession times.

[G] _History of the Republic of the United States of America, as traced
in the Writings of Alexander Hamilton and his Contemporaries._ By John
C. Hamilton. Seven Volumes. 8vo. New York: D. Appleton & Co. A work in
every respect deserving of the closest and most attentive study, replete
as it is with valuable and well-arranged matter and able writing.

[H] _The Federalist: a Commentary on the Constitution of the United
States._ A Collection of Essays, by Alexander Hamilton, Jay, and
Madison. Also, _The Continentalist_ and other Papers, by Hamilton.
Edited by John C. Hamilton, Author of "The Republic of the United
States." 1 vol. 8vo. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co.--This is by
far the best edition of "The Federalist" that has appeared, and should
alone be consulted and read by Hamilton's admirers. The Historical
Notice with which Mr. Hamilton has prefaced it is a noble production,
and worthy of the subject and of his name.

[I] Burr, in his correspondence with Hamilton just before the challenge
that led to the duel, said,--"Political opposition can never absolve
gentlemen from the necessity of a rigid adherence to the laws of honor
and the rules of decorum. I neither claim such privilege, nor indulge it
in others." This has been called affectation; but we have no doubt that
Burr uttered the truth in the sentences quoted. He was exactly the man
to observe the rules of decorum, and those of honor, as he understood
them, in political warfare. The strong language that is so common in
political disputes is proof as much of the abundance of men's sincerity
as it is of their want of good breeding. They are honestly moved by the
evil words or deeds, or both, or what they consider such, of their
opponents, and speak of them coarsely. The man who is indifferent to all
opinions, principles, and actions, but who is nevertheless ambitious, is
never tempted to the utterance of disparaging language concerning his
political foes. He may laugh at their zeal, but he cannot be offended by
it. Burr was utterly indifferent to all political principle. He never
really belonged to any party, and was as ready to act with Federalists
as with Democrats; and it was only through the force of circumstances
that he did act generally with the latter. A party man never would have
done as Burr saw fit to do when the Presidential election of 1801
devolved on the House of Representatives. The party to which he
professed to belong intended, as everybody knew, that Jefferson should
be President; and yet Burr allowed himself to be used against Jefferson.
That "all is fair in politics" was his creed. He may have been "a man of
honor," but what Lord Macaulay says of Avaux is strictly applicable to
him, namely,--"that of the difference between right and wrong he had no
more notion than a brute."

REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.

_Memoirs of the Life of William Shakespeare, with an Essay toward the
Expression of his Genius, and an Account of the Rise and Progress of the
English Drama to the Time of Shakespeare._ By RICHARD GRANT WHITE.
Boston: Little, Brown, & Co.

Mr. White's closing-up of his Shakespeare labors has been long in
coming, but comes good and acceptable at last. The volume now in hand,
however, does not form a part of his edition of the poet; it stands by
itself; though a portion of its contents is repeated in the first volume
(the last published) of this edition. It is rich in matter, and the
workmanship, for the most part, capital. All Shakespearians are bound to
relish it; and if any general reader does not find it delectable, he may
well suspect some fault in himself.

The contents of the volume are, first, "Memoirs of the Life of William
Shakespeare"; second, "An Essay toward the Expression of Shakespeare's
Genius"; third, "An Account of the Rise and Progress of the English
Drama to the Time of Shakespeare."

In his "Memoirs," the author of course adds nothing to what was already
known of the poet's life. But his presentation of the matter is
eminently readable, and, in parts, decidedly interesting; which is as
much as can fairly be looked for in any writing on that subject. Some
readers may think, we _do_ think, that the author is a little at fault
on one or two points. For instance, he overworks certain questions
touching the poet's wife, worrying up the matter against her to the
utmost, and, in fact, tormenting the poor woman's memory in such a way
as to indicate something very like spite. Now this is not fair; and Mr.
White's general fairness on other subjects makes his proceeding the less
excusable in this case.

Of course everybody knows that Mrs. Anne Shakespeare was some eight
years older than her husband; that the circumstances of the marriage
were not altogether what they should have been; and that the oldest
daughter was born a little too soon for the credit of either parent.
This is all, all, there is known about the matter. And if conjecture or
inference must be at work on these facts, surely it had better run in
the direction of charity, especially of charity towards the weaker
vessel. We say weaker vessel, because in this case the man must, in all
fairness, be supposed to have had the advantage, at least as much in
strength of natural understanding as the woman had in years. And as
Shakespeare was, by all accounts, a very attractive person, it does not
well appear but that the woman had as good a right to lose her heart in
his company as he had to lose his head in hers. Yet our author
insinuates, perhaps we should say more than insinuates, that the lady
immodestly angled for and seduced the youthful lover, and entangled his
honor in an obligation of marriage; and he seems quite positive that the
poet afterwards hated her, and took refuge in London partly to escape
from her society. Moreover, he presumes her to have been a coarse, low,
vulgar creature, such as, the fascination of the honeymoon once worn
off, the poet could not choose but loathe and detest. Now all this is
sheer conjecture; it has no basis of fact or of fair likelihood to stand
upon; there is not so much as a particle even of tradition to support
it. Rowe hints nothing of the sort; and surely his candor would not have
spared the parties, if he had found anything: it was the very point of
all others on which scandal would have been most apt to fasten and feed;
and yet even Aubrey, arrant old gossip as he was, supplies nothing to
justify it.

In default of other grounds, resort has been had to certain passages in
the poet's dramas. And Mr. White, though knowing, none better, the
poet's wonderful self-aloofness from his representations, thinks it
worth the while to make an exception in this particular case. Presuming
such and such things to be true in his own experience, the poet, our
author observes, must have thought of them while writing certain
passages. Our answer is, To be sure, he must have thought of them, and
he must have known that others would think of them too; and a reasonable
delicacy on his part would have counselled the withholding of anything
that he was conscious might be applied to his own domestic affairs. Does
not Mr. White see that his inferences in this are just the reverse of
what they should be? Sensible men do not write in their public pages
such things as would be almost sure to breed or to foster scandal about
their own names or their own homes. The man that has a secret cancer on
his person will be the last to speak of cancers in reference to others;
and if the truth of his own case be suspected at all, it will rather be
from his silence than from his speech. We can hardly think Shakespeare
was so wanting in a sense of propriety as to have written the passages
in question, but that he knew no man could say he was exposing the
foulness of his own nest.

But we are dwelling too long on this point; and we confess something of
impatience at Mr. White's treatment of it. His _animus_ in the thing is
shown, perhaps, in one slight mistake he has made. Speaking of the
lady's haste to "provide herself with a husband," he says, "In less than
five months after she obtained one she was delivered of a daughter." The
bishop's license for the marriage was dated November 28th, 1582, and
Susannah Shakespeare was baptized May 26th, 1583; thus leaving an
interval of but two days short of _six_ months between the marriage and
the birth. As Sir Hugh observes, "I like not when a 'oman has a great
peard."

We are moved to add one more item of dissent.--Mr. White thinks, and it
appears that the German critic, Gervinus, coincides with him, that
Shakespeare must have acquired all his best ideas of womanhood after he
went to London, and conversed with the ladies of the city. And in
support of this notion he cites the fact--for such it is--that the women
of the poet's later plays are much superior to those of his earlier
ones. But are not the _men_ of his later plays quite as much superior to
the men of his first? Unquestionably they are. Are not his later plays
as much better _every way_, as in respect of the female characters? Mr.
White is too wise and too ripe in the theme to question it. The truth
seems to be, that Shakespeare saw more of great and good in both man and
woman as he became older and knew them better; for he was full of
intellectual righteousness in this as in other things. But if there must
be any conjecturing about it, we prefer to conjecture that the poet
caught his ideas of womanhood, or at least the rudiments of them, from
his mother, and other specimens of the sex in his native town. For in
this matter it may with something of special fitness be said that a man
finds what he brings with him the faculty of finding; and he who does
not learn respect for woman in the nursery and at the fireside will
hardly learn it at all. The poet's mind did not stay on the surface of
things. He had the head to know, and the heart to feel, the claims of
humble, modest worth; for, as he was the wisest, so was he also the most
human-hearted of men. And to his keen, yet kindly eye, the
plain-thoughted women of Stratford may well have been as pure, as sweet,
as lovely, as rich in all the inward graces which he delighted to unfold
in his female characters, as anything he afterwards found among the
fine ladies of the metropolis: though far be it from us to disrepute
these latter; for he was, by the best of all rights, a thorough
gentleman; and the ladies who pleased him in London had womanhood
enough, no doubt, to recognize him as such, without the flourishes of
rank. At all events, it is reasonable to infer that the foundations of
his mind were laid before he left Stratford, and that the gatherings of
the boy's eye and heart were the germs of the man's thoughts. And,
indeed, if his great social heart had found all the best delights of
society in London, how should he have been so desirous, as Mr. White
allows he was, to escape from the city, and set up his rest in his
Stratford home?

Mr. White's history of the Drama, though far from copious, supplies
enough, perhaps, to put the reader right as regards Shakespeare's
historical relations to that great branch of English literature. From
what is there given, any one can, with reasonable attention, learn that
the English drama, as we have it in Shakespeare, was the well-ripened
fruit of centuries of preparation: the form, structure, and order of the
thing being settled long before his time. The attentive reader will also
see, though this point is not emphasized so much as it might be, that
the national mind and taste were ready and eager to welcome the right
man as soon as the right man came; so that, in catering wisely for the
public taste, the poet could hardly fail of the supremacy due to his
transcendent genius; which infers, of course, that the public taste had
nearly as much to do in forming him as he had in forming it. On one or
two points, as, for instance, in the matter of Shakespeare's senior
contemporaries, we should have preferred a somewhat larger outlay of the
author's learned and well-practised strength; while, again, in reference
to the old plays of "Jeronimo" and "The Spanish Tragedy," he might well
have used more economy of strength, as the matter is neither interesting
in itself nor helpful to his purpose. Here is a specimen of his
felicity, referring to the plays of old John Lily, the euphuist.

"They are in all respects opposed to the genius of the English drama.
They do not even pretend to be representations of human life and human
character, but are pure fantasy pieces, in which the personages are a
heterogeneous medley of Grecian gods and goddesses, and impassible,
colorless creatures, with sublunary names, all thinking with one brain,
and speaking with one tongue,--the conceitful, crotchety brain, and the
dainty, well-trained tongue of clever, witty John Lily."

This is, indeed, the exact truth of the matter, and it could hardly be
better said. On divers points, however, the little that he gives us just
sets the reader on fire for more: that is, he does not satisfy the
desire quite enough in proportion as he stimulates it. But he probably
goes on the safe principle, that in such cases an intelligent reader is
apt to crave more than he will justify a writer in giving; or, in other
words, that he does not seem to have enough, until he has too much.

But the "Essay" is most decidedly the jewel of the volume: not, however,
to disparage the other parts; for it is worthy to be the jewel of
anybody's volume. A single reading of the "Essay," as it ought to be
read, will suffice to make any one glad to own the book, and will almost
certainly induce him to mark it down for a second reading, as the second
also will for a third. The work, indeed, is a positive, and we think it
will prove a permanent addition to our already opulent inheritance of
Shakespearian criticism. It is weighty throughout with fresh, yet sober
and well-considered thought, expressed in tight and sinewy
English,--every part being highly elaborate, but nothing over-labored.
The author discusses a large number of topics, all in "a manly style,
fitted to manly ears," but is particularly full and instructive in
regard to the poet's language and style: a rich field, indeed, which has
not been proportionably cultivated by the poet's later critics, who have
put their force mainly on what may be called his dramatic architecture,
and on his development of character, where there is more room to be
philosophical, but less chance of determinate results. Over this field
Mr. White walks with the firm, yet graceful step of a master: his
current of thought running deep, strong, and clear, and carrying us
through page after page full of nice and subtile discrimination, without
over-refinement, and of illustrations apt and luminous, yet without a
touch of false brilliancy or mere smartness; which is saying a good
deal, in these days of high-pressure rhetoric.

We commend the "Essay" to all lovers of solid and well-proportioned
critical discourse.

RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS.

The Ideal Attained: being the Story of Two Steadfast Souls, and how they
won their Happiness and lost it not. By Eliza Farnham, Author of "Woman
and her Era," etc. New York. C. W. Plumb & Co. 12mo. pp. 510. $2.00.

At Anchor. A Story of Our Civil War. By an American. New York. D.
Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. 311. $1.50.

Methods of Instruction. That Part of the Philosophy of Education which
treats of the Nature of the several Branches of Knowledge, and the
Methods of teaching them according to that Nature. By James Pyle
Wickersham, A. M., Author of "School Economy." Philadelphia. J. B.
Lippincott & Co. 12mo. pp. 496. $2.00.

Love and Money. By J. B. Jones, Author of "Wild Western Scenes," etc.
Philadelphia. T. B. Peterson & Brother. 12mo. pp. 407. $2.00.

Histoire de Jules Cesar. Par S. M. I. Napoleon III. Tome Premier. New
York. D. Appleton & Cie. 12mo. pp. 396. $2.50.

Beatrice. By Julia Kavanagh, Author of "Nathalie," etc. New York. D.
Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. 520. $2.00.

Lessons from the World of Matter and the World of Man. By Theodore
Parker. Selected from Notes of Unpublished Sermons. By Rufus Leighton.
Boston. C. W. Slack. 12mo. pp. 430. $2.50.

Sibyl. A Tragedy in Five Acts. By John Savage. New York. James B.
Kirker. 16mo. pp. 105. 75 cts.

Life of Marcus Tullius Cicero. By William Forsyth, M. A., Q. C., Author
of "Hortensius," etc., and late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. In
Two Volumes. With Illustrations. New York. Charles Scribner & Co. 12mo.
pp. 304, 341. $5.00.

Know the Truth. A Critique on the Hamiltonian Theory of Limitation,
including some Strictures upon the Theories of Rev. Henry L. Mansel and
Mr. Herbert Spencer. By Jesse H. Jones. New York. Hurd & Houghton. 12mo.
pp. x., 225. $1.25.

Janet Strong. By Virginia F. Townsend. Philadelphia. J. B. Lippincott &
Co. 12mo. pp. 314. $1.50

Voices of the Morning. By Belle Bush. Philadelphia. J. B. Lippincott &
Co. 18mo. pp. 270. $1.25.

A View at the Foundations: or, First Causes of Character, as Operative
before Birth, from Hereditary and Spiritual Sources. Being a Treatise on
the Organic Structure and Quality of the Human Soul, as determined by
Pre-Natal Conditions in the Parentage and Ancestry, and how far we can
direct and control them. By Woodbury M. Fernald. Boston. W. V. Spencer.
16mo. pp. 210. $1.25.

The Iliad of Homer, rendered in English Blank Verse. By Edward, Earl of
Derby. In Two Volumes. New York. C. Scribner & Co. 12mo. pp. xiv., 430;
viii., 457. $5.00.

History of England, from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth.
By James Anthony Froude, M. A., late Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford.
Vols. I. & II. New York. C. Scribner & Co. 12mo. pp. 447, 501. Per vol.,
$2.50.

Fairy Fingers. A Novel. By Anna Cora Ritchie, Author of "Autobiography
of an Actress," &c. New York. G. W. Carleton. 12mo. pp. 460. $2.00.

The Graver Thoughts of a Country Parson. By the Author of "Recreations
of a Country Parson." Boston. Ticknor & Fields. 16mo. pp. iv., 332.
$2.00.

Hugh Worthington. A Novel. By Mrs. Mary J. Holmes. New York. G. W.
Carleton. 12mo. pp. 370. $1.75.

Essays. By R. W. Emerson. First and Second Series. Boston. Ticknor &
Fields. 32mo. Blue and gold. pp. viii., 515. $1.50.

Superior Fishing; or, The Striped Bass, Trout, and Black Bass of the
Northern States. Embracing full Directions for Dressing Artificial Flies
with the Feathers of American Birds; an Account of a Sporting Visit to
Lake Superior, etc. By Robert B. Roosevelt, Author of "The Game Fish of
North America," etc. New York. G. W. Carleton. 12mo. pp. 304. $2.00.

Hypodermic Injections in the Treatment of Neuralgia, Rheumatism, Gout,
and other Diseases. By Antoine Ruppaner, M. D., Fellow of the Mass. Med.
Soc. Boston. T. O. H. P. Burnham. 16mo. pp. 160. $1.25.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19