Recent Literature

IT happens, curiously, that just as the long-expected life of Charlotte Cushman ¹ makes its appearance Mr. William Black is developing the character of an imaginary actress in his serial story, Macleod of Dare. In that tale Miss Gertrude White, the heroine, is made to say : “ I have to sympathize with so many characters — I have to be so many different people — that I don’t quite know what my own character is, or if I have any at all;" which, it seems to us, is a thing that the real Miss White (supposing there had been one) would never have felt or said. Rea! actors and actresses, so far as we have record of them, possess very decided natures, and know perfectly well that they have characters which are not in the least obscured by their impersonations on the stage. A better offset to Mr. Black’s feebly imagined bit of fancifulness than the story of Miss Cushman’s career, and Miss Stebbins’s sketch of her personality, could not be asked. We find here an actress who surpassed most of her sisterhood in the complete assumption of a variety of parts, both male and female, and yet possessed, quite beyond and independently of these, a powerful and charming personality of her own. So completely did she identify herself with Queen Katharine, in Henry VIII., “that the tender inspiration of the last scene would be visible in her face and eyes long after she had left the stage.” Lady Macbeth she impersonated with an equal, perhaps a greater force ; yet she disliked the part, and preferred to read rather than act in the play of Macbeth, because in the reading of the other parts she could find relief from the Strain she experienced in the realization of a character in all ways so opposed to her own. As Miss Stebbins says, with an approach to eloquence, “ There was a side to her which . . . enabled her to fill the rôle of a noble and thoughtful woman. She analyzed all her parts, and missed no shade of their true embodiment; but in her own supreme rôle no study and no analysis was necessary, for God had cast her for the part.” It is in this supremacy of the woman without injury to the artist that one finds the meas-

ure of Miss Cushman’s greatness; and this it is, also, which gives to the present biography its chief attraction. The record is not that of a life rich in family associations with the stage, and filled with reminiscences of famous people, like the autobiography of Mrs. Kemble. It does not supply us that minute picture of an entire career, with abstracts of some of its highest moods and elaborate correspondence, presented in the recent memoir of Macready, which has taken its plage almost as a model of what every biography in this department should be. One is, in fact, surprised that Miss Cushman’s letters should not have been better preserved, and that almost nothing should have been done in the way of collecting her observations on her art and her criticisms of other histrionic interpretations than her own. Leaders in the dramatic profession so inevitably and regrettably fade from memory when the spell of their personal presence is forever withdrawn that too much cannot be done to preserve in printed memorials those details of their acting, their conception of parts, their advice to other actors, which can alone secure to later generations the value of their achievements iu histrionic art. But, if we must deplore the absence of these particulars from Miss Stebbins’s memoir, we are ready to accord due praise for the full and enthusiastic manner in which the superb characteristics of the subject are brought forward. Nothing could be better than the careful account of Miss Cushman’s ancestry, with its mingling of stern Puritan rectitude and of that gentler æsthetic bias derived from the Babbit family. The story of her early struggles, too, is one of absorbing interest. The failure of her voice ; the hurried change from singing to acting ; the flush of first success, which led her to expect too much ; the subsequent reverses ; and the three years’ hard work as “walking lady ” at the Park Theatre, and harder work as manager of the Walnut Street Theatre, while acting alternate nights with Macready in New York, — all this, and her heroic efforts to maintain her family, compose a rapid and striking narrative. It was at the close of this period that Macready, whom she supported in Boston, noted in his diary that she had her art still to learn; a somewhat too patronizing remark, like the one he made concerning Mrs, Kemble (that she did not know the elements of her art), for in a very short time afterward she gained, magnificent triumphs in London, But the reason of the full expansion of her powers and of undisputed success somehow fails, as presented in the biography, to meet one’s expectations. Perhaps this is owing to the want of material of the right sort, perhaps to a certain limitedness in Miss Cushman’s intellectual interests; but it is a fault which will be less apparent to readers who do not stand so close to the epoch treated. Miss Stebbins sometimes writes too much as if she were addressing a circle of acquaintances, and her style is not conspicuously good. But, whatever its short-comings, the book is sincere, and it belongs to a class in which American literature is not rich enough. We may congratulate ourselves on this substantial addition to the library of reminiscence.

— The sources from which L² draws its treasures seem inexhaustible; the last volume for 1877 and the first for 1878 are as wonderfully rich and varied as those at which we first looked; the only difference is that now the surprise is gone, and now we expect wonders of L’Art. It is impossible to give a full idea of the abundance of this review, so far beyond anything of its kind hitherto attempted, and if we mention one thing rather than another it is not because the other is not almost as worthy of notice. Here in the closing volume of the year past are some unpublished letters of Delacroix, particularly interesting and valuable for the preliminary sketches for his Medea, in the Museum of Lille, which is also reproduced in an etching,— one of the eleven magnificent etchings in the volume. There is a continued article on Delft faience; another on Fromentin, with numerous reproductions of his African sketches; a full and careful study of Poussin, with—of course — admirable illustrations from his works; a paper on Benvenuto Cellini, so much more widely known to readers by his autobiography than to connoisseurs by his works of art. Six papers devoted to the Museum of Lille are apparently the first of a series which is to make known the wealth of art-galleries in the provincial cities of France. At the same time the art of other ages and countries is not neglected: the extremely interesting and valuable studies of Italian art are continued; there is a notice of the Liverpool Art Club’s Exhibition of Fans; in the first volume for this year Horatio N. Powers writes of the New York Society of Decorative Art and its loan exhibition. The same volume contains the fourth, fifth, and sixth of the Silhouettes of Contemporary artists, namely, Gustave Brion, the Alsatian ; Léon Belly, the painter of Egyptian character; and the painter and engraver Félix Bracquemond. It is almost superfluous to say that these papers are abundantly illustrated from the works of the artists. A special feature of the volume is a series of twelve crayons in black and red reproducing sketches of J. F. Millet. Rubens’s work in Italy, Spain, and Russia forms the subject of three essays. A charming peculiarity of L’Art, which we do not think we have mentioned before, is its illustrated reviews of new books on art. All the editorial departments and the full and satisfactory system of correspondence are perfectly sustained.

— In a brief preface, Mr. Luigi Monti owns the authorship of Mr. Sampleton’s adventures as American consul at the Mediterranean port of Verdecuerno.³ Mr. Monti was for twelve years our useful consul at Palermo, but under the workings of our uncivil disservice system was displaced, and has been kept out of an office which it is his sufficientdisqualification to be able to fill better than any one else. If it had been his purpose to revenge himself upon the stupid order of things to which he owed his dismissal, he could not have done so more effectively than by painting to the life the misconceptions, mortifications, blunders, and sufferings of the average American appointee to consular service, as he has in this amusing and humiliating little book. But we fancy him governed by different motives, and we congratulate him on having produced a sketch which not only abounds in amiable satire, but is admirably faithful in all its characterizations. It; will not have much, if any, effect upon the powers which mismanage such matters at Washington, but it adds to our literature several pieces of portraiture which are done with sympathy and insight into American nature and conditions, as well as with charming skill. Samuel Sampleton and his excellent little wife are keeping a boarding-school at Quahaugsville on Cape Cod, and filling their place in life with the satisfaction and success which come of natural fitness and training for it, when he is sent out to Verdecuerno, totally ignorant of its language, its customs, the duties of his office, the etiquette of his position, or the dignity attaching to it. To heighten his misery with the last touch of cruelty, he is paid the salary of a third-rate department-clerk, and he finds that he is not only not able to live for nothing in Verdecuerno, as he was told in Quahaugsville before starting, but that his fifteen hundred dollars a year scantly enable him to take a shabby apartment outside the walls in a lodging-house occupied by merchant’s clerks, military officers of low grade, and the employees of the other consuls. Here he accommodates his family and the American eagle in three small rooms, and here he receives the visits of his colleagues and all the local dignitaries; here he remains, without society and without the recognition due his rank, till he is moved at the end of a few years to make way for a successor even more unfit than himself. The picture is in no wise overdrawn, but is carefully subdued ; among its most pleasing qualities are the delicate respect with which the characters of the consul and his wife are studied, and the cordial feeling for the simple, genuine, and worthy Americanism which they represent. They are merely shown to be out of place, while it is suggested that in their true place they are irreproachable. They have the best hearts and the soundest principles ; they preserve their self-respect, while their pride suffers from the snubbing and pity and patronage which they receive on every hand, and must receive. The consul tells his story himself, with great modesty and unconsciousness, and just enough glimmerings of the author’s light upon his narrative to make it delightful. All the other figures in the book are sketched with good-humored skill, and but for its bitter lesson it would be thoroughly enjoyable ; as literature it is thoroughly enjoyable. We wish, however, that it might, as a civil service tract, have the greatest possible currency. As we said, there is little hope of influencing legislation on the subject, but the American people, who are not ungenerous whatever they are, ought to understand how and why their consular system is the shabbiest in the whole world.

— One is apt to look with suspicion upon an edition of the works of Shakespeare sent out with the assertion that it is perfect, for up to the present moment not one of the legion of editors has been able to give a text that would stand the test of criticism in all points, nor has the most diligent and capable student been successful in deciding upon the chronological order of the plays nor the date at which they were produced. We have before us, however, an edition which is heralded as “ the perfect Shakespeare,” that attempts to accomplish all this.⁴ It is a convenient and well-printed small quarto volume, illustrated with four hundred engravings on wood, evidently by German artists, which are helps to the reader and adornments to the book. The merits of the text need not detain us long, for Professor Delius is no exception to the general statement of Mr. Richard Grant White regarding German Shakespeareans, that there can be no doubt that as to the text of Shakespeare “ their labors have been entirely fruitless.” We have examined the work of Professor Delius in this respect in difficult passages only to he disappointed. His chronological arrangement possesses little value, especially as it is unsupported by any reasons, though as regards the later plays he has probably arrived at results that are approximately correct.

The interest of the volume for us — and we think we may speak for the general reader also — centres in the introduction, by Mr. Frederick J. Furnivall, who is the director of the New Shakspere (sic) Society and the inciter to much good work in Early English literature. This is the most stimulating, lively, and interesting piece of work on the subject that we have read for many a day. It bristles all over with its author’s peculiarities, for Mr. Furnivall is unlike any one else in his literary style, and even the conventionalities of orthodox spelling are no barrier to the impetuosity and independence of his spirits. We admire Mr. Furnivall, and always enjoy reading what he writes, though we may not succumb to his reasoning or be entirely pleased with his spirit. A superficial glance at his work shows that he is in a small way a spelling reformer. He not only writes “ fixt,” as Hare did forty years ago, but gives us also “ringd,” “playd,” “ birds - nested,” “cayennd,” and the like, which is proof positive that familiarity with the orthographic freedom of Early English writers has bred in him contempt for the absurdities of our present spelling.

The object of Mr. Furnivall’s introduction is to show the proper method of studying Shakespeare, to recount in brief the story of his life, and to present a philosophical chronological arrangement of the plays and poems. The matter he gives would fill a volume, and we wish that we had it in a separate publication, printed from type of fair size. The order of the plays is established by external evidence, internal evidence. allusions, and metrical tests, and upon these bases Mr. Furnivall proceeds to give his arrangement and the ingenious reasons for it. He says that the work of the first Victorian school of Shakespearean scholars was mainly confined to antiquarian illustration, emendation, and verbal criticism, while that of the second, represented by the members of the New Shakspere Society, is to study the growth and oneness of Shakespeare, the links between his successive plays, the light thrown on each by comparison with its neighbor, the distinctive characteristic of each period and its contrast with the others, and the treatment of the same or like incidents in the different periods of Shakespeare’s life. He complains very justly that the plays have not been sufficiently studied as a whole, but have been looked upon as “a conglomerate of isolated plays, without order or succession, bound together only by his name and the covers of the volume that contained them.” Mr. Furnivall is right, for no author ought to be studied without a recognition of the fact that his works are the growth of his living mind, and contain in their successive parts evidences of their gradual production that may be made of use as guides to others ; but we need to be guarded in laying down law and making assertions in this respect, for no author has ever produced a series of regularly improving works, nor is this the rule. \Vr;; cannot, therefore, determine the date of a poem or a play by its quality, though that is one of the elements to be considered in settling a disputed point.

Mr. Furnivall views the writings of Shakespeare under four quite natural divisions. The plays are distributed, eleven each to the first and second periods, ten to the third, and five to the fourth, according to the plan by which we have already shown that their chronology is settled. It should be premised, before presenting Mr. Furnivall’s arrangement in detail, that he does not consider every date settled beyond dispute, but as subject to revision. We add, for our part, that an orderly study of Shakespearemakes necessary some sort of chronological arrangement, and that a reasonably correct one, though not absolutely perfect, is better than none at all. Such an arrangement gives the mind that “prenotion ” which Bacon declares to be necessary at the beginning of an investigation to throw light over the field of inquiry and introduce a satisfactory method into the whole course of examination.

Mr. Furnivall pronounces Titus Andronicus not Shakespeare’s, but touched up by him for the stage ; and in this he agrees with the modern commentators. Tt belongs, however, to the first period, and is attributed to the year 1587. After it he places the Comedy of Errors, or Mistaken-Identity, group, including Love’s Labour ’s Lost, 1588-1589'? Comedy of Errors, 1589 ? and Midsummer - Night’s Dream, 1590—1591? Next comes the Two Gentlemen of Verona, 1590—1591; it connects the whole group with the next, the Passion group, comprising Romeo and Juliet, 1591-1593, and the poems Venus and Adonis, Lucrece and the Passionate Pilgrim, or so much of the last mentioned as belongs to Shakespeare. In these productions he finds strong passion and rich fancy. " The love which we saw rise in the Errors and develop in the. Two Gentlemen bursts into full force in Romeo and Juliet. The play gives us that passion lawful in woman and man; Venus and Adonis gives it us unlawful in woman; the Rape of Lucrece, unlawful in man.” In the next group, the Early Histories, Shakespeare turned to the great political questions which were stirring his countrymen in his time, and gave them Richard II., 1593? the three parts of Henry VI , 1592-1594 ? and Richard III, 1594 ? In these he showed his patriotism, “ spoke, his own opinions, and preacht his own moral.”

The plays of the second period open with King John, 1595 ? and the Merchant of Venice, 1596? —a history and acomedy, forming the Life-Plea group. In these rhyme plays a secondary part, and they exhibit a greater fullness of characterization and power than the early plays did. The author’s experience in life had increased, and with it his dramatic power. The Taming of the Shrew, 1596-1597, is linked to this group and binds it to the next, composed of the three comedies of Falstaff, wish the trilogy of Henry IV., V., — I Henry IV., 1596-1597, 2 Ilenry IV., 1597-1598, the Merry Wives, 15981599, and Henry V., 1599. From the love and friendship exhibited in Portia, Antonio, Bassanio, and Bianca we are turned to “ the headstrong valor of Hotspur, the wonderful wit of Falstaff, the vanquisht rebels who wound England with their horses’ hoofs, the noble rivalry of Henry Percy and Henry Prince of Wales, and the sight of how ‘ever did rebellion find rebuke.' Love gives place to war: kingdoms are striven for, not fair girls’ hands; rebels, not shrews, are tamed.” The change from the earlier historical plays is one “from spring to summer.” Next, we have a group of three Sunny Comedies, coupled together by the “ link of mistakenidentity or personation.” They are, Much Ado, 1599-1600, As You Like It, 1600, and Twelfth Night, 1601. In the first we see, in Benedick and Beatrice, a development of Biron and Rosaline of Love’s Labour’s Lost, while Hero is the prototype of Hermione in Winter’s Tale, written eleven years later. The last play of this second period is the “darkening comedy” All’s Well, 1601— 1602, which is so distasteful to Mr. Furnivall that he wishes Shakespeare had given the subject the go-by ; but it is an appropriate link, he thinks, between periods marked respectively by sunshine and storm. The sonnets are next considered, for, though written at intervals during a period of many years, Mr. Furnivall deems them the best preparation for the third period plays.

He says, “The stern decree of that period seems to me to be, ‘ There shall be vengeance, death, for misjudgment, failure in duty, self-indulgence, sin,’ and the innocent who belong to the guilty shall suffer with them : Portia, Ophelia, Desdemona, Cordelia, he beside Brutus, Hamlet, Othello, Lear.” Here also four groups are made: I. The Unfit-Nature or Under-burden falling group, comprising Julius Caesar, 1601, Hamlet, 1602—1603, and Measure for Measure, 1603. II. The Tempter-Yielding group, Othello, 1604 ? Macbeth, 1605-1606. This is followed by a “link” play, King Lear, 1605-1606, the first Ingratitude and Cursing play. III. The Lust or False-Love group, Troilus and Cressida, 1606—16071 and Antony and Cleopatra, 1606-1607. IV. Second Ingratitude and Cursing group, Coriolanus, 16O7-1608? and,Timon of Athens, 1607-1603? This is a magnificent but terrible period, in sharp contrast both with the happiness of the one which preceded it and the calmness of that which followed. In his owu bitterness and world-weariness Shakespeare paints the scourge of the avenger, the blindness of a furious fate.

From this picture Mr. Furnivall turns our gaze to the fourth period, the plays of which are all of Reunion, or Reconciliation and Forgiveness. I. By men, Pericles, 16081609, The Tempest, 1609-1610? II. By women (mainly), Cymbeline, 1610, The Winter’s Tale, 1611, and Henry VIII., 1G12-1613.

We have thus far permitted Mr. Furnivall’s “ groups " and “ periods ” to speak for themselves. They will, undoubtedly, strike most of us as too much refined and detailed, but we think they will serve an excellent purpose if they lead us to study carefully the arguments adduced in their favor by their author. He gives us some remarks of Mr. Spedding upon them. That careful critic says, “ Classing the plays according to their general character, I find that they fall naturally into these broad divisions, and that they have a kind of correspondence with the divisions which are observable in the life of man; but if you want to separate these natural divisions into subordinate groups, according to the particular feature which distinguishes each, it seems to me that you must have as many groups as there are plays. The distinguishing feature would depend upon many things besides the author’s state of mind. It would depend upon the story which he had to tell; and the choice of the story would depend upon the requirements of the theatre, the taste of the public, the popularity of the different actors, the strength of the company. A new part might be wanted for Burbage or lvempe. The two boys that acted Hermia and Helena,—the tall and the short one,— or the two men who were so like that they might he mistaken for each other, might want new pieceto appear in, and so on. The stories would be selected from such as were to be had (and had not been used up) to suit the taste of the frequenters of the theatre, and the characters and incidents would be according to the stories.”

We think that such thoughts as these will suggest themselves to most readers of Mr. Furnivall’s very ingenious remarks about the details of his chronological arrangement, for it seems as though the thousand and one accidental reasons for the selection of a particular dramatic incident, or form of treating any subject chosen, have been omitted from Mr. Furnivall’a considerations, and they must have been very potent in their influence. Notwithstanding this, however, it still remains that the man Shakespeare and his mind are back of all, exerting an almost creative power, to which accidental circumstances must often have given way. We feel, therefore, that Mr. Furnivall’s mode of study is a correct one, which must

be very fruitful of good whenever carefully followed. To push it to extremes would be to “ think too brainsickly of things.”

In concluding his introduction, Mr. Furnivall gives a very good list of books adapted to help the student, an elaborate table of the metre and date of the plays (rearranged from one by Mr. F. G. Fleay, author of the Shakespeare Manual), Professor Dowden’s order and classification of the plays, and a multitude of facts and fancies, all of which are entertaining, and most of them valuable.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

A. L. Bancroft & Co., San Francisco : Francisco : A Poem. By William Watrous.

Asa K. Butts, New York : The Law of Population. Its Consequences and its Bearing upon Human Conduct and Morals. By Annie Besant.

Cassell, Petter & Galpin, New York : The Life of Christ. By F. W. Farrar, D. D., Canon of Westminster. Illustrated with Steel Plates and Numerous Wood-Engravings. Parts 21, 22, 23, 24.

Forest and Stream Publishing Co., New York: Hallock’s American Club List and Sportsman’s Glossary. By Charles Hallock.

Jesse Haney & Co., New York : Poems. By W. T. Washburn.

Harper & Brothers, New York: Shakespeare’s Comedy of As You Like It. Edited, with Notes, by William J. Rolfe, A. M. —Annual Record of Science and Industry for 1877. Edited by Spencer F. Baird, With the Assistance of Eminent Men of Science.—Mine is Thine. A Novel. By L. W. M. Lockhart. —A Modern Minister, With Illustrations. Vol. II. — The Russians of To-Day. By the Author of The Member for Paris, etc, — Half-Hour Series. Epochs of English History. The Settlement of the Constitution, 1689-1784. By James Rowley, M. A. With Four Maps,—The Coming Man. By Charles Reado.

Henry Holt & Co., New York : Around the World in the Yacht Sunbeam. By Mrs. Brassey. With IUustrations. — Leisure nour Series: Maid Ellice. A Novel. By Theo. Gift.

Houghton, Osgood & Co., Boston : Memorial and Biographical Sketches. By James Freeman Clarke. — Watch and Ward. By Henry James, Jr.—Vest Pocket Series : Paul and Virginia. Translated from the French of J. Bernardin H. de Saint-Pierre. Illustrated.—Visions: A Study of False Sight. By Edward H. Clarke, M. D. With an Introduction and Memorial Sketch by Oliver Wendell Holmes, M. D.— Hammersmith: His Harvard Days. Chronicled by Mark Sibley Severance.— Artist - Biographies. Michael Angelo.

Judge Advocate and Recorder’s Guide. Compilation of Statutory Provisions, Decisions, Pleas, etc. By James Regan, First Lieut. Ninth Infantry.

Lee & Shepard, Boston : Agamenticus. By E. P

Tenney. —Rothmell. By the Author of That Husband of Mine. — His Inheritance. By Adeline

Trafton.

Longmans, Green & Co., London : The Teacher’s Hand-Book of the Bible. A Syllabus of Bible Readings and Connecting Epitomes, with Comments. For Use in Schools and Families. By Joseph Pulliblank, M. A.

Loring, Boston : Footprints in the Snow, A Novel.

Porter & Coates, Philadelphia: Sensible Etiquette of the Best Society , Customs, Manners, Morals, and Home Culture. Compiled from the Best Authorities by Mrs. H. O. Ward. — A Trip up the Volga to the Fair of Nijni-Novgorod. By II. A. Munro-Butler-Johnstone, M. P. With Thirteen Illustrations.

G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York: Christ: His Nature and Work, A Series of Discourses by Howard Crosby, Henry W. Bellows, Cyrus D. Foss, Thomas Armitage, William F. Morgan, Thomas D Anderson, R. Heber Newton, Chauncey Giles, Ed ward A. Washburn, Edwin H. Chapin, Ebenezer P. Rogers, Charles F. Robinson, Llewelyn D. Bevan. — The Rising and the Setting Faith, arid other Discourses. By O. B. Frothingham. — Economic Monographs. No. VIII. Protection and Revenue in 1877. A Lecture delivered before the New York Free Trade Club, April 18, 1878, by William G. Sumner. — Shooting Stars as observed from the Sixth Column of the Times. By W. L, Alden.— Pauline and Other Poems. By Hanford Lennox Gordon.

Sower, Potts & Co,, Philadelphia : The Philosophy of Arithmetic as developed from the Three Fundamental Processes of Synthesis, Analysis, and Comparison, containing also a History of Arithmetic. By Edward Brooks, Ph. D.

J, M. Stoddart & Co., Philadelphia: His Dear Little Wife.

W. J, Widdleton, New York : The Life of Edgar Allan Poe. By William F. Gill. Illustrated.

A, Williams & Co., Boston ; The Study of Modem Languages. Thorough Method v. Natural Method. A Letter to Dr. L. Sauveur. By J. Levy

R. Worthington, New York : Poems and Ballads By Algernon Charles Swinburne. Second Series