To be had at NAYLER & Co.'s only, A RHETORICAL GRAMMAR: WHEREIN THE COMMON IMPROPRIETIES IN READING AND SPEAKING ARE EXPOSED, AND THE TRUE SOURSES OF ELEGANT PRONUNCIATION ARE POINTED OUT; WITH A THOROUGH ANALYSIS OF THE VOICE; ACCOMPANIED WITH EIGHTTEEN PLATES, AND NUMEROUS OBSERVATIONS PECULIARLY APPLICABLE TO FOREIGNERS. Price Three Guilders, in Boards. LECTURE I. On the English Language its Simplicity, Shakespeare was born in 1564; and died in 1616. On the Universality of SHAKESPEARE'S Genius. Never, perhaps, was there so comprehensive a talent for the delineation of character as Shakespeare's. It not only grasps the diversities of rank, sex, and age, down to the dawnings of infancy; not only do the king and the beggar, the hero and the pick-pocket, the sage and the idiot, speak and act with equal truth; not only does he transport himself to distant ages and foreign nations, and portray, in the most accurate manner — with only a few apparent violations of costume the spirit of the ancient Romans, of the French in their wars with the English, of the English themselves during a great part of their history, of the Southern-Europeans, (in the serious part of many comedies,) the Cultivated Society of that time, and the former Rude and Barbarous state of the North; his human characters have not only such depth and precision that they can be arranged under classes, and are inexhaustible even in conception : ― no this Prometheus not merely forms Men, he opens the gates of the magical world of Spirits; calls up the midnight ghost; exhibits before us witches, amidst their unhallowed mysteries; peoples the air with sportive fairies and sylphs: and, these beings, existing only in imagination, possess such truth and consistency, that, even when deformed monsters like Caliban, he extorts the conviction, that if there should be such beings, they would so conduct themselves. In a word, as he carries with him the most fruitful and daring fancy into the kingdom of Nature - on the other hand, he carries nature into the regions of Fancy, lying beyond the confines of reality. We are lost in astonishment at seeing the extraordinary, the wonderful, and the unheard of, in such intimate nearness. If Shakespeare deserves our admiration for his Characters, he is equally deserving of it for his exhibition of Passion taking this word in its widest signification as including every mental condition, every tone, from indifference or familiar mirth, to the wildest rage and despair. He gives us the history of Minds; he lays open to us, in a single word, a whole series of preceding conditions. His passions do not at first stand displayed to us in all their height as is the case with so many tragic poets, who, in the language of Lessing, are thorough masters of the legal style of love - he paints, in a most inimitable manner, the gradual progress, from the first origin. "He gives ", as Lessing says, living picture of all the most minute and secret artifices by which a feeling steals into our souls; of all the imperceptible advantages which it there gains; of all the stratagems by which every other passion is made subservient to it, till it becomes the sole tyrant of our desires and our aversions." Of all Poets, perhaps, he alone has portrayed the mental diseases, Melancholy, Delirium, Lunacy, with such inexpressible, and, in every respect, definite truth, that the Physician may enrich his observations from them, in the same manner, as from real cases. &c. a The objection, that Shakespeare wounds our feelings by the open display of the most disgusting moral odiousness, harrows up the soul unmercifully, and tortures even our minds by the exhibition of the most insupportable and hateful spectacles, is one of considerable importance. He has never, in fact, varnished over wild and blood-thirsty passions with a pleasing exterior never clothed crime and want of principle, with a false show of greatness of soul; and, in that respect, he is every way deserving of praise. Twice he has portrayed. downright Villains; and the masterly manner in which he has contrived to elude impressions of too painful a nature, may be seen in Iago and Richard III. The constant reference to a petty and puny race, must cripple the boldness of the poet. Fortunately, for his art, Shakespeare lived in an age extremely susceptible of noble and tender impressions; but which had still enough of the firmness inherited from a vigorous olden-time not to shrink back with dismay from every strong and violent picture, We have lived to see tragedies of which the catastrophe consists in the Swoon of an enamored princess! If Shakespeare falls occasionally into the opposite extreme, it is a noble error, originating in the fulness of a gigantic strength; and yet this tragical Titan, who storms the heavens, and threatens to tear the world from off its hinges; who, more fruitful than Eschylus, makes our hair stand on end, and congeals our blood with horror possessed, at the same time, the insinuating loveliness of the sweetest poetry. He plays with Love like a child; and his Songs are breathed out like melting sighs. He unites, in his genius, the utmost elevation and the utmost depth; and the most foreign, and even apparently irreconcileable properties, subsist in him peaceably together. The world of Spirits and Nature have laid all their treasures at his feet. In strength a demi-god, in profundity of view a prophet, in all-seeing wisdom a protecting spirit of a higher order, he lowers himself to mortals, as if unconscious of his superiority, and is as open and unassuming as a child. Shakespeare's Comic talent is equally wonderful with that which he has shown in the pathetic and tragic; it stands on an equal elevation, and possesses equal extent and profundity. So little is he disposed to Caricature, that we may rather say many of his traits are almost too nice and delicate for the Stage; that they can be properly seized by a great actor, and fully understood by a very acute audience only. &c, SCHLEGEL, A. W. Schlegel b. 1757; d. Milton b. 1608; d. 1674. Milton's chief talent, and indeed his distinguishing excellence, lies in the Sublimity of his thoughts. There are others of the Moderns who rival him in every other part of poetry, but in the greatness of his sentiments he triumphs over all the poets, both modern and ancient, Homer only excepted. It is impossible for the imagination of Man to distend itself with greater ideas, than those which he has laid together in his I, II, and IV Books. The opening of his Speech to the Sun is very bold and noble "O thou that with surpassing glory crowned", &c This Speech is, I think, the finest that is ascribed to Satan in the whole poem, ADDISON. Milton's literature was unquestionably great. He read all the languages which are considered either as learned or polite; Hebrew with its two dialects, Greek, Latin, Italian, French, and Spanish. In Latin his skill was such as places him in the first rank of Writers and Critics; and he appears to have cultivated Italian with uncommon diligence. all other great Before the greatness displayed in Milton's poem, ness shrinks away. The weakest of his agents are the highest and noblest of human beings, the original parents of mankind. The heat of Milton's mind may be said to sublimate his learning; to throw off into his work the spirit of science, unmingled with its grosser parts. He had considered Creation in its whole extent, and his des criptions are therefore learned. He had accustomed his imagination to unre trained indulgence, and his conceptions therefore were extensive. The characteristic quality of his poem is Sublimity. He sometimes descends to the Elegant, but his element is the Great. He can occasionally invest himself with grace; but his natural port is gigantic loftiness. He can please when pleasure is required; but it is his peculiar power to astonish. His great works were performed under discountenance and in blindness; but difficulties vanished at his touch; he was born for whatever is arduous; and his work is not the greatest of heroic poems, only because it is not the first, SATAN'S Soliloquy. JOHNSON. O Thon that, with surpassing glory crowned, -- Till pride and worse ambition! threw me down, Warring in heaven against heaven's matchless King. In that bright eminence and with his good I 'sdained (b) subjection, and thought one step higher (a) Upbraided, voorwerpen, in den zin van verwyten. |
