Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 by Various

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but, if anything was to be explained, why are we here deserted by our
_fida compagna_?

Again, (Vol. II. pp. 55-56,) we read, "This Granuffo is a right wise
good lord, a man of excellent discourse, and never speakes his signes to
me, and men of profound reach instruct aboundantly; hee begges suites
with signes, gives thanks with signes," etc.

This Granuffo is qualified among the "Interlocutors" as "a silent lord,"
and what fun there is in the character (which, it must be confessed, is
rather of a lenten kind) consists in his genius for saying nothing.
It is plain enough that the passage should read, "a man of excellent
discourse, and never speaks; his signs to me and men of profound reach
instruct abundantly," etc.

In both the passages we have quoted, it is not difficult for the reader
to set the text right. But if not difficult for the reader, it should
certainly not have been so for the editor, who should have done what
Broome was said to have done for Pope in his Homer,--"gone before and
swept the way." An edition of an English author ought to be intelligible
to English readers, and, if the editor do not make it so, he wrongs the
old poet, for two centuries lapt in lead, to whose works he undertakes
to play the gentleman-usher. A play written in our own tongue should not
be as tough to us as Aeschylus to a ten-years' graduate, nor do we wish
to be reduced to the level of a chimpanzee, and forced to gnaw our way
through a thick shell of misprints and mispointings only to find (as is
generally the case with Marston) a rancid kernel of meaning after all.
But even Marston sometimes deviates into poetry, as a man who wrote in
that age could hardly help doing, and one of the few instances of it
is in a speech of _Erichtho_, in the first scene of the fourth act of
"Sophonisba," (Vol. I. p. 197,) which Mr. Halliwell presents to us in
this shape:--

----"hard by the reverent (!) ruines
Of a once glorious temple rear'd to Jove
Whose very rubbish....
....yet beares
A deathlesse majesty, though now quite rac'd, [razed,]
Hurl'd down by wrath and lust of impious kings,
So that where holy Flamins [Flamens] wont to sing
Sweet hymnes to Heaven, there the daw and crow,
The ill-voyc'd raven, and still chattering pye,
Send out ungratefull sounds and loathsome filth;
Where statues and Joves acts were vively limbs,

* * * * *

Where tombs and beautious urnes of well dead men
Stood in assured rest," etc.

The verse and a half in Italics are worthy of Chapman; but why did not
Mr. Halliwell, who explains _up-pont_ and _I um_, change "Joves acts
were vively limbs" to "Jove's acts were lively limned," which was
unquestionably what Marston wrote?

In the "Scourge of Villanie," (Vol. III. p. 252,) there is a passage
which has a modern application in America, though happily archaic in
England, which Mr. Halliwell suffers to stand thus:--

"Once Albion lived in such a cruel age
Than man did hold by servile vilenage:
Poore brats were slaves of bondmen that were borne,
And marted, sold: but that rude law is torne
And disannuld, as too too inhumane."

This should read--

"_Man_ man did hold in servile villanage;
Poor brats were slaves (of bondmen that were born)";

and we hope that some American poet will one day be able to write in the
past tense similar verses of the barbarity of his forefathers.

We will give one more scrap of Mr. Halliwell's text:--

"Yfaith, why then, caprichious mirth,
Skip, light moriscoes, in our frolick blond,
Flagg'd veines, sweete, plump with fresh-infused joyes!"

which Marston, doubtless, wrote thus:--

"I'faith, why then, capricious Mirth,
Skip light moriscoes in our frolic blood!
Flagged veins, swell plump with fresh-infused joys!"

We have quoted only a few examples from among the scores that we had
marked, and against such a style of "editing" we invoke the shade of
Marston himself. In the Preface to the Second Edition of the "Fawn,"
he says, "Reader, know I have perused this coppy, _to make some
satisfaction for the first faulty impression; yet so urgent hath been my
business that some errors have styll passed, which thy discretion may
amend_."

Literally, to be sure, Mr. Halliwell has availed himself of the
permission of the poet, in leaving all emendation to the reader; but
certainly he has been false to the spirit of it in his self-assumed
office of editor. The notes to explain _up-pont_ and _I um_ give us a
kind of standard of the highest intelligence which Mr. Halliwell dares
to take for granted in the ordinary reader. Supposing this _nousometer_
of his to be a centigrade, in what hitherto unconceived depths of cold
obstruction can he find his zero-point of entire idiocy? The expansive
force of average wits cannot be reckoned upon, as we see, to drive them
up as far as the temperate degree of misprints in one syllable, and
those, too, in their native tongue. _A fortiori_, then, Mr. Halliwell is
bound to lend us the aid of his great learning wherever his author has
introduced foreign words and the old printers have made _pie_ of them.
In a single case he has accepted his responsibility as dragoman, and the
amount of his success is not such as to give us any poignant regret that
he has everywhere else left us to our own devices. On p. 119, Vol. II.,
_Francischina_, a Dutchwoman, exclaims, "O, mine aderliver love." Here
is Mr. Halliwell's note. "_Aderliver_.--This is the speaker's error for
_alder-liever_, the best beloved by all." Certainly not "the _speaker's_
error," for Marston was no such fool as intentionally to make a
Dutchwoman blunder in her own language. But is it an error for
_alder-liever?_ No, but for _alderliefster_. Mr. Halliwell might have
found it in many an old Dutch song. For example, No. 96 of Hoffmann von
Fallersleben's "Niederlaendische Volkslieder" begins thus:--

"Mijn hert altijt heeft verlanghen
Naer u, die _alderliefste_ mijn."

But does the word mean "best beloved by all"? No such thing, of course;
but "best-beloved of all,"--that is, by the speaker.

In "Antonio and Mellida" (Vol. I. pp. 50-51) occur some Italian verses,
and here we hoped to fare better; for Mr. Halliwell (as we learn from
the title-page of his Dictionary) is a member of the "_Reale Academia
di Firenze_." This is the _Accademia della Crusca_, founded for the
conservation of the Italian language in its purity, and it is rather
a fatal symptom that Mr. Halliwell should indulge in the heresy of
spelling _Accademia_ with only one _c_. But let us see what our Della
Cruscan's notions of conserving are. Here is a specimen:--

"Bassiammi, coglier l'aura odorata
Che in sua neggia in quello dolce labra.
Dammi pimpero del tuo gradit' amore."

It is clear enough that the first and third verses ought to read,

"Lasciami coglier,--Dammi l'impero,"

though we confess that we could make nothing of _in sua neggia_ till
an Italian friend suggested _ha sua seggia_. But a Della Cruscan
academician might at least have corrected by his dictionary the spelling
of _labra_.

We think that we have sustained our indictment of Mr. Halliwell's text
with ample proof. The title of the book should have been, "The Works
of John Marston, containing all the Misprints of the Original Copies,
together with a few added for the First Time in this Edition, the whole
carefully let alone by James Orchard Halliwell, F.R.S., F.S.A." It
occurs to us that Mr. Halliwell may be also a Fellow of the Geological
Society, and may have caught from its members the enthusiasm which leads
him to attach so extraordinary a value to every goose-track of the
Elizabethan formation. It is bad enough to be, as Marston was, one of
those middling poets whom neither gods nor men nor columns (Horace had
never seen a newspaper) tolerate; but, really, even they do not deserve
the frightful retribution of being reprinted by a Halliwell.

We have said that we could not feel even the dubious satisfaction of
knowing that the blunders of the old copies had been faithfully followed
in the reprinting. We see reason for doubting whether Mr. Halliwell ever
read the proof-sheets. In his own notes we have found several mistakes.
For instance, he refers to p. 159 when he means p. 153; he cites "I,
but her _life_," instead of "_lip_"; and he makes Spenser speak of "old
Pithonus." Marston is not an author of enough importance to make it
desirable that we should be put in possession of all the corrupted
readings of his text, were such a thing possible even with the most
minute painstaking, and Mr. Halliwell's edition loses its only claim to
value the moment a doubt is cast upon the accuracy of its inaccuracies.
It is a matter of special import to us (whose means of access to
originals are exceedingly limited) that the English editors of our old
authors should be faithful and trustworthy, and we have singled out Mr.
Halliwell's Marston for particular animadversion only because we think
it on the whole the worst edition we ever saw of any author.

Having exposed the condition in which our editor has left the text, we
proceed to test his competency in another respect, by examining some of
the emendations and explanations of doubtful passages which he proposes.
These are very few; but had they been even fewer, they had been too
many.

Among the _dramatis personae_ of the "Fawn," as we said before, occurs
"Granuffo, _a silent lord_." He speaks only once during the play, and
that in the last scene. In Act I., Scene 2, _Gonzago_ says, speaking to
_Granuffo_,--

"Now, sure, thou are a man
Of a most learned _scilence_, and one whose words
Have bin most pretious to me."

This seems quite plain, but Mr. Halliwell annotates
thus:--"_Scilence_.--Query, _science?_ The common reading, _silence_,
may, however, be what is intended." That the spelling should have
troubled Mr. Halliwell is remarkable; for elsewhere we find "god-boy"
for "good-bye," "seace" for "cease," "bodies" for "boddice," "pollice"
for "policy," "pitittying" for "pitying," "scence" for "sense,"
"Misenzius" for "Mezentius," "Ferazes" for "Ferrarese,"--and plenty
beside, equally odd. That he should have doubted the meaning is no less
strange; for on page 41 of the same play we read, "My Lord Granuffo, you
may likewise stay, for I know _you'l say nothing_,"--on pp. 55-56, "This
Granuffo is a right wise good lord, _a man of excellent discourse and
never speaks_,"--and on p. 94, we find the following dialogue:--

"_Gon._ My Lord Granuffo, this Fawne is an excellent fellow.

"_Don._ Silence.

"_Gon._ _I warrant you for my lord here._"

In the same play (p. 44) are these lines.--

"I apt for love?
Let lazy idlenes, fild full of wine
Heated with meates, high fedde with lustfull ease
Goe dote on culler [color]. As for me, why, death a sence,
I court the ladie?"

This is Mr. Halliwell's note:--"_Death a sence_.--'Earth a sense,' ed.
1633. Mr. Dilke suggests:--'For me, why, earth's as sensible.' The
original is not necessarily corrupt. It may mean,--why, you might as
well think Death was a sense, one of the senses. See a like phrase at
p. 77." What help we should get by thinking Death one of the senses, it
would demand another Oedipus to unriddle. Mr. Halliwell can astonish us
no longer, but we are surprised at Mr. Dilke, the very competent editor
of the "Old English Plays," 1815. From him we might have hoped for
better things. "Death o' sense!" is an exclamation. Throughout these
volumes we find _a_ for _o_',--as, "a clock" for "o'clock," "a the side"
for "o' the side."

A similar exclamation is to be found in three other places in the same
play, where the sense is obvious. Mr. Halliwell refers to one of them
on p. 77,--"Death a man! is she delivered!" The others are,--"Death a
justice! are we in Normandy?" (p. 98); and "Death a discretion! if I
should prove a foole now," or, as given by Mr. Halliwell, "Death, a
discretion!" Now let us apply Mr. Halliwell's explanation. "Death a
man!" you might as well think Death was a man, that is, one of the
men!--or a discretion, that is, one of the discretions!--or a justice,
that is, one of the quorum! We trust Mr. Halliwell may never have the
editing of Bob Acres's imprecations. "Odd's triggers!" he would say,
"that is, as odd as, or as strange as, triggers."

Vol. III., p. 77,--"the vote-killing mandrake." Mr. Halliwell's note
is, "_vote-killing_.--'Voice-killing,' ed. 1613. It may well he doubted
whether either be the correct reading." He then gives a familiar
citation from Browne's "Vulgar Errors." "Vote-killing" may be a mere
misprint for "note-killing," but "voice-killing" is certainly the better
reading. Either, however, makes sense. Although Sir Thomas Browne does
not allude to the deadly property of the mandrake's shriek, yet Mr.
Halliwell, who has edited Shakspeare, might have remembered the

"Would curses kill, _as doth the mandrake's groan_,"
(2d Part Henry VI., Act III. Scene 2.)

and the notes thereon in the _variorum_ edition. In Jacob Grimm's
"Deutsche Mythologie," (Vol. II. p. 1154,) under the word _Alraun_, may
be found a full account of the superstitions concerning the mandrake.
"When it is dug up, it groans and shrieks so dreadfully that the digger
will surely die. One must, therefore, before sunrise on a Friday, having
first stopped one's ears with wax or cotton-wool, take with him an
entirely black dog without a white hair on him, make the sign of the
cross three times over the _alraun_, and dig about it till the root
holds only by thin fibres. Then tie these by a string to the tail of the
dog, show him a piece of bread, and run away as fast as possible. The
dog runs eagerly after the bread, pulls up the root, and falls stricken
dead by its groan of pain."

These, we believe, are the only instances in which Mr. Halliwell has
ventured to give any opinion upon the text, except as to a palpable
misprint, here and there. Two of these we have already cited. There is
one other,--"p. 46, line 10. _Iuconstant_.--An error for _inconstant_."
Wherever there is a real difficulty, he leaves us in the lurch. For
example, in "What you Will," he prints without comment,--

"Ha! he mount Chirall on the wings of
fame!" (Vol. I. p. 239,)

which should be "mount cheval," as it is given in Mr. Dilke's edition
(Old English Plays, Vol. II. p. 222). We cite this, not as the worst,
but the shortest, example at hand.

Some of Mr. Halliwell's notes are useful and interesting,--as that
on "keeling the pot," and some others,--but a great part are utterly
useless. He thinks it necessary, for instance, to explain that "_to
speak pure foole_, is in sense equivalent to 'I will speak like a pure
fool,'"--that "belkt up" means "belched up,"--"aprecocks," "apricots."
He has notes also upon "meal-mouthed," "luxuriousnesse," "termagant,"
"fico," "estro," "a nest of goblets," which indicate either that the
"general reader" is a less intelligent person in England than in
America, or that Mr. Halliwell's standard of scholarship is very low.
We ourselves, from our limited reading, can supply him with a reference
which will explain the allusion to the "Scotch barnacle" much
better than his citations from Sir John Maundeville and Giraldus
Cambrensis,--namely, note 8, on page 179 of a Treatise on Worms, by Dr.
Ramesey, court physician to Charles II.

Next month we shall examine Mr. Hazlitt's edition of Webster.

_Waverley Novels_. Household Edition. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 16mo.

This beautiful edition of Scott's Novels will be completed in
forty-eight volumes. Thirty are already published, and the remaining
eighteen will be issued at the rate of two volumes a month. As this
edition, in the union of elegance of mechanical execution with cheapness
of price, is the best which has yet been published in the United States,
and reflects great credit on the taste and enterprise of the publishers,
its merits should be universally known. The paper is white, the type new
and clear, the illustrations excellent, the volumes of convenient size,
the notes placed at the foot of the page, and the text enriched with the
author's latest corrections. It is called the "Household Edition";
and we certainly think it would be a greater adornment, and should be
considered a more indispensable necessity, than numerous articles of
expensive furniture, which, in too many households, take the place of
such books.

The success of this edition, which has been as great as that of most new
novels, is but another illustration of the permanence of Scott's hold on
the general imagination, resulting from the instinctive sagacity with
which he perceived and met its wants. The generation of readers for
which he wrote has mostly passed away; new fashions in fiction have
risen, had their day, and disappeared; he has been subjected to much
acute and profound criticism of a disparaging kind; and at present
he has formidable rivals in a number of novelists, both eminent and
popular;--yet his fame has quietly and steadily widened with time, the
"reading public" of our day is as much his public as the reading public
of his own, and there has been no period since he commenced writing when
there were not more persons familiar with his novels than with those of
any other author. Some novelists are more highly estimated by certain
classes of minds, but no other comprehends in his popularity so many
classes, and few bear so well that hardest of tests, re-perusal. Many
novels stimulate us more, and while we are reading them we think they
are superior to Scott's; but we miss, in the general impression they
leave on the mind, that peculiar charm which, in Scott, calls us back,
after a few years, to his pages, to revive the recollection of scenes
and characters which may be fading away from our memories. We doubt,
also, if any other novelist has, in a like degree, the power of
instantaneously withdrawing so wide a variety of readers from the
perplexities and discomforts of actual existence, and making them for
the time denizens of a new world. He has stimulating elements enough,
and he exhibits masterly art in the wise economy with which he uses
them; but he still stimulates only to invigorate; and when he enlivens
jaded minds, it is rather by infusing fresh life than by applying fierce
excitements, and there is consequently no reaction of weariness and
disgust. He appeases, satisfies, and enchants, rather than stings and
inflames. The interest he rouses is not of that absorbing nature which
exhausts from its very intensity, but is of that genial kind which
continuously holds the pleased attention while the story is in progress,
and remains in the mind as a delightful memory after the story is
finished. It may also be said of his characters, that, if some other
novelists have exhibited a finer and firmer power in delineating higher
or rarer types of humanity, Scott is still unapproached in this, that he
has succeeded in domesticating his creations in the general heart and
brain, and thus obtained the endorsement of human nature as evidence of
their genuineness. His characters are the friends and acquaintances of
everybody,--quoted, referred to, gossipped about, discussed, criticized,
as though they were actual beings. He, as an individual, is almost lost
sight of in the imaginary world his genius has peopled; and most of
his readers have a more vivid sense of the reality of Dominie Sampson,
Jennie Deans, or any other of his characterizations, than they have of
himself. And the reason is obvious. They know Dominie Sampson through
Scott; they know Scott only through Lockhart. Still, it is certain that
the nature of Scott, that essential nature which no biography can give,
underlies, animates, disposes, and permeates all the natures he has
delineated. It is this, which, in the last analysis, is found to be the
source of his universal popularity, and which, without analysis, is felt
as a continual charm by all his readers, whether they live in palaces or
cottages. His is a nature which is welcomed everywhere, because it is at
home everywhere. The mere power and variety of his imagination cannot
account for his influence; for the same power and variety might have
been directed by a discontented and misanthropic spirit, or have obeyed
the impulses of selfish and sensual passions, and thus conveyed a bitter
or impure view of human nature and human life. It is, then, the man
in the imagination, the cheerful, healthy, vigorous, sympathetic,
good-natured, and broad-natured Walter Scott himself, who, modestly
hidden, as he seems to be, behind the characters and scenes he
represents, really streams through them the peculiar quality of life
which makes their abiding charm. He has been accepted by humanity,
because he is so heartily humane,--humane, not merely as regards man in
the abstract, but as regards man in the concrete.

We have spoken of the number of his readers, and of his capacity to
interest all classes of people; but we suppose, that, in our day, when
everybody knows how to read without always knowing what to read, even
Scott has failed to reach a multitude of persons abundantly capable of
receiving pleasure from his writings, but who, in their ignorance of
him, are content to devour such frightful trash in the shape of novels
as they accidentally light upon in a leisure hour. One advantage of such
an edition of his works as that which has occasioned these remarks is,
that it tends to awaken attention anew to his merits, to spread his fame
among the generation of readers now growing up, and to place him in
the public view fairly abreast of unworthy but clamorous claimants for
public regard, as inferior to him in the power to impart pleasure as
they are inferior to him in literary excellence. That portion of the
public who read bad novels cannot be reached by criticism; but if they
could only be reached by Scott, they would quickly discover and resent
the swindle of which they have so long been the victims.

_A Dictionary of Medical Science_, etc. By ROBLEY DUNGLISON, M.D., LL.D.
Revised and very greatly enlarged.

It does not fall within our province to enter into a minute examination
of a professional work like the one before us. As a Medical Dictionary
is a book, however, which every general reader will find convenient at
times, and as we have long employed this particular dictionary with
great satisfaction, we do not hesitate to devote a few sentences to its
notice.

We remember when it was first published in 1833, meagre, as compared
with its present affluence of information. A few years later a second
edition was honorably noticed in the "British and Foreign Medical
Review." At that time it was only half the size of Hooper's well-known
Medical Dictionary, but by its steady growth in successive editions it
has reached that obesity which is tolerable in books we consult, but
hardly in such as we read. The labor expended in preparing the work
must have been immense, and, unlike most of our stereotyped medical
literature, it has increased by true interstitial growth, instead of
by mere accretion, or of remaining essentially stationary--with the
exception of the title-page.

We can confidently recommend this work as a most ample and convenient
book of reference upon Anatomy, Physiology, Climate, and other subjects
likely to be occasionally interesting to the general reader, as well as
upon all practical matters connected with the art of healing.

In the present state of education and intelligence, he must be a dull
person who does not frequently find a question arising on some point
connected with this range of studies. The student will find in this
dictionary an enormous collection of synonymes in various languages,
brief accounts of almost everything medical ever heard of, and full
notices of many of the more important subjects treated,--such as
Climate, Diet, Falsification of Drugs, Feigned Diseases, Muscles,
Poisons, and many others.

Here and there we notice blemishes, as must be expected in so huge
a collection of knowledge. Thus, _Bronchlemmitis_ is not _Polypus
bronchialis_, but _Croup_.--The accent of _laryngeal_ and _pharyngeal_
is incorrectly placed on the third syllable. In this wilderness of words
we look in vain for the New York provincialism "Sprue." The work has
a right to some scores, perhaps hundreds, of such errors, without
forfeiting its character. If the Elzevirs could not print the "Corpus
Juris Civilis" without a false heading to a chapter, we may excuse a
dictionary-maker and his printer for an occasional slip. But it is a
most useful book, and scholars will find it immensely convenient.

_Scenes of Clerical Life_. By GEORGE ELIOT. Originally published in
"Blackwood's Magazine." New York: Harper & Brothers. 1858.

Fiction represents the character of the age to which it belongs, not
merely by actual delineations of its times, like those of "Tom Jones"
and "The Newcomer," but also in an indirect, though scarcely less
positive manner, by its exhibition of the influence of the times upon
its own form and general direction, whatever the scene or period it may
have chosen for itself. The story of "Hypatia" is laid in Alexandria
almost two thousand years ago, but the book reflects the crudities of
modern English thought; and even Mr. Thackeray, the greatest
living master of costume, succeeds in making his "Esmond" only a
joint-production of the Addisonian age and our own. Thus the novels of
the last few years exhibit very clearly the spirit that characterizes
the period of regard for men and women as men and women, without
reference to rank, beauty, fortune, or privilege. Novelists recognize
that Nature is a better romance-maker than the fancy, and the public is
learning that men and women are better than heroes and heroines, not
only to live with, but also to read of. Now and then, therefore, we get
a novel, like these "Scenes of Clerical Life," in which the fictitious
element is securely based upon a broad groundwork of actual truth, truth
as well in detail as in general.

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