speaks here were a voice of power--we would entreat the young and
brilliant talents on which depends the future lot of a literature for
three ages so magnificent to reflect how important is their mission,
and to preserve in their _manner_ of writing the most worthy and
severe habitudes. The Future--let them think well of it--belongs only
to the masters of _style_. Without referring to the admirable works of
antiquity, and confining ourselves to our National Literature, try to
take from the _thought_ of our great writers the expression which is
peculiar to it. Take from Moliere his lively, ardent, frank, and
amusing verse, so well made, so well turned, so well finished--take
from Lafontaine the simple and honest perfection of detail--take from
the phrase of Corneille the vigorous muscle, the strong cords, the
beautiful forms of exaggerated vigor, which would have made of the old
poet half Roman, half Spanish, the Michael Angelo of our tragedy if
the elements of genius had mingled as much fancy as thought--take from
Racine that touch in his style which resembles Raphael, a touch
chaste, harmonious, and repressed like that of Raphael, although of an
inferior power--quite as pure but less grand, as perfect though less
sublime--take from Fenelon, the man of his age who had the best
sentiment of antiquity, that prose as melodious and severe as the
verse of Racine of which it is the sister--take from Bossuet the
magnificent bearing of his periods--take from Boileau his grave and
sober manner at times so admirably colored--take from Pascal that
original and mathematical style with so much appropriateness in the
choice of words, and so much logic in every metaphor--take from
Voltaire that clear, solid, and indestructible prose, that crystal
prose of Candide, and the Philosophical Dictionary--take from all
these great writers that simple attraction--_style_: and of Voltaire,
of Pascal, of Boileau, of Bossuet, of Fenelon, of Racine, of
Corneille, of Lafontaine, of Moliere--of all these masters what will
remain? It is _style_ which insures duration to the work, and fame to
the poet. Beauty of expression embellishes beauty of thought, and
preserves it. It is at the same time an ornament and an armor. _Style_
to the idea is like enamel to the tooth."
* * * * *
_The Western Journal of the Medical and Physical Sciences, edited by
Daniel Drake, M.D. Professor of the Theory and Practice of Medicine in
Cincinnati College, and formerly Professor of the same in Transylvania
University, and the Jefferson Medical College. Doctors C. R. Cooper
and S. Reed, Assistant Editors and Proprietors. Vol. IX, No. 33._ We
have received this Journal with the greatest pleasure, and avail
ourselves of the present opportunity to express our opinion concerning
it. It is an invaluable addition to our Medical and Scientific
Literature, and at the same time one of the very cheapest publications
in the country, each number containing 168 pages of closely printed
matter, and the subscription price being only $3 per annum. The work
is issued on the first day of July, October, January, and April, and
has lately been incorporated with the Western Medical Gazette. We
sincerely wish the publication every possible success--for it is well
worthy of it. Its typographical and mechanical execution altogether
are highly creditable to Cincinnati, and the able and well known
collaborators, a list of whose names is upon the opening page of each
number, and whose editorial offices are engaged in the service of the
Journal, will not fail to impart a sterling character and value to the
Medical, as well as purely Literary portions of the work. We take the
liberty of extracting from page 79, of the present number, (that for
July) an interesting account of a cure of partial spontaneous
combustion, occurring in the person of Professor H. of the University
of Nashville. The portion extracted is contained in a Review of _An
Essay on Spontaneous Combustion, read before the Medical Society in
the State of Tennessee, at their annual meeting in May 1835. By James
Overton, M.D._
"Prof. H., of the University of Nashville, is a gentleman 35 years
old, of middle size, light hair, hazle eyes, and sanguinolymphatic
temperament; he has been extremely temperate as to alcoholic
stimulation of every kind; led a sedentary and studious life; and been
subject to a great variety of dyspeptic affections. On the 5th of
January, 1835, he left his recitation room at 11 o'clock, A. M., and
walked briskly, with his surtout buttoned round him, to his residence,
three quarters of a mile. The thermometer was at 8°, and the barometer
at 29.248--the sky clear and calm. On reaching home he engaged in
meteorological observations, and in 30 minutes, while in the open air
about to record the direction of the winds--
"'He felt a pain as if produced by the pulling of a hair, on the left
leg, and which amounted in degree to a strong sensation. Upon applying
his hand to the spot pained, the sensation suddenly increased, till it
amounted in intensity to a feeling resembling the continued sting of a
wasp or hornet. He then began to slap the part by repeated strokes
with the open hand, during which time the pain continued to increase
in intensity, so that he was forced to cry out from the severity of
his suffering. Directing his eyes at this moment to the suffering
part, he distinctly saw a light flame of the extent, at its base, of a
ten cent piece of coin, and having a complexion which nearest
resembles that of pure quicksilver. Of the accuracy in this latter
feature in the appearance of the flame, Mr. H. is very confident,
notwithstanding the unfavorable circumstances amidst which the
observation must have been made. As soon as he perceived the flame, he
applied over it both his hands open, united at their edges, and
closely impacted upon and around the burning surface. These means were
employed by Mr. H. for the purpose of extinguishing the flame by the
exclusion of the contact of the atmosphere, which he knew was
necessary to the continuance of every combustion. The result was in
conformity with the design, for the flame immediately went out. As
soon as the flame was extinguished, the pain began to abate in
intensity, but still continued, and gave the sensation usually the
effect of a slight application of heat or fire to the body, which
induced him to seize his pantaloons with one of his hands and to pinch
them up into a conical form over the injured part of the leg, thereby
to remove them from any contact with the skin below. This operation
was continued for a minute or two, with a design of extinguishing any
combustion which might be present in the substance of his apparel, but
which was not visible at the time. At the beginning of the accident,
the sensation of injury was confined to a spot of small diameter, and
in its progress the pain was still restricted to this spot, increasing
in intensity and depth to a considerable extent, but without much if
any enlargement of the surface which it occupied at the beginning. A
warmth was felt to a considerable distance around the spot primarily
affected, but the sensation did not by any means amount in degree to
the feeling of _pain_. This latter sensation was almost, if not
entirely confined to the narrow limits which bounded the seat of the
first attack, and this sensation was no otherwise modified during the
progress of the accident, than by its increasing intensity and deeper
penetration into the muscles of the limb, which at its greatest degree
seemed to sink an inch or more into the substance of the leg.
"'Believing the combustion to have been extinguished by the means just
noticed, and the pain having greatly subsided, leaving only the
feeling usually the effect of a slight burn, he untied and pulled up
his pantaloons and drawers, for the purpose of ascertaining the
condition of the part which had been the seat of his suffering. He
found a surface on the outer and upper part of the left leg, reaching
from the femoral end of the fibula in an oblique direction, towards
the upper portion of the grastrochnemi muscles, about three-fourths of
an inch in width, and three inches in length, denuded of the
scarfskin, and this membrane gathered into a roll at the lower edge of
the abraded surface. The injury resembled very exactly in appearance
an abrasion of the skin of like extent and depth, often the effect of
slight mechanical violence, except that the surface of it was
extremely _dry_, and had a complexion more livid than that of wounds
of a similar extent produced by the action of mechanical causes.' pp.
25-26.
"His drawers, composed of silk and wool, immediately over the abraded
skin, were burnt entirely through, but the scorching had not extended
in the slightest degree beyond. The pantaloons, made of broadcloth,
were uninjured; but over the affected spot, the extremities of the
wool were tinged with a kind of dark, yellowish matter, which could be
easily scraped off with a knife.
"'Considering the injury not to be of a serious character, Mr. H.
bestowed upon its treatment no particular care or attention, but
pursued his usual avocations within doors and in the open air, which
was very cold, until the evening of the succeeding day. At this time
the wound became inflamed and painful, and was dressed with a salve,
into the composition of which the rosin of turpentine entered in
considerable proportion. This treatment was continued for four or five
days, during which time the wound presented the usual aspect of a burn
from ordinary causes, except in its greater depth and more tardy
progress towards cicatrization, which did not take place till after
thirty-two days from the date of the infliction of the injury. The
part of the ulcer which healed last was the point of inception and
intensity of the pain at the time of attack, and which point was
evidently the seat of deeper injury than any other portion of the
wounded surface. About the fifth day after the accident, a physician
was requested to take charge of the treatment, and the remedies
employed were such chiefly, as are usual in the treatment of burns
from other causes, except that twice a week the surface of the ulcer
was sprinkled over with calomel, and a dressing of simple cerate
applied above it. In the space between the wound and the groin there
was a considerable soreness of the integuments to the touch, which
continued during the greatest violence of the effects of the accident,
and then gradually subsided. The cicatrix is at this time, March 24th,
entire; but the surface is unusually scabrous, and has a much more
livid aspect than that of similar scars left after the infliction of
burns from common causes. The dermis seemed to have been less
perfectly regenerated than is usual from burns produced by ordinary
means, and the circulation through the part is manifestly impeded,
apparently in consequence of atony of its vessels, to an extent far
beyond any thing of a similar nature to be observed after common
burns.'" pp. 27-28.
* * * * *
_The Classical Family Library. Numbers XV, XVI, and XVII. Euripides
translated by the Reverend R. Potter, Prebendary of Norwich. Harper &
Brothers, New York._ These three volumes embrace the whole of
Euripides--Æschylus and Sophocles having already been published in the
Library. A hasty glance at the work will not enable us to speak
positively in regard to the value of these translations. The name of
Potter, however, is one of high authority, and we have no reason to
suspect that he has not executed his task as well as any man living
could have done it. But that these, or that any poetic versions can
convey to the mind of the merely general reader the most remote
conception of either the manner, the spirit, or the meaning of the
Greek dramatists, is what Mr. Potter does not intend us to believe,
and what we certainly should not believe if he did. At all events, it
must be a subject of general congratulation, that in the present day,
for a sum little exceeding three dollars, any lover of the classics
may possess himself of complete versions of the three greatest among
the ancient Greek writers of tragedy.
Ardent admirers of Hellenic Literature, we have still no passion for
Euripides. Truly great when compared with many of the moderns, he
falls immeasurably below his immediate predecessors. "He is
admirable," says a German critic, "where the object calls chiefly for
emotion, and requires the display of no higher qualities; and he is
still more so where pathos and moral beauty are united. Few of his
pieces are without particular passages of the most overpowering
beauty. It is by no means my intention to deny him the possession of
the most astonishing talents: I have only stated that these talents
were not united with a mind in which the austerity of moral principle,
and the sanctity of religious feelings were held in the highest
honor."
The life, essence, and characteristic qualities of the ancient Greek
drama may be found in three things. First, in the ruling idea of
Destiny or Fate. Secondly, in the Chorus. Thirdly, in Ideality. But in
Euripides we behold only the decline and fall of that drama, and the
three prevailing features we have mentioned are in him barely
distinguishable, or to be seen only in their perversion. What, for
example is, with Sophocles, and still more especially with Æschylus,
the obscure and terrible spirit of predestination, sometimes mellowed
down towards the catastrophe of their dramas into the unseen, yet not
unfelt hand of a kind Providence, or overruling God, becomes in the
handling of Euripides the mere blindness of accident, or the
capriciousness of chance. He thus loses innumerable
opportunities--opportunities which his great rivals have used to so
good an effect--of giving a preternatural and ideal elevation to moral
fortitude in the person of his heroes, by means of opposing them in a
perpetual warfare with the arbitrations and terrors of Destiny.
Again; the Chorus, which appears never to have been thoroughly
understood by the moderns--the Chorus of Euripides is not, alas! the
Chorus of his predecessors. That this singular, or at least apparently
singular feature, in the Greek drama, was intended for the mere
purpose of preventing the stage from being, at any moment entirely
empty, has been an opinion very generally, and very unaccountably
received. _The Chorus was not, at any time, upon the stage._ Its
general station was in the orchestra, in which it also performed the
solemn dances, and walked to and fro during the choral songs. And when
it did not sing, its proper station was upon the _thymele_, an
elevation somewhat like an altar, but with steps, in front of the
orchestra, raised as high as the stage, and opposite to the
scene--being also in the very centre of the entire theatre, and
serving as a point around which the semi-circle of the amphitheatre
was described. Most critics, however, have merely laughed at the
Chorus as something superfluous and absurd, urging the folly of
enacting passages supposed to be performed in secret in the presence
of an assembled crowd, and believing that as it originated in the
infancy of the art, it was continued merely through caprice or
accident. Sophocles, however, wrote a treatise on the Chorus, and
assigned his reasons for persisting in the practice. Aristotle says
little about it, and that little affords no clew to its actual meaning
or purpose. Horace considers it "a general expression of moral
participation, instruction, and admonition;" and this opinion, which
is evidently just, has been adopted and commented upon, at some
length, by Schlegel. Publicity among the Greeks, with their republican
habits and modes of thinking, was considered absolutely essential to
all actions of dignity or importance. Their dramatic poetry imbibed
the sentiment, and was thus made to display a spirit of conscious
independence. The Chorus served to give verisimilitude to the dramatic
action, and was, in a word, _the ideal spectator_. It stood in lieu of
the national spirit, and represented the general participation of the
human race, in the events going forward upon the stage. This was its
most extended, and most proper object; but it had others of a less
elevated nature, and more nearly in accordance with the spirit of our
own melo-drama.
But the Chorus of Euripides was not the true and unadulterated Chorus
of the purer Greek tragedy. It is even more than probable that he did
never rightly appreciate its full excellence and power, or give it any
portion of his serious attention. He made no scruple of admitting the
_parabasis_ into his tragedies[1]--a license which although well
suited to the spirit of comedy, was entirely out of place, and must
have had a ludicrous effect in a serious drama. In some instances
also, among which we may mention the Danaidæ, a female Chorus is
permitted by him to make use of grammatical inflexions proper only for
males.
[Footnote 1: The _parabasis_ was the privilege granted the Chorus of
addressing the spectators in its own person.]
In respect to the Ideality of the Greek drama, a few words will be
sufficient. It was the Ideality of conception, and the Ideality of
representation. Character and manners were never the character and
manners of every day existence, but a certain, and very marked
elevation above them. Dignity and grandeur enveloped each personage of
the stage--but such dignity as comported with his particular station,
and such grandeur as was never at _outrance_ with his allotted part.
And this was the Ideality of conception. The cothurnus, the mask, the
mass of drapery, all so constructed and arranged as to give an
increase of bodily size, the scenic illusions of a nature very
different, and much more extensive than our own, inasmuch as actual
realities were called in to the aid of art, were on the other hand the
Ideality of representation. But although in Sophocles, and more
especially in Æschylus, character and expression were made subservient
and secondary to this ideal and lofty elevation--in Euripides the
reverse is always found to be the case. His heroes are introduced
familiarly to the spectators, and so far from raising his men to the
elevation of Divinities, his Divinities are very generally lowered to
the most degrading and filthy common-places of an earthly existence.
But we may sum up our opinion of Euripides far better in the words of
Augustus William Schlegel, than in any farther observations of our
own.
"This poet has at the same time destroyed the internal essence of
tragedy, and sinned against the laws of beauty and proportion in its
external structure. He generally sacrifices the whole to the effect of
particular parts, and in these he is also more ambitious of foreign
attractions, than of genuine poetical beauty."
* * * * *
_The Early Naval History of England. By Robert Southey, L.L.D. Poet
Laureate. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Blanchard._ The early naval
history of England, and by so fine a writer as Southey undoubtedly is,
either in poetry or prose, but more especially in the latter, cannot
fail of exciting a lively interest among readers of every class. In
the subject matter of this work we, as Americans, have moreover a
particular feeling, for it has been often remarked that in no national
characteristic do we bear a closer analogy to our progenitors in Great
Britain than in the magnificence and glory of our many triumphs both
over and upon the sea. To those who know Southey well, and we
sincerely hope there are not a few of our readers who _do_ know him
intimately, through the medium of his writings at least, we shall be
under no necessity of giving any assurance that the History of which
we are now speaking, is a work of no common merit, and worthy of all
their attention. Southey is a writer who has few equals any where,
either in purity of truly English prose, or in melody of immortal
verse. He is great in every department of Literature which he has
attempted. And even did we feel inclined at present, with his very
happily executed Naval History before us, to quarrel with some of his
too zealous friends for overrating his merely poetical abilities, we
could not find it in our hearts to place him second to any one--no,
not to our own noble Irving in--we will not use the term classical,
but prefer repeating our former expression--in _truly English_,
undefiled, vigorous, and masculine prose. Yet this the North American
Review has ventured to do, not having, we think, before its eyes the
fear of flat and positive contradiction from all authorities whose
opinions are entitled to consideration. Comparisons of this nature,
moreover, rarely fail of _appearing_, even although they really _be
not_, invidious; and in the present instance we are really aware of no
reason, or rather of no possibility for juxta-position. There are no
points of approximation between Irving and Southey, and they cannot be
compared. Why not say at once, for it could be said as wisely, and as
satisfactorily, that Dante's verse is superior to that of
Metastasio--that the Latin of Erasmus is better than the Latin of
Buchanan--that Bolingbroke is a finer prose writer than Horne Tooke,
or coming home to our own times, that Tom Moore is to be preferred to
Lord Brougham, and the style of N. P. Willis to the style of John
Neal? We mean to deal, therefore, in generalities, when we disagree
with Mr. Everett in what he has advanced. Irving is _not_ a better
prose writer than Southey. We know of no one who is. In saying thus
much we do not fear being accused of a deficiency in patriotic
feeling. No true--we mean no sensible American will like a bad book
the better for being American, and on the other hand no sensible man
of any country, who pretends to even common freedom from prejudice,
will esteem such a work as the Naval History of Great Britain the less
for being written by a denizen of any region under the sun.
* * * * *
_The Gift: A Christmas and New Year's Present for 1836. Edited by Miss
Leslie. Philadelphia: E. L. Carey and A. Hart_--We are really sorry
that we have no opportunity of noticing this beautiful little Annual
at length, and article by article, in our present number: and this the
more especially as the edition is even now nearly exhausted, and it
will be hardly worth while to say any thing concerning the work in our
next, by which time we are very sure there will not be a copy to be
obtained at any price. The Gift is highly creditable to the enterprise
of its publishers, and more so to the taste and talents of Miss
Leslie. This we say _positively_--the ill-mannered and worse-natured
opinion of the Boston Courier to the contrary notwithstanding. Never
had Annual a brighter galaxy of illustrious literary names in its
table of contents--and in no instance has any contributor fallen below
his or her general reputation. The embellishments are _not all_ of a
high order of excellence. The Orphans, for example, engraved by Thomas
B. Welch from a painting by J. Wood, is hard and scratchy in manner,
and altogether unworthy of the book--while the head of the child in
the Prawn Fishers, engraved by A. W. Graham from a painting by W.
Collins, R.A. has every appearance of a cabbage. But the portrait of
Fanny Kemble by Cheney, from Sully, is one of the finest things in the
world, notwithstanding a certain wiriness above the hair. The likeness
is admirable--the attitude exquisite--and the countenance is beaming
all over with intelligence. The gem of the book, however, is the
Smuggler's Repose, engraved by W. E. Tucker from a painting by J.
Tennant. We repeat it, this is absolutely a gem--such as any Souvenir
in any country might be proud to possess, and sufficient of itself to
stamp a high character upon the Gift.