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that point? And what was Edmund Kean's reading? They come to the play with us, when it is a great play, and the actors are great actors, or approaching greatness, and is not that the survival of fame? Of all plays, "The Merchant of Venice" is that one which the spectator would, we fancy, go to see with the "historical" association most strongly in his mind, and also that one in which the actors of the great parts would be most pressed and overshadowed by the tradition of their predecessors. That was, how ever, no "historical" Shylock which Mr. Irving set before the closely-packed audience assembled on last Saturday evening to see Shakespeare's finest comedy put upon the stage of the Lyceum as it has certainly never previously been put upon any stage, and acted as it has not often been acted. Probably, to every mind, except that of Shakespeare himself—in which all potential interpretations of his Shylock, as all potential interpretations of his Hamlet, must have had a place the complex image which Mr. Irving presented to a crowd more or less impressed with notions of their own concerning the Jew whom Shakespeare drew, was entirely novel and unexpected; for here is a man whom none can despise, who can raise emotions both of pity and of fear, and make us Christians thrill with a retrospective sense of shame. Here is a usurer indeed, but no more like the customary modern rendering of that extortionate lender of whom Bassanio borrowed moneys than the merchants dei Medici were like pawnbrokers down Whitechapel way; a usurer indeed, and full of "thrift," which is rather the protest of his disdain and disgust for the sensuality and frivolity of the ribald crew, out of whom he makes his “Christian ducats," than of his own sordidness; a usurer indeed, but, above all, a Jew! One of the race accursed in the evil days in which he lives, but chosen of Jehovah in the olden time wherein lie his pride, and belief, and hope—the best of that hope being revenge on the enemies of himself and all his tribe, now wearing the badge of sufferance, revenge, rendered by the stern tenets of a faith which teaches that "the Lord, his God, is a jealous God, taking vengeance," not only lawful, but holy. A Jew, in intellectual faculties, in spiritual discipline, far in advance of the time and the country in which he lives, shaken with strong passion sometimes, but for the most part fixed in a deep and weary disdain. He is an old man, but not very aged, so that the epithet "old" used to him is not to be mistaken for anything but the insolence it means; a widower-his one pathetic mention of his "Leah" was as beautiful a touch as ever has been laid upon the many-stringed lyre of human feeling the father of a daughter who amply

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justifies his plain mistrust of her, an odious, immodest, dishonest creature, than whom Shakespeare drew no more unpleasant character, and to whom one always grudges the loveliest love-lines that ever were spoken, especially when it is borne in mind that the speaker, Lorenzo, was at best a receiver of stolen goods. Mr. Irving's Shylock is a being quite apart from his surroundings. When he hesitates and questions with himself why he should go forth to sup with those who would scorn him if they could, but can only ridicule him, while the very stealthy intensity of scorn of them is in him, we ask, too, why should he? He would hardly be more out of place in the “wilderness of monkeys," of which he makes his sad and quaint comparison, when Tubal tells him of that last coarse proof of the heartlessness of his daughter "wedded with a Christian "-the bartering of his Leah's ring. What mean, pitiful beings they all are, poetical as is their language, and fine as are the situations of the play, in comparison with the forlorn, resolute, undone, baited, betrayed, implacable old man, who, having personified his hatred of the race of Christians in Antonio, whose odiousness to him, in the treble character of a Christian, a sentimentalist, and a reckless speculator, is less of a mere caprice than he explains it to be! He reasons calmly with the dullards in the court concerning this costly whim of his, yet with a disdainful doubt of the justice that will be done him; standing almost motionless, his hands hanging by his sides—they are an old man's hands, feeble, except when passion turns them into griping claws, and then that passion subsides into the quivering of age, which is like palsy-his gray, worn face, lined and hollow, mostly averted from the speakers who move him not, except when a gleam of murderous hate, sudden and deadly, like the flash from a pistol, goes over it, and burns for a moment in the tired, melancholy eyes! Such a gleam there came when Shylock answered Bassanio's palliative commonplace with

"Hates any man the thing he would not kill?" At the wretched gibes of Gratiano, and the amiable maundering of the Duke, the slow, cold smile, just parting the lips and touching their curves as light touches polished metal, passes over the lower part of the face, but does not touch the eyes or lift the brow. This is one of Mr. Irving's most remarkable facial effects, for he can pass it through all the phases of a smile, up to surpassing sweetness. Is it a fault of the actors or of ours that this Shylock is a being so absolutely apart that it is impossible to picture him as a part of the life of Venice, that we can not think of him "on the Rialto" before Bassanio wanted "moneys," and Antonio had "plunged,"

like any London city-man in the pre-" depression" times, that he absolutely begins to exist with the "Three thousand ducats-well!" These are the first words uttered by the picturesque personage to whom the splendid and elaborate scene, whose every detail we have previously been eagerly studying, becomes merely the background. He is wonderfully weird, but his weirdness is quite unlike that of any other of the impersonations in which Mr. Irving has accustomed us to that characteristic; it is impressive, never fantastic-sometimes solemn and terrible. There was a moment when, as he stood in the last scene with folded arms and bent head, the very image of exhaustion, a victim, entirely convinced of the justice of his cause, he looked like a Spanish painter's "Ecce Homo." The likeness passed in an instant, for the next utterance is:

"My deeds upon my head. I crave the law, The penalty and forfeit of my bond."

In the opinion of the present writer, his Shylock is Mr. Irving's finest performance, and his final exit is its best point. The quiet shrug, the glance of ineffable, unfathomable contempt at the exultant booby Gratiano, who, having got hold of a good joke, worries it like a puppy with a bone, the expression of defeat in every limb and feature, the deep, gasping sigh as he passes slowly out, and the crowd rush from the court to hoot and howl at him outside, make up an effect which must be seen to be comprehended. Perhaps some students of Shakespeare, reading the Jew's story to themselves, and coming to the conclusion that there was more sentiment than legality in that queer, confused, quibbling court, where judge and advocate were convertible terms, may have doubted whether the utterer of the most eloquent and famous satirical appeal in all dramatic literature, whose scornful detestation of his Christian foes rose mountains high over what they held to be his ruling passion, drowning avarice fathom-deep in hatred, would have gratified those enemies by useless railing, and an exhibition of impotent rage. But there is no "tradition" for this rendering, in which Mr. Irving puts in action for his Shylock one sense of Hamlet's words "The rest is silence!" The impression made by this consummate stroke of art and touch of nature upon the vast audience was most remarkable; the thrill that passed over the house was a sensation to have witnessed and shared.

Although Mr. Irving sinks the usurer in the Jew in a quite novel manner, he does not do so too entirely, departing from Shakespeare's intention arbitrarily; he only reverses the general estimate of the intensity of Shylock's two master

passions. Both are present always, and his last effort to clutch the gold when the revenge has escaped his grasp, his cunning, business-like "Give me my principal, and let me go," is an admirable point. Throughout the entire performance the actor's best qualities are at their best, and his characteristic faults are hardly apparent. The picturesqueness of his appearance is largely assisted by the grave, flowing robe and shawl-girdle which he wears; his self-restraint fails not before his Christian foes; Shylock's passionate agony is in soliloquy, or when only Tubal, a Jew, like him, who understands him and their common holy faith, and what dogs these Christians are, as well as "Father Abraham" himself understands it, is with him. In the scene with Tubal, the sentence, "The curse never fell upon our nation till now-I never felt it till now!" is as finely delivered as Mr. Irving's “I know, I know-I was a dauphin myself once," in his "Louis XI." There was a fine effect-and it, too, thrilled the house-in the third scene of the first act. In the striking of the terrible bargain between Antonio and the Jew, Shylock touches the Christian lightly on the breast; Antonio recoils, and Shylock, without breaking his discourse, bows low, in apologetic deprecation of his own daring and the merchant's indignation, while his face is alight for an instant with a gleam of hatred and derision truly devilish.

All those liberties which Mr. Irving has taken with the text of the play are not only allowable, but welcome. It is to be wished that his good taste had suggested just one more alterationonly one, for we suppose the heavy fooling of Launcelot Gobbo must remain, like those detestable rhymes in "Hamlet," on pain of accusation of treason against Shakespeare, who was, no doubt, proud of his bad puns. That one is the omission of Gratiano's horrid jest when Shylock is whetting his knife on the edge of his shoe"Not on thy sole, but on thy soul, harsh Jew, thou mak'st thy knife keen." Could not this flagrant vulgarity be discarded?

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Of Miss Ellen Terry's Portia, it is almost superfluous to speak, for it has been long and well known to be of an excellence without rival or compeer. Probably no more beautiful sight than the "casket scenes has ever been beheld on any stage, with this consummate actress, in her golden-hued, gold-fringed, satin robes, with her beautiful face, her sweet, flexible voice, her graceful, exquisitely appropriate movements and gestures, her sweet, womanly perplexity, girlish fun, swiftly growing passion, and gracious wifely surrender, amid surroundings which are almost ideally perfect.

The Spectator.

EDITOR'S

TABLE.

system in order to carry on the ordinary business of the

PROPOSED FEDERATION OF THE BRIT- country. Nor would this rearrangement require that

THE

ISH EMPIRE.

HE "Westminster Review" has discussed in recent numbers the urgency and the feasibility of a federation of the British Empire. It is proposed to create an Imperial Parliament, in which representatives from the colonies are to sit, and to separate local from imperial measures by forming a local House of Parliament for the consideration of the former, leaving the Imperial House to deal exclusively with matters that pertain to the empire at large. Local colonial Legislatures would remain much as at present. An Irish local Parliament is suggested, but the writer's plan seems to suppose that the English local House would include Scotland in its jurisdiction. Apart from many direct advantages that would arise from the proposed plan, is the consideration that the present Parliament is burdened with business beyond its power to transact. Every year, it is affirmed, numerous measures are shelved without, from lack of time, having been considered at all. But this evil is partly due to the fact that on certain popular questions the time of the House is utterly wasted in listening to the repetition ad nauseam of the same ideas and opinions, by members who feel it to be their duty to make speeches, in order to have them read by their constituents"-which shows that Buncombe is a power at Westminster as well as at Washington. This is an evil which is likely rather to increase than otherwise, and hence a remedy must be found for it, which the "Westminster Review" thinks is secured in its proposed plan:

The gain to Parliamentary legislation by this course would be immediate and direct. The local House would be of manageable and compact proportions; its members would be able to devote their time and energies to the proper treatment and consideration of various local questions; the dissatisfaction caused at present throughout the country by the constant burking of local measures would be allayed; and we might even hope that the Irish difficulty would be set at rest, perhaps by the formation of an Irish local Parliament, but in any case, by reason of the House being able to devote proper time and attention to the consideration of Irish grievances. In a similar manner, the Imperial House would be much reduced in bulk and proportionately increased in activity and vitality. Its time would be occupied in the consideration of imperial questions; its energy would not then be frittered away upon petty local matters; nor would the business of the House be obstructed by members anxious to force the consideration of some local griev

ance.

Such a rearrangement of the Parliamentary system would expedite public business to a degree that could not be attained by any other system; and, considering the constant and steady growth of Parliamentary business, it would seem that recourse must be had to some such

any violence should be done to the English Parliamentary system; it would not introduce any new principle such as would be the case if a large part of the empire were to be represented by an advisory board, as has been suggested; it would simply be to adopt the confederation system that has been found to work so smoothly in Germany and the United States. A scheme of this nature to facilitate the dispatch of Parliamentary business was put forward some years ago by Earl Russell, and the fact that so experienced a Parliamentarian as he favored the idea is somewhat of a guarantee that it is not impracticable.

It will be recalled by many of our readers that numerous English critics have condemned our American federal system as cumbersome; they have even laughed at the notion that in order to carry on the business of the country there must exist nearly forty different legislative bodies and as many executives. These critics did not consider the tremendous stress Congress would be under if all local questions that arise in our extended country were brought to its chambers; and now all at once we find our system gravely held up as a guide and example. The Westminster" even supposes the creation of a sort of under-executives-its plan, for either England or Ireland, being as follows:

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to her Ministers.

The country would be under a Viceroy or Governor, appointed by the Queen in Council. The advisers of the Viceroy would be drawn from the members of the local House, and the relations of the Viceroy to his Ministers would be precisely analogous to those of the Queen House would require the assent of the Viceroy before All measures passed by the local they could become law. But any measure of doubtful constitutionality could be "reserved" by the Viceroy, in which case the bill would be remitted for the consideration of the Queen in Council, and either passed or vetoed. Also any measure passed by the local House, and assented to by the Viceroy, could be annulled if vetoed by the Queen in Council within two years from the time of assent. These provisions have been adopted in Canada

as between the Governor-General and the LieutenantGovernors, and as between the Queen and the GovernorGeneral, so as to preserve a proper control over provincial or local legislation. Copies of all bills assented to by the Viceroy would be immediately forwarded to the Secretary of State for her Majesty's consideration.

It will doubtless be a long time before we shall see as radical a change as this in the English Parliamentary system; but it is easy for us at this distance to see the advantages that would arise from such a scheme, and difficult to understand what rational objection there can be to it. Such a system would assuredly bind the colonies closer to the mother-country, without overthrowing her supremacy; for, according to a schedule laid down in the "Westminster" article, in a House of three hundred members, one hundred and eighty-five members would be allotted to

England, twenty-five to Scotland, forty to Ireland, and fifty to the colonies. The immense advantages that would arise from the greater dispatch of business ought of itself to compensate for whatever minor evils a federation of the empire would lead to-if such evils are possible.

THE SPIRITUAL IN ART.

A WRITER in the last "Cornhill," in an article entitled "The Apologia of Art," attempts to account for the existence of art in all its forms. He says:

If we look back through the records of past ages,

back even to the very dawn of civilization, we find one fact of human life continually presenting itself: this is, the need of man for expression-his overmastering desire not only to enjoy, but to show that he enjoys-not only for conquest, but also for triumph. There seems to be some inherent tendency which compels mankind to record their sorrows and their joys, to leave upon the earth some trace of their presence. The earliest traces we can find of art show us that its birth was due to this impulse; the rhythmic song of the savage was raised in moments of rejoicing or mourning; the adorning of his face with paint, and his head with feathers, was but another way of expressing his joy in battle and his confidence in victory. However the idea first dawned in the world, to whatever accident it was due, it can hardly be doubted that even among savage tribes the power of measured sound is recognized to be expressive of some feelings in their nature which can not otherwise find vent.

I claim for art that by it alone can the whole of man's nature be expressed; and that in all great works of art the three elements of the intellectual, the emotional, and the spiritual are to be found. I maintain further that the vital quality in all fine art is the presence of this spiritual element, this deeper insight which endows with new meaning whatever it touches. And regarding this element as the highest in man's nature, I consider that to be the highest art in which the proportion of the spiritual insight to the intellectual meaning and the sensuous perception is the greatest.

The air is full of criticism similar to the above, expressed; and hence we are disposed to inquire although it is not always so cogently and eloquently

whether the whole assumption of a spiritual element in art is not a vague sentiment, a piece of transcendental ecstasy. That art exercises great power over our emotional susceptibilities is not to be denied ; but it is no new thing to imagine that our sensuous emotions have their birth in the spirit, and that they are nothing less than a form of divine exaltation. Now it is doubtless quite impossible to explain how it is that beauty and harmony exercise their great sway over us; how and why "measured sound" and the "harmonies of color and line" should thrill us and fill us with delightful and indescribable sensations; but to assume that a spiritual element in these forms of expression is the source of their power seems to us to jump the whole matter. It is

This I believe to be the fundamental fact concerning the quite possible, indeed, that, if the spirit of man were

origin of art-namely, that it gave expression to a new element in man's nature.

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If we grant, then, that it was owing to its power of giving adequate representation to the whole nature of man that art became the exponent of his emotions, we may well be asked, Why it was that only in harmonies of color and sound would this whole nature be shown? Why is it that language can not give the same degree of meaning? To this I can only suggest a possible answer. For our definite thoughts and emotions, we can find words which shall paint them with far greater clearness than art can ever do; the emotion of poets, for instance, can be analyzed and detailed in prose to a far greater extent than would be possible in either a picture or a poem, though in the latter we might give an instance of the passion that should light up our prose analysis with a fuller meaning. But when the spiritual element has to be grasped in words, we find ourselves comparatively powerless; our instrument is not subtile enough for the tune we wish to play upon it-words are too hard, cold, and definite to express the feeling we would put into them. Here it is that Art steps in to our rescue, talking to us, as it were, in two languages at once, supplementing the deficiencies of language by the harmonies of color and line. The subject and its correct drawing may well be compared to language expressing the emotion and the thought; the combinations of line and color, by which the artist expresses his idea, stand in the relation of the spiritual element to the rest of the picture. And as it is true that the vital power of any scene or beauty is one which we alone can not put into words, so the vital power of any work of great art is that spiritual element which has unconsciously to itself breathed its influence over the master's mind and his hands' work.

wholly freed from the influences and seductions of the senses, color and sound would cease to agitate it, or physical beauty have any meaning for it. We do not find the races with whom or the epochs in which spiritual life has been the most exalted falling under the dominion of art; nor do we see persons of the finest spiritual strain show either the need or much of the influence of art. "After four hundred years of contest with the Church," says the writer from whom we have been quoting, "the force of nature was too strong for the force of the priesthood, and, though still consecrated to the service of religion, Art became free to represent her subjects in her own way, and began that great forward movement that culminated in the Renaissance. From the time of Giotto to the time of Raphael, Art, as it were, took the vows of the Church, and so in narrowed but perhaps deepened channels passed into being the sole exponent of the overmastering religious emotions of the age." We apprehend that art conquered the Church only as the spiritual earnestness of its worshipers declined, and that the "overmastering religious emotions," of which art became the exponent, was far more a passion for the sensuous form of religion than for its spiritual bliss-for the pomp, the music, the color, the splendor of a grand pictorial worship, rather than for inner light and grace. If the Renaissance was a grand revival of art, the Reformation was a general spiritual awakening, in the heat of which art and all the emotions that art excites were consumed. We do not sympathize with that form of religious fervor that fortifies the sensi

bilities against beauty; but there is no denying the fact that intense spiritual life renders everything else in the world valueless; it rises to a plane to which art with all its manifold seductions can not rise. And this is also true of pure intellectual life. Sound and color have very little fascination for the mind engrossed in the study of great problems or deeply concerned in any pursuit of an engrossing character. Neither great reformers nor great thinkers have exhibited much susceptibility to art, at least in its forms of painting and sculpture.

Let us admit, however, that art has great control over the human heart. Has it more than beauty in nature has? Are the emotions that it awakens in any way different? When we look upon the ravishing beauty of a "maiden in her flower," can it be pretended that the sensations thus awakened-difficult as they are to analyze or to comprehend-are in any wise more than a delight of the senses-an inexplicable emotion which color and contour, freshness and grace, have the power to excite? Does loveliness in marble awaken emotions other than those that loveliness in flesh stimulates, unless it be the single one of admiration for the skill of the copyist? It is a great temptation, no doubt, to remand the strange agitations of the senses to the spirit; they are certainly subtile and profound enough to escape dissection; but we exalt ourselves by illusions if we fall into the habit of thinking that the delights of the senses, so often enjoyed at the cost of spiritual purity, are really identical with the felicities of the

soul.

Our writer in the course of his article has the following to say in regard to academic art:

Academic art may be briefly defined as the endeavor to paint actions in a way which could never have taken place, with the idea of thereby creating a pleasing effect upon the eye of the beholder. The creed of those who adhere to this school is this: A picture is not to be judged by any other rules than those of pictures-that is to say, you must not blame a picture for being unnatural, or uninteresting, or meaningless, or even absurd, or all or any of these; but you must simply notice whether the effect produced by the lines upon the eye is a pleasing one, whether the figures are arranged in obedience to the laws of composition, whether the light and shade are evenly distributed and skillfully opposed, whether the figures have dignity of gesture and form, and so on. Plainly stated, this sounds as if it were a burlesque, but it is strictly and literally the creed of academists, though they would probably hesitate to write it as clearly as I

have done.

If this be the end and aim of art, I confess myself a "Philistine" at once; better never have another picture in the world, and then go on adding absurdity to absurdity and thinking it to be art. How long will it be, I wonder, ere all the dreary formulas of the schools cease to be heard among us; when a picture will be judged, not by its accordance with empirical rules, but in accordance with established truth; when our students are taught to put thought as well as drawing, feeling as well as color, into their work?

But this academic method has been very largely the end and aim of art; and it is because of this

that laymen unacquainted with the principles at work have found it so difficult to understand the ground of approval among critics. They have found the dreariest and most uninteresting paintings exalted to the skies, and any question of the verdict they might utter denounced as ignorance. They have been ignorant in one sense-ignorant of the studio point of view, which may be attained with utter insensibility to genuine beauty and natural laws. If the authority of academic art were deposed, how many of the innumerable canvases that encumber the galleries of Europe would longer be imposed on the credulity of the world? And is it not strange that a critic should tell us with so much eloquence of the spiritual beauty of art, when, according to his own confession, art, with a very few exceptions, has been merely exemplifications of pedantry and technical skill? And then the current defiances of academic law that we see are almost invariably in the direction of pure sensuous art, its mission being, according to one of its disciples, to represent a land "where perfect women, with their feet on perfect flowers, move across our fancy as in twilight."

In another place our writer delivers himself as follows:

To penetrate the mark of commonplace circumstance and familiar indifference that spreads between the rich and the poor; to show them governed by the same passions, subject to the same needs, and crushed by the same death of a vagrant as great an element of pathos as in

sorrows, as their more fortunate brethren; to find in the

that of a Cæsar; in a word, to show that the same heart beats beneath frieze, fustian, and broadcloth coats-this, at any rate, is a legitimate sphere for art, and one in which its very highest qualities may find fitting exercise.

Here it is our pleasure to cordially agree with him. But, then, nine tenths of the painters would stigmatize this as the literary notion of art, the wonderful purpose of which is not to be pathetic, or human, or even interesting, but to fill us with spiritual ideas by stimulating the color nerves!

ADORNING THE CITY.

It is reported that a movement is on foot in Boston to form a society for promoting the adornment and improvement of that city. If this rumor prove to be true, Boston is to be congratulated; but we must claim for ourselves priority in suggesting the organization of societies for the purpose described. It is now fully eight years ago since we first broached in "Appletons' Journal" the idea of a metropolitan art association for the purpose of erecting, or promoting the erection, of statues, monuments, fountains, towers, or other objects of a purely art character, and we have several times since urged the idea upon the public. If Boston anticipate New York in the formation of such an association, it will not be because no such notion has ever been promulgated here; and Boston will surely anticipate the

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