Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846. Various

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СКАЧАТЬ was presented. I suspect the very appliances of the modern stage bring the repulsiveness of the incident more prominently forward. There is a beautifully furnished room – a dressing-table beside the bed – nice curtains drawn all round it – snow-white sheets, and a pair of very handsome bed-room candles. The bed-room is brought too prominently forward; and when Desdemona is discovered asleep, it needs all the magic of Shakspeare's name, and the reverence that his genius has created and maintains, even upon the shilling gallery, to prevent the tragic interest from turning into another channel. The contrast is too great between the truthfulness of the bed-curtains and easy-chair, and the horrid purpose – which ought to be idealized, and not realized – for which the Moor enters the room. It is a frightful, blackfaced murderer – designed in the seventeenth century, and considered true to nature then, coming into the open daylight of the nineteenth, casting his Elizabethan energies into forms repulsive to the sentiments of our Victorian time; and we should also feel, if the play were presented to us for the first time, that an Othello created by Shakspeare – if he had been left for these latter times – would not have murdered his wife with a pillow – if he had murdered her at all – and would not have brought forward on the stage the bed-room of a jealous husband, with his wife expecting his approach. The barrenness of the stage in Shakspeare's time was an advantage in a scene like this; – when people were told to fancy that old bench was a bed, and that the close-shaved stripling reclining on it was a woman – the imagination was set down to a feast of its own: the scanty scenery became an accessory – not a realization – all that was palpable was the innocence and sacrifice of the heroine – and the awful and inexpressible struggles of the man.

      Do you see what I mean? Do you agree with me that it was a misfortune to the British drama that the summit of its glory was reached by Shakspeare so long ago; – a Shakspeare that knew the whole secrets of the human heart, as the human heart existed before his time – or at least as it was supposed in his time to exist; – a Shakspeare who was ignorant of the Great Rebellion – of the Restoration – of the Revolution – of the glorious First of June – of the Guillotine – of Napoleon – of Trafalgar – of Waterloo; – a Shakspeare who had never seen a telegraph – a mail-coach – a steam-boat – a railway. What sort of a man must this have been, that still maintains possession of the stage – that keeps (as I maintain) the British taste in a state of almost mediæval roughness, and chains the dramatic art itself to the slab over his grave? Perhaps, my dear Smith, the immortal Bunn is right after all. Perhaps, if all managers were to follow his example for forty years – if for forty years mankind were condemned to the wilderness of operas, and divertisements, and farces – we should forget the flavour of the flesh-pots (furnished by Shakspeare) which has so completely mastered our taste; – some Joshua would lead us into a chosen land, and feed us with all manner of delights; – the stage, I mean, would come, like the aloe, to a second flower, only resembling its ancient crown in its life and beauty, but smelling of the present time.

      For no beer, you will grant, is so pleasant as that which has the froth on. Its freshness even compensates for its want of strength. But if, in addition to being fresher by two hundred years than the tap of William Shakspeare of Stratford, it were as strong – as cunningly mixed of malt and hops – and had as beautiful a flavour as his had when it was first brewed – eh! Smith? What do you think, then? Isn't it worth while to live forty years on the chance? isn't it worth while to be teetotallers in the meantime? to live upon slops and gruel? Gentlemen, I propose the health of Mr Lumley and Mr Bunn.

      I remain, my dear Smith,

      Your admirer and friend,

G. Bobson.

      BIRBONIANA; OR, ITALIAN ANTIQUARIES AND ANTICHITÀ

      "Birbone – a Jew, a cheat, a rogue, a vagabond, a liar, a coiner, an utterer of all things base and false – an Antiquary!" – Baretti's Italian Dict.

      "Ah me! it is a dangerous freak,

      When men will dabble with Antique." —Hudibras(?)

Scene I. – The Introduction

      We will now introduce the reader to an antiquarian scene or two chez nous, transcribed from our journal as we entered them therein at the time. When it was currently understood throughout Naples – it did not take long for the report to spread – that we were a professed purchaser of antiquities, and "at home" to antiquaries, we were besieged all day and every day by a host of dealers, jewellers and Jews, whom the waiters were weary of announcing, and were still obliged to announce, who came with bundles under their arms, filled with things "ugly and old exceedingly," which they wished to dispose of as bargains, and hoped we would purchase. They came early in the morning; they braved the fiery heat of noon; they bided their time whilst we sat at dinner; and, on returning from our moonlit drive, we are prepared for the announcement that somebody still waits with something still unshown for us to see. Sometimes one man will come alone, and if he finds us unassailable or indifferent, he will take care to return next time in company with an accomplice, – an honest, plain fellow in his dealings, who, actuated by feelings of pure humanity, and in pursuance of his sturdy motto of "fiat justitia ruat cœlum," will, at the risk of offending his friend, alter his prices, and propose others vastly more equitable and advantageous for us. Enters one day a brace of these rogues at breakfast – two such palpable rogues in face that you needed no proficiency in Lavater to know at once with whom you had to deal. One of the pair, par nobile fratrum, gives a very respectful, the other, what is meant for a very courtly, bow. "This gentleman," says one unknown individual introducing the other – "This gentleman has just landed from Sicily, bringing with him a small collection of coins —vergini tutti– all virgins, and on which no amateur's eye has yet rested even for a moment." "Non e vero, Cavaliere?" "Altro che vero!" responds the cavalier. "I, sir," resumes the other, "am, as you have doubtless perceived, the poor mezzano, the mere umpire in this business; I have no interest in the sale of any articles in that gentleman's pockets; it was by the merest accident that I heard of his arrival an hour ago; and, as I know he must have something good, I pounced upon him at once – would not give him time even to shave, (voyez un peu cette barbe farouche– it was so), but brought him hither in great haste, lest others —vous concevez qu'à Naples." "To be sure we did; but did not the Cavaliere understand French?" "Not a word." "What says the Signore?" interrogates the unshaved Sicilian noble; "Domanda se lei capisce il Francese?" "Niente," not a bit of it, returns he, shaking his head guilelessly. "Non importa, – it's of no importance. You, Cavaliere, will mention your prices to me, I will propose them to this gentleman – he his; I will then give my opinion as to what is fair between you, and thus we shall, I trust, do a little business to the satisfaction of both. Signor Cavaliere s'accommodi." Thus admonished of our breach of manners in having kept the Cavaliere standing, we would fain atone for it on the spot, by begging the "mezzano" also to take a chair; but he declines it with modest confusion of face. "Come? ma che?" he has no pretension or business to place himself between "due illustrissimi signori," whose poor interpreter he is. We overcome his scruples, and all sit down, closely packed round a small table; while the noble dealer was unshrouding what seemed, from the length of time and material employed upon it, to be a mummy, and, from its size, perhaps a rat. We were all eagerness and expectancy, forming, as we sat, a capo d'opera for Valentine or Caravaggio, well grouped, and ripe and ready for the canvass. At length the "unwinding bout" draws to its close; the last wrapping is unwrapped; and a small bronze Venus, without a shift, falls on her haunches on the table. "What a beautiful pezzo have we here!" says the umpire, assuming the air of a man well versed in such matters, and turning her round to admire her proportions; "and where," asks he, in a manner that showed he had guessed the answer before receiving it; "where might this have been dug up?" "Nei contorni di Lentine," was the ready answer, and so he "had expected to hear it was; all the best opere Greche now come from that neighbourhood." We made no remark; there was a pause; we watched the countenance of the mezzano; he seemed to be getting more and more absorbed in the contemplation of the little Venus, till, after taking his time, while СКАЧАТЬ