"The best thing in the book is 'Semaël,' though the plot is neither very apparent nor very novel, the imagery as trite as need be, the blank verse heavy and monotonous, without breaks, grouping, or relief, and the accents as often as not on the prepositions:—
"'Thé felucca there
With lateen-sail, seen ín th' horizon-skirt
Shaping its course t'ward thé Egyptian shore,
"(Which Egyptian shore?)
"Gives tó the moon the silv'ry foam, which breaks
"(Could it give the foam from the moon?)
"'Gainst thé sharp keel, and tracks the wave with light.
While just beneath him bounds the lighter skiff
With bird-like speed; and darting tó the shore,
Lowers íts white sail,
"(Not another bark's, mind!)
and moors its painted prow
"(Oh, schoolboy's phrase!)
"Close tó the cliff. Disporting ín the sheen....
"And so forth.
"And yet this whole passage, and what follows, is really imaginative and picturesque, but spoilt by carelessness, carelessness, carelessness. Either write verses, we say again, or prose. And unless the metre and accent coincide with the sense, and make music when read merely as prose is read, the lines are a makeshift and a failure, and neither worth writing or reading, though they were as fanciful and overloaded as Mr. Browning's, or as grandiloquent and sugary as Mr. —— Who's?"
Lord Brougham, who next to the Duke of Wellington is now unquestionably the first man of the British Empire, a few days ago in the House of Lords complained of an instance of libel of a species which is extremely common in the United States, and which is of all species the most irritating and offensive. Lord Brougham observed, that no one who had lived so long as he had in Parliament had ever taken notice so seldom of any libellous matter published, or of any breach of privilege committed against him. He might also add, that no person had ever been more the object of the most indiscriminate, and he might say the most absurd and the most unfounded abuse. Nevertheless, in all such cases he had adopted a neutral course, and had left the truth to come out in the natural lapse of events. There was, however, one species of breach of privilege which he had never been disposed to pass unnoticed. Attacks one must undergo. To be exposed to attacks was the fate of all men who lived in public. No man ought to shrink from or be too sensitive to attacks; but, under pretence of stating what a lord had said in Parliament, to put words into his mouth which he had never uttered, for the purpose, the express purpose, of calumniating him,—words which the writer of the calumny must have well known that he had never uttered, to put such words into his mouth for such a purpose, formed a case in which he thought that the party calumniated was bound to bring the party so offending under the notice of their lordships. Lord Brougham proceeded to arraign the Daily News for an example of this crime which would have done no dishonor to the inventive faculties of the Literary World.
A Mock Guillotine.—Delirium Tremens on The Stage.—It is stated in Galignani's Messenger that at the end of the late carnival two married women of Vidauban Department of the Var manufactured a lay figure, entirely in white, and, after attaching a chain round its neck, placed it in a small cart. Many of the inhabitants then paraded it through the village in solemn procession, accompanied by a crowd of men carrying axes, &c., and singing revolutionary songs. After a while they formed a sort of revolutionary tribunal, and the figure, which was called "Blanc," was gravely tried, and, by the majority of the votes of the crowd, condemned to death, the principal judge, a man named Arnaud, saying, "Blanc! you prevent us from dancing farandoles, and therefore we condemn you to death!" Thereupon, a man seized the figure, placed it on a plank, and at one blow with his axe severed the head from the body. A bottle of wine had been placed in the neck of the figure, and, this having been broken by the blow, a resemblance of blood was produced. The head was then cast into the crowd and torn to pieces by them. This scandalous scene created a most painful impression throughout the department. A few days afterward, four men who played a principal part in the affair, and the two women who made the figure, were brought to trial on the charge of exciting citizens to hatred of each other. The men pleaded drunkenness as an excuse—the women declared that they had only intended to amuse their children. Four of the accused were acquitted, and the other two, who had acted as judge and executioner, were condemned to four and three months' imprisonment. It is a pity that by the application of some such law, the disgustingly vulgar and brutalizing piece called The Drunkard, which has lately been played with "immense success" at Barnum's Theatre, (and in which the chief characters appear in all the stages of degradation until one of them is nearly dead with the delirium tremens), cannot be suppressed. With all its pretensions to morality, the play is irredeemably bad and base.
The Cincinnati Art Union advertises Powers's Greek Slave as one of its prizes, and publishes an engraving of it which should frighten away all subscriptions.