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as twelve and fourteen teachers . The rooms are filled with desks , maps , and all the apparatus which the teachers can require for the purposes of instruction . I generally noticed , on entering a small German or Swiss town , that , next to the church , the finest building was the one set apart for the education of the children . " It is impossible to estimate the enormous outlay which Germany has devoted to the erection and improvement of school-houses alone during the last fiiteen years . In the towns , hardly any of the old and inefficient buildings now remain , except where they have been improved and enlarged . In Munich , I directed my conductor to
lead me to the worst school buildings in the city , and I found all the class-rooms measuring fourteen feet high by about twenty five square , and ten of such class-rooms in each school house , each of which rooms was under the constant direction of an educated teacher . In whatever town I happened to be staying , I always sought out the worst in preference to the best schools . . In Berlin the worst I could find contained four class-rooms , each eight feet in height , and about fifteen feet square ; and in the Grand Duchy of Baden I found that the Chambers had passed a law prohibiting any school . house being built , the rooms of which were not fourteen feet high .
" Throughout Germany no expense seems to have been spared to improve the materials of popular instruction . * ' This could never have been effected had not the expenses of such an immense undertaking been equally distributed over all the parishes of the different states . The burden being thus divided among all , is not felt by any ; but had the Government started in the vain hope of being able to bear even a third of the expense , popular education would have been no further advanced in Germany than in England . But wiser , or more interested in the real success of the undertaking than our . selves , the Governments of the different states have obliged each province to provide for the expenses necessary for its own primary education . "
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NOTES AND EXTRACTS . True Catholicism . —I believe the unity of the one Catholic and comprehensive church to be a unity of spirit and feeling , and not only to be perfectly com * patible with many diversities of opinion as to particular doctrines , rites , and ceremonies , but entirely independent of them . I should be sorry not to feel somewhat of that unity with many from wkom I differ widely in many and various respects . Who but must feel it for Kempis ? Yet this by no means implies any accordance with the Romish ritual , of which , I believe , he was a docile and dutiful votary—though he lived and wrote far beyond the letter and rule of his professed creed , in a spirit of the most pure , enlightened , and spiritual Christianity . — ~ Rp . Tna . rd Jiarttm .
Evils ov Fault-finding . —We exert a more healthful and permanent influence on another by giving every possible encouragement to the good parts of his character , than by direct notice of the bad ; and that by thus strengthening the good we give the person a more discerning perception of his own failings , and a greater control over them , than we can ever attain by merely counselling him directly against his errors . « In proportion as a monitor within exceeds in weight and authority a monitor without , so does the one method excel the other . It is , besides , very difficult for two friends to preserve thorough confidence in each other after the direct notice of faults . In spite of our best endeavours ,
a feeling , however slight , of mortification creeps in to disturb the permanence of the influence ; and , though the fault may be corrected , that feeling may destroy the future power of the counsellor to benefit his friend . To take my own case , for example , I can truly say that when witnessing the never-failing kindness and sympathy shown by you and yours with the sufferings of your fellow-creatures , I have not only felt my own better feelings roused into purer and higher action , but I have felt my selfishness rebuked within me , and seen my deficiencies with a keener and more improving eye than
if you , or any one else , had plainly told me that you perceived them , and wished to warn me against them . There are cases , and especially in the instance of the guardians of youth , in which the direct notice of faults is called for , and proves beneficial ; but this seems to me to hold good only where the one possesses a natural authority over the other , and to which the other feels himself naturally subject . Among equals in mature age I doubt the propriety or benefit of the plan of direct naming of faults , and whether we do not , in following it , transgress the rule of ?« Judge not , " &c . We can rarely tell the precise motives of another . —From the Life of Andrew Combe .
Dr . Johnson upon Convocation . — " On Wednesday , August 3 , we had our last social evening at the Turk ' s Head Coffee , house , before my setting out for foreign parts . I had the misfortune , before we parted , to irritate him , unintentionally . I mentioned to him how common it was in the world to tell stories of him , and to ascribe to him strange sayings . Johnson— ' What do they make me say , >\ r ? ' Boswell— Why , Sir , as an instance very strange indeed ( lnu « hing heartily as I spoke ) David Hume told me you said that you would stand before a battery of cannon to restore the Convocation to its full powers . ' Little did I apprehend that he actually had said this
; but I was soon convinced of my error , for with a determined look he thundered out , ' And would I not . Sir ? Shall the Presbyterian Kirk of Scotland have its General Assembly , and the Church of England be denied its Convocation ? ' He was walking u , > and down the room wh < n I told him the anecdote , but when he uttered this explosion of his Church zeal , he had come close to my chair , and his eyes flashed with indignation . I bowed to the sform , and diverted the forcf of it r > y leading him to expatiate on the i fluence which religion de . iveti from maintaining the Chur h with great external respectability . "— . flowotf'a Life of Johnson .
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ON THE COMEDY OF TRAGIC ACTORS . Plato , in a famous passage ( you will find it in the " Republic , " we dare not venture on the Greek , and have not Bonn ' s translation beside us ) , declares that no one can excel in two arts , the tragic poet in comic writing , the tragic actor in comedy ; but this , though ingeniously argued , is so obviously wrong that he lived himself to write a flat denial of it in a still more famous passage ( in the " Symposium" ) wherein he avers that the tragic and comic poet are necessarily one , an exaggeration on the other side . The first opinion is that which the public most generally
entertains , because it is incapable of fairly admitting two ideas—two impressions of the same person ; hence , when a tragedian essays comedy he has a terrible obstacle in the reluctance of the public to admit his capacity ; and , unless he have a high degree of comic vis , he will not be accepted . Instances there are of such a union of the two as to puzzle critics where to award the preference ; Garrick was as great in comedy as tragedy ; so is Lablache ; so is Ronconi ; so is Lemaitre ; so is Boufle ; so was Mars . But Mrs . Siddons , John Kemble , Kean , Rachel , Macready , were undeniably less versatile , and were
generally considered weak in comedy . The want of animal spirits , a genial gaiety of temperament , is a want no art will supply . But there is a something in the comedy of tragic actors which we miss in the true comic actors , a certain weight ( tending , indeed , to heaviness ) , and a certain point ( tending to overelaboration ) , which bring out the force of the situation and the incisiveness of the language into stronger relief than the comic actors can attain ; it resembles wit as compared with humour ; intellectual perception as compared with real enjoyment . Charles Lamb somewhere puts forth a similar
opinion apropos to John Kemble s *• Charles burface . And we were forcibly recalled to it the other night in witnessing Viardot ' s Adina in "I / Elisird'Amore . " The audience seemed to relish it ; we did so beyond any comedy we have seen for many a long day ; but the critics we find are generally objecting to it . Something of over-elaboration there * was—as if not a point could be thrown away—but there was also such a thorough meaning in all she did , such a lively abandonment of her voice to the sportiveness of the scenes , such pretty little capriciousness and adorable tyranny , that we forgot the Mater Dolorosa of Le Prophete , and fell'incontinently in love
with the village coquette . Her singing we can only compare with fireworks ; she threw up her voice like a rocket that climbs up the darkness to descend in a shower of brilliant colours . Talk of execution ! Unless a singing lesson is your ideal , you must acknowledge that her second duet with Ronconi was unequalled . When Sontag scatters her voice into its marvellous variety of ornament we wonder , indeed , and admit that it is marvellous ; but we care nothing for it . But when Jenny Lind or Yiardot astonish us they do something more than astonish . You will say it is very unfair in us to make the comparison between such singers ; but the comparison between kinds is * instructive , from the force of the contrast . Ronconi as " Dulcamara "
illustrates our position respecting tragedians . His comedy is , perhaps , even finer than his tragedy ; but it is the comedy of a tragic actor—pointed , weighty , vivacious , intellectual , but not humorous , not genial , not oily . Lablache in the same part offers a good contrast : his broad buffoonery , overflowing as it is with animal spirits and chuckling fun , makes you in love with the charlatan : you forget his knavery in his bonhomie ; but never for an instant do you mistake the nature of Ronconi ' s quack .
The opera was received with unbounded satisfaction . Mario was in exquisite voice , and sang the favourite Una furtiva layrima as no one else can sing it . Tamburini was effective as " Belcore , " and the chorusses were capital . On Saturday the season closed . But four nights—at reduced prices- —have been given this week for the benefit of Mario , Tamburini , Costa , and Grisi , upon whose shoulders this gigantic concern has reposed , —who have paid everybody to a sixpence , and who have finished their campaign without realizing anything for themselves beyond what these benefits may bring them . We are wrong ; they have laid the foundation for a glorious season in 1851 . They have raised the reputation of the house , and next year they will-r-we trust they will—profit by it .
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THE LEGEND OF FLORENCE . The revival of Leigh Hunt ' play at Sadler's Wells drew many a poetical lover to the house ; and pltasunt it was to see how the beautiful passages told upon that hushed and reverent audience . But , although put on the stage with care , we cannot compliment the actors on their execution of a delicate and . perhaps , too difficult
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ELECTRO-DEPOSITS IN BRONZE AND OTHER METALS . Messrs . Elkington are now exhibiting at their gallery in Regent-street , an interesting display of works of art , principally copies from antique sculpture , reproduced by their peculiar process in a manner which , for boldness as well as finish , quite supersedes the old method of casting . Amongst other figures are the " Dancing Faun " ( the Naples antique ) ; the " Antique Faun with Cymbals" ; and the " Venus , " discovered at Pompeii in 1839 . They are all accurately reduced by scale , and are perfect in
detail ; a remark which will apply especially to a beautiful twelve-inch copy of the ?? Farnese Hercules , " wonderfully true to the original . We were struck with a Pompeiian Cup , and its groups in alto , representing the Sacrifice af Priapus , very minutely finished . This cup is five or six inches high ; it is of exceedingly graceful form , wide at top , and diminishing towards the stem with one sweep , that is , with no undulation , so as to form a -waist . We had been familiarized with its form through a cast of Brucciani ' s ; the full beauty of its sculpture , until seen in the metal , was lost to us . A reduced copy ??
of the Apotheosis of Homer , the well-known basso-relievo in the British Museum , is adapted to the cover of a blotting-pad ; and a miniature copy of an ancient Frieze in the Glyptothek at Munich , is made to form a foot-rule .. Ihe subject is *? Neptune and Amphitrite . " A Candelabrum found at Herculaneum , representing Silenus , should not be passed over ; the size makes it convenient for modern use . But the triumph of Messrs . Eikington ' s discovery is shown in their reproduction of Cellini ' s celebrated cup , bo artfully copied as to bear all the appearance of age . It would have puzzled the great artist who wrought the exquisite original .
A plastic material , intended to imitate in casts the productions of ivory carving , is another feature of this exhibition . The ?? Fictile Ivory , " as it is called , is doubtless a beautiful material , well adapted to the purpose of imitating the elaborately-carved work of such productions as ?? Martin Luther ' s" Tankard , a ? ' chopine " -formed vesseJ , covered with minute figures in relief . The general choice of subjects , however , is not a happy one , nor calculated to display the merits of the fabric to advantage .
Variations of popular engravings , such as ? ' Cup Tossing , " by Crowley , executed in relief , will hardly further the pretentions to high art advanced by Messrs . Elkington . Again , the antique subjects chosen ure lor the most part sculptures originally executed in stone , a different thing altogether from carving in wood or ivory . On the whole , tht « re was nothing so good as the " Tankard , " the sui-cess ol which might justify Messrs . Elkington in confining their productions in Fictile Ivory to its ostensible purpose—the imitation of carving .
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task . Phelps as ' ? Agolanti" was flat and ineffective . The part—a masterly portrait of self-sophisticating tyranny and selfish conventionalism—is what is called a disagreeable one { i . e ., the audience dislike the man ) , and , therefore , a greater call is made upon the actor ' s powers . But Phelps did not seem to know what to make of the part . As a sample of his ineffectiveness we may notice the colourless delivery of that powerful
speech—•« Oh let all provocation Take every brutish shape it cap devise To try endurance -with ; taunt it in failure , Grind it in want , stoop it with family shames , Make gross the name of mother , call it fool , Pander , slave , coward , or whatsoever opprobrium Makes the soul swoon within its cage for want Of some great answer terrible as its wrong . " Here there is a cumulative force of passionate imagery , every word of which should be made visible , as in characters of fire , by the passion of the utterance , so that the audience may suffer with ?* Agolanti ^ " and sympathize with him for the moment ; but the passage was delivered with a level vehemence and a want of gathering intensity which , left the audience calm . Again , where ' Ginevra " appears at the window , having just left the tomb , his horror left us serenely quiet .
Miss Glyn is not suited to the gentle pathos of " Ginevra , ' and her elocution , though distinct , is deficient in that rhythmic variety which real poetry requires . Her ear must be indifferent or she would never have spoken so slowly the lines—*• The fire of the heavenward sense of my wron » s crowns me , The voice of the patience of a life cries out of me . " To say nothing of the hurried passion these lines express , it is obvious that , composed as they are of thirteen feet each in lieu of ten , they can only be
made rhythmical by an acceleration of the time in which they are spoken ; but Miss Glyn dragged them . The great point with which Ellen Kean used to rouse a tempest of applause , * ' What have I done ? Good God ! what have I done ? " was missed entirely . Indeed , throughout the part we saw the sickly more than the suffering woman ; and our marital sympathies made us occasionally suspect that perhaps u Agolanti " after all was not so very much in the wrong .
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Aug . 31 , 1850 . ] Kff t 3 Le&XltV * 547
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Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 31, 1850, page 547, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1851/page/19/
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