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The JVanderinifi Jew ,- —Ancient Pistol , eating the leek and cursing , is no bed picture of the 'Times' and the French drama entitled : 38 1 above ; Jn the broad sheet of the 24 th , September , there ar $ four , ciolumus rof > analysis and extract of this ptay , introduced , uiterJanfodi i and wpund up with vehement denunciations of its Q elaborate blasphemy , gross filthiness , and . infamous immoralities- ' There \ % > indeed , this difference , th&t Pistol Swallowed
the leek under the constraining influence of the . Welchman ' s cudgel ; but the Times' disgorges dramatic ' blasphemy * under no cudgelling , save that of its own desire to please its readers . And the ' Times * ' rightly judges that they would be gratified both by the extracts and the condemnation . It was thus that c Don Juan' was read and reprobated . The union of grossness with hypocrisy is the disgusting characteristic of one section of English society . The French public go to see this drama ; the English
critic publishes large portions of it , for the especial reading of those whose expressed sympathy in the censure is assumed . Which is the worst ? For ourselves , we more respect the man who eats a leek , avowing that he likes it , than him who , uncudgelled , eats the leek , swearing that he loathes it . Why serve up a dish so ' peculiarly revolting ? ' Only because the traiteur knew his customers .
We have seen nothing of the drama but from this version of it . The old and well-known story seems to be got up with all that extravagant daring which characterizes a portion of modern French literature . Satan and the archangel Michael are amongst the dramatis persona ; but the writer has ( with forbearance , for one of his school , ) not introduced other personages who are not unknown to the ancient mysteries . The plot extends from the crucifixion to the day of judgment inclusive ; or rather , perhaps , we should say , ' the day after . ' Still , with one or two
exceptions , the action belongs , not to religion itself , but to what would be generally allowed by intelligent believers in this country to be a sort of mythological appendage to religion . The critic seems to assume that some peculiar profanity is connected with the dramatic form of composition . The oratorio is not - profane , we suppose ; for choristers sing , in our cathedrals , the Jewish derision df the Saviour ' s sufferings ; and even the words of Deity in
creation and judgment . The Epic form is not profane ; for no English critic win sacrifice ' Paradise Lost / even to put down the French stage . The dramatic exhibition of the supetn&tural is not profane in England , for that wou ^ d glance even upon
Shakespeare . Nay , thp Romance is not profane j far out of this very story has a romance beqn manufactured . and published V an eminent clergyman of the Church of Eugland , an expounder of the Revelations ; and who ( of course , neither for his Tory principles nor his family relationship , but for his religious acquirements , ) has been honoured with the patronage of the
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The Wandering Jew . 741
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N ° 94 , 3 Q
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1834, page 741, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2638/page/67/
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