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1828.]

REVIEW-Cuvier's Animal Kingdom.

The Animal Kingdom, described and arranged in conformity with its Organization, by the Baron Cuvier, Member of the Institute of France, &c. &c. &c. With additional Descriptions of all the Species hitherto named, of many not before noticed, and other original Matters. By Edward Griffith, F.R.S. and Others. 8vo. pp. 166.

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Our readers will further observe, that the antediluvian earth is presumed to be the bottom of our present sea, and their sea our earth, from which cause no fossil human bones have been found. If then, the present globe be only the bottom of the antediluvian sea, it may be admitted that the theories of of vegetable and animal being, are to the Baron, as to the successive stages ble; but as we do not know what a certain extent, plausible and probaphenomena the bottom of our present present, we are still ignorant of a sasea, if it could be excavated, might tisfactory natural history of the antediluvian era; and it is to be remem bered that the animals which the Baron makes antediluvian, must have existed on the surface of the present

IN discussing the ancient history of this globe, a prejudice may exist with regard to theories, which oppose, in appearance, the Mosaic cosmogony. We use the term in appearance, because if there really existed any oppo sition to the latter, it would be in a literary view intolerant, that the works of God are not to be brought into view, for fear of anomaly to the word of God (which we are sure is not the case, if the latter be correctly understood,) and it would also be the death-earth, to have been found at all. [This is admitted, p. 96.]

blow to studies in natural philosophy; because there is no reasoning, à priori, concerning the works of God, for the most surprising parts of the Mosaic account, the giants, &c. are those which appear to be the best confirmed by phenomena. Monsters are known, and no aminal is presumed to be of more fanciful creation than the dragon or griffin; and yet, among the fossil animals

"The most remarkable are the pherodactyls, or flying lizards. They appear to have been sustained in the air, on the same principle as the cheiroptera: they had long jaws armed with trenchant teeth, hooked claws, and some species, as would seem from the fragments remaining, arrived at a considerable size; and there are innumerable

reptiles, whose varied structure and colossal dimensions rival, if not surpass, the fabled monsters of antiquity." P. 30.

Admitting, however, as we most willingly do, with our author (p. 99, seq.), that Baron Cuvier is in fossil science what Linnæus is in existing natural history; yet upon questions of philosophy, we must protest against a petitio principii, made by any others than the Creator himself. The Baron states, there is" a fact equally astonishing and certain, namely, that there was a period, when life did not exist upon this earth," and that the æra indeed of its commencement is clearly observable. P. 3.

Now before starting such a position, it is indispensable to prove that there was no atmosphere, because it is understood that wherever that exists there is also animation.

GENT. MAG. July, 1828.

the Cuvierian theory. It is in subBut we shall now give some idea of stance this; that there is no indication whatever of the existence of human

beings, at all, prior to the last general that the primitive formations have no catastrophe, the Deluge (p. 22); and signs of animal or vegetable being; that the next stralu, the formations of transition, contain zoophytes, mol lusca crustacea, but no land animals; that the third stratum, that of our own pit-coal, inter alia, is characterized by vegetation only; that in the fourth floor are found quadrupeds of the lizard form, sea porpoises, reptiles, and fish of the fresh-water kind. For a period subsequent to these, the reptile class exclusively predominates (p. 30); but it is not agreed at what precise stage the other enormous quadrupeds commence. However

"There can be no doubt that this imcalls the Middle Age of the earth, has been mense animal population of what Cuvier entirely destroyed. Wherever its debris have been discovered, there are vast superincumbent beds of marine formation, proving the invasion and long continuance of the sea in the countries inhabited by these races. Whether the countries subjected to such inundations at this era, were of considerable extent or not, our present acquaintance with the strata in question does not enable us to decide." P. 32.

We think that the ocean must have vastly predominated over the land, and it is presumed that when these numerous pachydermata existed, there were only a few plains, insulated districts,

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[July,

REVIEW.-Cuvier's Animal Kingdom. intersected by elevated mountain chains, in which we discover no traces of those extinct animals (p. 33). In short, no relic of man or monkey, or of the domestic animals now in use, has been found among the fossil remains before alluded to; for, first come the reptiles, then the palæotheria, next the mammoths, mastodons, and megatheria; and fourthly (after the Deluge had prepared the soil, on which the animals of our own era exist), the human species, with the aid of certain domestic animals, appropriated and

"There are other unknown genera which demonstrate the certainty of an anterior state of animal creation, which occupied the surface of our present continent [of course, not the bottom of the present sea,] and which an irruption of the sea overwhelmed, and covered again their debris with rocks of a new origin."

cultivated the earth. P. 36.

Of course, the theory infers that there was no such race as man till after the Deluge; because no remains of his species have been found. But negatives can never prove affirmatives; and however Scripture may be misunderstood or misrepresented, we have only to observe again, that the antediluvian world being the bottom of the present sea, there exist no means of ascertaining the fact. It is confessed in this work, that the deluge was so sudden and overwhelming as to prevent successful escape. Besides, as the Scripture says there were giants in those days, there is certainly analogous testimony in favour of a race who might be able to cope with and dine off the mastodon.

But this hypothesis concerning the present marine site of the antediluvian world, and non-existence of man, is qualified in the following words :

"It is not meant to deny, that man did not exist at all in the æras alluded to :-he might have inhabited a limited portion of the earth, and commenced to extend his race over the rest of the surface, after the terrible convulsions which had devastated it were passed away. His ancient country, however, remains as yet undiscovered. It may, for aught we know, lie buried, and his bones along with it, under the existing ocean, and but a remnant of his race have escaped, to continue the human population of the globe. All this, however probable, is but conjecture. But one thing is certain, that in a great part of Europe, Asia, and America, countries where the organic fossils have been found, man did not exist previously in the revolutions which overwhelmed these remains, and even previously to those by which the strata containing such remains have been denudated, and which were the latest by which the earth has been convulsed. Pp. 23, 24. Notwithstanding this, in p. 96, we meet with something like a contradiction. It is said, under the Lophiodon

Now it is a law of philosophizing, that if a rule does not apply to all existing phenomena, without exception, it is not to be received.

But the Baron further assumes one

point; viz. that with every new catastrophe which happens to this earth, novel kinds of animals commence also and that the Deluge being the last grand convulsion, man remains as he was then constituted, but will so remain only for a time, till there ensues another terrestrial change. This may be deemed to furnish an explanation of a Millenium, in a physical view.

"We read in the successive strata, the successive efforts of creative energy, from the sterile masses of primitive formation, up enriched with animal and vegetable decomto the fair and fertile superficies of the globe, position. We find that there was a time when life did not exist on this planet; we are enabled clearly to draw the line between inanimate and organised matter, and to perIceive that the latter is a result of a distinct

principle of something superadded to and not inherent in the former. We also contemplate a progressive system of organic being, graduating towards perfection through innumerable ages. We find the simplest animals in the earliest secondary formations; as we ascend, the living structure grows more complicated-the organic developement becomes more and more complete, until it terminates in man, the most perfect animal we behold. And shall we say, that this march of creation has yet arrived at the farthest limit of its progress? Are the generative powers of nature exhausted, or can the Creator call no new beings from her former womb? We cannot say so. Revolution has succeeded revolution; races have been successively annihilated to give place to others. Other revolutions may yet succeed, and man, the self-styled lord of the creation, be swept from the surface of the earth, to give place to beings, as much superior to him, as he is to the most elevated of the brutes. The short experience of a few thousand years,—a mere drop in the ocean of eternity, is insufficient to warrant a contrary conclusion. Still less will the contemplation of past creations, and the existing constitution of nature, justify the proud assumption, that man is the sole end and object of the grand system

of animal existence." P.39.

1828.]

REVIEW-Shaksperian Gala at Stratford.

We have thus given our general readers an idea of the theory of Cuvier; only omitting details of the wonders which he has developed. We are far from thinking it final, or free from serious philosophical objection *; but, for all that, it is a very fine thing, and may prompt (for facile est addere inventis) discoveries of the very grandest kind. With the exception of supposing that man had no existence before the Deluge, it confirms the most extraordinary assertions of Scripture; but he evidently founds his hypothesis as to man upon the desideratum of fossil human remains, which is by no means conclusive argumentation. However, we must conclude, and shall do so with stating, that Messrs. Griffith, &c. have most luminously elucidated the subject, and that we know few books equal to this in importance, curiosity,

and interest.

A Descriptive Account of the late Gala Festival at Stratford upon Avon, in commemoration of the Natal Day of Shakspeare. 8vo. pp. 60.

SHAKSPEARE is the great delineator of English character in all its forms; and he was born on the festival day of the patron Saint of England,— a very happy coincidence.

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SHAKSPEARE. Achilles, Cæsar, Homer, Virgil, &c. &c., are remembered as wonderful men, and was SHAKSPEARE. Long winded praise always defeats its object. Tedious speeches, made to show that a man is supereminently distinguished, when he is universally allowed to be so, either are disregarded, or detract from him, unless they are composed of biographical anecdotes. Shakspeare was a plain man in his manners, got as much money as he could, that he might pass his older days in easy retirement; and like other men bent upon dying worth money, had few or no serious vices and follies, and considered his literary efforts only as "goods sold and delivered."-A drama without effect, he well knew, would be an Hibernicism a glass of brandy and water without the brandy. Byron had exactly the same idea of poetry; for Shakspeare well knew, and Byron well knew, that although many versifiers

The Quarterly Reviewers (Sept. 1826), have mooted it very ably.

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think to produce the miracles of the
galvanic battery by the common elec-
trifying machine, readers are like the
dead frogs, they will not jump out of
the glass without a shock as strong
as one from an exploding powder-mill.
A lumber-minded Englishman (and so
were most of them in Shakespeare's
æra) will not budge for all the point-
lace thinking of Greece and Rome,
but shoot off a pistol close to his ear,
though it be only in jest, up he starts,
and looks about him. Such was the
galvanism of Shakspeare, and he stu-
died character, and drew his reflections
from nature-in two words, he never
lost sight of striking effect and interest-
ing nature, and finding in every auditor
fellow-feeling, because he was natu-
ral, his success was proportionate.—
That success, too, had a grand issue.
It established the drama for ever in
this kingdom. It placed it on an equal
footing with the epic, and what is
that? why it elevates the soul to the
heroic, and the heroic is an indis-
pensable quality as to national pros-
perity; nothing but the heroic will
brave danger and death, and forget self.
The tendency of the drama is to encou-
rage such high-mindedness; and its
enemies are only those human formed
worms who would merely fall upon
their knees, though ruffians were vio-
lating their wives and daughters. The
songs of Dibdin inspired the sailor with
invincible enthusiam; and the wise
will ever recollect that it is to victory,
not to sectarianism, that they owe the
enormous blessing of really enjoying
life and property. Strong sense and
beautiful sentiment are also inculcated
by the drama; and it is only culpable
when it loses sight of morality. Only
culpable, we say, under this circum-
stance, because this blunder avoided,
what else can it be but a rational lec-
ture in a lively amusing form?
A man
who will not enjoy happiness in an
innocent way is a fool; for moral mi-
sery is only intended by Providence to
be a corrective of vice and silliness.
There is not, also, a greater friend upon
earth to the propagation of that most
valuable quality common sense, than
the drama. How many officious mis-
chievous gossips does not the character
of Paul Pry crush in the bud? but
there needs no dissertation on the sub-
ject: display of character, in all its
various forms and shapes, must be very
instructive; and if heaven consists of

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REVIEW. Shaksperian Gala at Stratford.

innocent pleasure, such pleasure was never prohibited upon earth.

We have noticed the ceremony to which this pamphlet alludes, in our Magazine for May last, p. 456. The procession was composed of the characters in Shakspeare's Plays, attired in stage costume, corrected according to authority. Among these we recollect those delightful laughing-stocks of our younger days, (1) BOTTOM, (the Weaver), "with an ass's head, an excellent imitation of life; his dress a brown tunic, with a light coloured material, covering the arms and legs to imitate flesh;" and (2), OLD JACK, the finest comic character ever pourtrayed. He appeared in a scarlet cloak, with a blue cape, a white_full doublet, and scarlet pantaloons." Concerning this costume, the following remark is made:

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"The Falstaffs of modern times have been erroneously represented with a small black cap, with feathers hanging down; but on the present occasion a turbau formed of crimson cloth, edged with gold, was substituted; and we think with great propriety, for if we recollect right, the turban, in this shape, was the usual head-dress worn in the time of Henry the Fourth, the period in which the plot of this play is laid. Certain it is, that the two misers in the celebrated picture of that name, by Quintin Matsys at Windsor Castle, are depicted with turbans of that description." P. 22.

Now this reform is not at all to our taste. The turban is far too serious a costume for the laughing knight, Harlequin performed in a cauliflower wig would be excessively grotesque, but it would have only the character of buffoonery; and Falstaff is not a monkey, or a merry Andrew. The flat velvet cap and feather was far more appropriate; and by examining Strutt's work upon dress, (pl. cxxx-cxxxii.) it will be seen, that the deviation from contemporary costume, if any, was far too slight to require alteration.

By a very judicious regulation, the characters were personified by professional actors. We miss Benedict and Beatrice among them, and sorry we are; for this couple, walking arm in arm, and quarrelling and loving in character, would have had high dramatic effect. A Rosalind, too, might have been jesting with Touchstone. Sir Andrew Aguecheek, Justice Shallow, Henry VIII., Cardinal Wolsey, and Catharine should, we think, also

[July,

appear. We mention these additions, because we are told, in p. 33, that the pageant is to be represented at a metropolitan theatre, where any omission can be easily supplied.

We shall now give an extract from the speech of Dr. Wade, viear of St. Nicholas, Warwick. It is a most brilliant and animated eulogy of our glorious Bard. It is long indeed, in matter, but much too short for the pleasure which it conveys.

"If we contemplate the Father of the Drama as a literary character, he stands pre-eminently the first. What would our language be but for him? Where is there a noble sentiment that is not to be found in his writings, or to be inferred from them? From whom amongst the celebrated men of his time, or of any period before or since, can be learnt such great lessons of politics, metaphysics, logic, natural or moral philosophy? Though the period at which he appeared, was that of a great reformation, when the foundations of ignorance and barbarity were broken up-when a constellation of geniuses arose to enlighten a darkened world both in Church and State-when the world saw a Bacon, a Raleigh, and the venerable Hooker;-yet of all, Shakspeare was Lord of the Ascendant ! Methinks (continued the Learned Doctor, pointing to a transparency over the door)

I see with Fancy's magic eye,
The shade of Shakspeare, in yon azure sky,
On yon high cloud behold the Bard advance,
Piercing all nature with a single glance.'

SMART.

"The emblem of the sun, combined with him in the same picture upon these walls, suggests to me, that the sun of his genius drew up the dews from the whole intellectual world; and having purified it, by the powerful laboratory of his mind, from all that was barbarous and unintelligible in the jargon of antiquity, let it decend in refreshing showers of knowledge, of precepts, and of principles. Of all kinds of composition, whether epic, tragic, or comic, Tragedy is the most interesting; and here Shakspeare took his stand. Like some mighty magician, he called spirits, from the vasty deep,' and celestial intelligences hovered round his sacred head. He made Tragedy to convey lessons of morality, and did what Aristotle only wished to be effected. He turned the passions of men, which, being lawless, are as ' devouring fires,' into a salutary and chastening spirit. From the earliest time this had been attempted in vain. Eschylus was in this respect but a barbarian; Sophocles, however sublime, and Euripides, however pathetic, with all the assistance of pagan worship, became the ridicule of Aristophanes; and

1828.]

Shaksperian Gala at Stratford.

45

even their audiences were disgusted-with jections with their encomiums. It is satisthe sentiment of one, that made the summum bonum to consist in riches. How nobly is the reverse and contempt of this expressed by our Poet—

Who steals my purse

Steals trash: 'twas mine-'tis his, and has been slave to thousands.'

In Ancient Rome, if the Augustan taste applauded even his approach to nature, when Terence said, that nothing relating to humanity was uninteresting to him, what would they not have said to Nature's own child, warbling his native wood-notes wild? Though he has been denied to have possessed learning, yet he excelled in applying poetry to moral purposes - he made his characters convey sentiments of virtue -he showed how vicious principles led to vicious conduct; wherever villany was successful, he made it unhappy; and where it failed, the villain failed, the villain fell, like Lucifer, never to rise again.' Too much has been urged against the Dramatist's want of learning, as if knowledge were a sealed volume, to be opened only by a few. A Critic has observed, that an ancient Sage locked up the Temple of Knowledge, and threw away the key; and it remained closed till a countryman found the same, and reopened it. This is true-most true, as far es it relates to books. But there is a sanctuary within the temple- there is a holier part than the head of man-it is his heart. Of this Shakspeare alone had the master-key wherewith to unlock all its treasures. Nei

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ther ancients nor moderns-neither the people of England, France, or Italy, could decipher the hieroglyphics of the human heart. They did not understand its hidden motives and principles. The French school was too attentive to their unities, to bestow attention upon the moral effects; even their sacred dramas failed to produce any thing except cold declamation. There was something rotten in the state of Denmark.' The German school, with their metaphysical subtleties and enthusiasm, 'o'erstepped the modesty of nature.' Materials there were, but they were a chaotic mass, and so they would have remained, had not the heaven born spirit of Shakspeare moved upon the face of the elements,' and given light, activity, and moral effect to an indolent world.

Gentlemen, I am unable, and before this intelligent assembly, unwilling to presume to point out the beauties of our Bard. Suffice it to observe, that the stores of his knowledge have been ransacked by a host of eritics, commentators, and learned men of all nations- He was not only witty in himself, but the cause of wit in others,'if they would have the honesty to acknowledge their obligations, and not, as some have done, ungratefully mingle envious ob

factory to us to know that while Voltaire and Dr. Johnson detract, Dryden and Pope admire. Dryden said, he had the largest and most comprehensive soul,' and Pope, that his writings would form the taste and judgment of the nation." Gentlemen, what must be the merit of Shakspeare, to come out of the fiery ordeal so pure, after the severest criticism of the severest critic in the world-Dr. Johnson, who confesses that Homer alone is to be compared with him for originality? The critics endeavoured to point out spots in the sun, and were dazzled with his brightness. What is the fact? Was he so unlearned, as some would represent? Though his genius was truly original, he was well read-though not a pedagogue, or a verbal critic, he read many ancient and modern authors in the original, and understood their meaning. One idea from books, was, in the rich soil of his fertile mind, like an acorn planted in the soil of his native land-the germs of a goodly tree, to return a thousand fold. It is said he wanted not the spectacles of books'-he perused the volume of nature. His benevolent sympathies and moral antipathies, chose all that was sensible and good, and put into odious contrast all that was evil. He converted a theatre for amusement into a school for practical wisdom, teaching by examples. He made it a school for morality, far surpassing those professed ones at Athens. He accommodated it to the service of the state, and to the good of his country-a seminary, where we learn loyalty to our King, and our duties to each other. He so wove his magic web,' that the parent and child, the husband and wife might learn virtue, and avoid shame. < He wrings the heart of vice, if it be made of penetrable stuff.' He turns the eyes of the guilty into their very souls.' • He holds up the mirror to nature, to shew the black and grained spots.' He, as merciful as his own Hamlet, speaks daggers' to the guilty, to turn them to what little virtue they might have remaining. He catches living manners as they rise".

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'He finds tongues in trees, Books in running brooks, sermons in stones, And good in every thing.'

The soul of the nation came like a comet --one of those heavenly messengers, which, while they move in eccentric orbits of their own, and are not to be confined to the periods of other planets, give heat and electric sustenance and beauty to all animate and inanimate nature. From the prodigality of his genius, many have derived lustre not their own. His was true greatness, viz. to be imitated, not to imitate. All ranks and description of men, from the king to the beggar, learn of him to be wiser and better. His very habits and misfortunes

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