Barnum's stamp; and doubtless she has long ere now bitterly regretted the hour when she "sustained by an unfaltering trust in coin," to use the words of a clever squib quoted by Barnum-placed herself in his hands to be used for gulling the public according to his system. It is not, we fear, to herself alone that Madame Goldschmidt has done an injury. She has made a fortune at all events, though at some sacrifice of position and character. But what has been the result to other members of that profession to which she owed both position and fortune? In this country, the false enthusiasm has deadened us to the appreciation of equal, and, in some respects, greater excellence. People's purses and patience were both exhausted. Ashamed of a false enthusiasm, they will not be tempted into one that is real. In America the same thing, we learn, has occurred, but to a greater degree. Jonathan, determined not to be taken in a second time, will not go to hear any other notability, and singers and actors like Grisi and Mario perform to comparatively empty benches. Nor is it the individual artists only who suffer,-the cause of art, and the public taste, which would be elevated by the study of real power and high accomplishment, are likewise damaged. Thus, contempt ible as they are in themselves, the "dodges" of a sordid adventurer like Barnum have a widely pernicious influence in the department of art alone, irrespective of the noxious effect upon public morals generally of such successful imposture. Noxious the example has been and is, even with ourselves. We have recently seen the We have recently seen the whole resources of Barnumism, the puffs, the paragraphs, the portraits, the charities, the public testimonials, played off to beget a reputation for an actor as a great tragedian, whose attainments, as they often failed to carry him through the syntax, were not likely to help him to the spirit of his part. The very same man, who was barely endured in minor theatres, all at once, under the varnish and furbishing of organized puffery, becomes, by the patent of his Barnum, "the greatest of British tragedians," and fills "the national theatre.' Who pulled the strings in this case? One of Barnum's agents, mentioned with honor in the book before us, who, having learned the art and mystery of his master, probably thought a little practice on his own account might not be unprofitable. But how comes it that a large portion of our press played into his hands? Or how comes it that the whole trick of the system was not trodden down? Dupes or accomplices, the fact is certain, that many of our journals were used, in the instance in question, in the only way Barnum thinks the press ought to be used. How far is this state of things to go? Until all true artists and honest men are driven from a profession where only impudence and charlatanerie shall be able to carry off the prizes-for to this pass things are rapidly verging. Let us look to our theatres and to our concert-rooms, and contrast what we find there with what we read of them in the public prints. Who goes to see a play now, or to hear a singer, with any confidence that he will find the fulfilment of the evening realize the promise of the morning paper? Are not the chances ten to one, that the only gleam of satisfaction will be afforded by something which the critics have passed over in silence, and that where they have most applauded accomplishment, the greatest incapacity will be shown? Why is this? Can it be, that " Barnumism" has been spreading silently and widely among us, and that in the domain of art the pitiable trickeries of the showman are taking the place of painstaking endeavor and conscientious work? It is difficult to observe what is daily passing under our eyes, taken in connection with the disclosures of this book, and not feel a suspicion that this is only too possibly the case. If this be so, disgraceful as they are, Barnum's revelations may not be without their advantage. We are at least put upon our guard against the system. Placards may henceforth stun us with their sesquipedalian letters in vain; in vain may the praises of genius re-echo from paragraph and" poster.' "Barnumism" all, we shall say, and pass unheeding by. At present, the ruinous fruits of the system press more heavily upon the genuine artist than upon the flashy pretender. But in time the evil must work its cure. When our theatres become more deserted than they are, and our concert - rooms more blank-as, under the existing state of things, will certainly be the case-it will no longer be worth the while of adventurers to speculate in them, and we may hope to see education and character once more distinguish the directors of our higher classes of entertainments. The press, having lost its power for evil, may then begin to think of exercising it for good. There is another possible contingency, and that is, that our public amusements, the drama especially, may degenerate into hopeless and irretrievable ruin. If such shall be the case, not the least important of the causes of the decline will be the practice of frauds upon public faith akin to those on which Barnum has reared his fortune, and to the connivance, at least, of a large body of the press at a system which substitutes falsehood for reality, and impudent pretension for hardlyearned attainment. We will not believe that the British press can sink, like that of America, into the facile accomplices of men like Barnum; but in literature, in art, in music, in the drama, it too often, from carelessness or incapacity, acts in the interests of humbugs and incapables, to the neglect and discouragement of worth and industry. In all these matters its tone is low, if not corrupt; and of this its very reception of Barnum's revelations is unhappily a proof. With a few honorable exceptions, they have been treated gently, often with commendation ;* and this, too, although with these confessions of a lifetime of lying and fraud, are mingled, as a stronger incentive to disgust, the morals of a Nym and the piety of a Pistol. One might almost think it had become a creed with our critics, that there are but two classes of men in the world, the outwitters and the outwitted-that the former are the best off here, and that it is of no consequence what becomes of either hereafter. Such is the faith of Barnum. Who will follow the Mahomet of humbug? From Bentley's Miscellany. SELDEN AND HIS TABLE TALK. Talem se ore tulit, quem gens non barbara quævis "With regard to the Life of Mr. Barnum, we consider it the most amusing book that has appeared since the personal sketches of Sir Jonah Barrington. Much may be learned from it concerning life in America; and it is to the credit of Mr. Barnum that he not only speaks respectfully at all times of religion, but even in the midst of his somewhat wild life, to have been always to a considerable extent under its influence. He will gain much in general estimation by his book, and all who read it will be well entertained." "Di"... "lapides:" in allusion to Selden's erudite dissertation De Diis Syris, and his better known Marmora Arundelliana. LANGBAINE the lady, of a good Kentish family, being won, it would seem, by John senior's cunning in music and captivating looks, to take the better half part in Love in a Cottage. Their boy's education was well looked to by his justly-hopeful parents. At the free school of Chichester he made rapid strides in Greek and Latin, and became noted, in school-hours and out, within school-walls and out, as "a very learned youth." Almost with his entry on his teens he was promoted from school to university—matriculating at Hart Hall, Oxford-an institution which no longer exists, its site, however, being now occupied by Magdalen Hall, but which in its time, and under change of name, has numbered among other of its illustrious alumni, the poets Donne and Lord Buckhurst; Edward Lye, the Saxon philologist; the profound Hebrew critic, Nicholas Fuller; Sir William Waller, the Parliamentary leader; and the leader in Parliament, Charles James of note, besides the sons of song, were attracted to seek for, and when found, to foster the friendship of Selden; for he had the not too common attribute of pleasing in private, as well as raising admiration in print. His books excited the learned to crave his acquaintance; and that made, he endeared himself to them by his qualities" as a man and a brother." In the words of Clarendon, whose tribute of homage to his "stupendous learning" is exuberant in its fervor, "his humanity, courtesy, and affability was such, that he would have been thought to have been bred in the best courts, but that his good nature, charity, and delight in doing good, and in communicating all he knew, exceeded that breeding." Accordingly, he was looked up to for his authorship, and prized for his sociability, by such grave and learned signiors as Isaac Vossius and his uncle Francis Junius, then denizens of our great metropolis, Fox. Having kept his terms, a model reading man, he migrated to the great world of London, studying law at Clifford's Inn, thence removing to the Inner Temple, and in due time receiving his call to the bar. A year or two later he commenced author in earnest, edifying the learned by Latin treatises on rather abtruse subjects, historical and topographical. Antiquarians pricked up their ears, and scholiasts rubbed their glasses, and criticasters cleared their throats; for the young barrister wrote as master of his subject, and as one competent to meet all comers who had aught to object. His "Treatise on Titles of Honor" is still a standard work of its kind; his inquiry, theological and antiquarian, "De Diis Syris," won him name and fame on the Continent as well as at home; his "History of Tithes" created a sensation in those days of ferment, and got him into trouble with the High Commission Court; his account of the Arunde--and Sir Robert Cotton, whose name smells lian marbles, published the year (1628) after their arrival in England, excited an interest similar in kind, not degree, to that recently elicited by Layard and Nineveh; and his elaborate dissertation on maritime law, "Mare Clausum," at once took rank as a formidable and, said English politicians, a full and sufficient answer to the " Mare Liberum" of Grotius, which for the last quarter of a centuary had been delighting Dutch statesmen, and annoying British, by the quality of its doctrine. The gods had not made John Selden poetical, but that was no reason, as the way of the world goes, why he should not dabble in poetry. He consorted, too, on the freest terms, with some of the top-gallant poets of the age. He was intimate with Michael Drayton, and furnished him with notes and illustrations for that never-ending still-begining poem, the Poly-Olbion, known by name to a many, and by sight to a (very) few. He contributed some couplets to the Britannia's Pastorals of his fellow-Templar, William Browne. He was the associate of Richard Crashaw, whose father was also connected with the Inner Temple, as preacher in ordinary, and who himself was a preacher, as well as poet, of genius. And he was one of that large circle of choice spirits who called Ben Jonson friend, and held with him high and deep converse, seasoned with salt, on poetry, and politics, and philosophy, and men and manners, and classics old and new, and the church and the state, and kingcraft and priestcraft, and Erastianism and Brownism, and things present and things to come. And other men sweet and. blossoms in the dust of the British Museum, and fine old William Camden, keen antiquarian, toilsome chorographer, plodding annalist, Greek grammarian, Latin historian, Westminster schoolmaster, and Clarencieux king-at-arms,—and Usher, heavyarmed divine, ever eager and equipped for the fray, and Sir Henry Spelman, fosterer of Saxon literature, for which he lived laborious days in person, and provided corresponding outlay in purse, and Thomas Lydiat, the reviled of Scaliger,*-and Gerard Langbaine, that doctissimus Doctor whose family name is, or might, could, would, or should be the horror of plagiarists. Of the rising young men of mark and likelihood, too, from whom John Selden was secure of respect and attachment, and who rejoiced in his notice, and were all attent when he discoursed, may be named Samuel Butler, whom he employed as amanuensis, while acting as steward to the Countess of Kent; and Ralph Cudworth, who won his heart by a loan of rare Karraite manuscripts; and Clarendon, who declared his "merit and virtue" transcended all "expression ;" and Sir Matthew Hale, who was executor of his last will and testament, and the voucher for his Christian faith and practice. This last particular was not superfluous, in behalf of a "Thomas Lydiat iste," writes the irate Joseph, in one of his Epistles, "quo monstro nullum portentosius in vestrâ Anglia natum puto:"-and then Joseph proceeds to comment on the poor man's asinitatem," and stamps crushingly upon him as a though a little hard on Thomas Lydiat, was mild prodigiose imperitum scarabæum." But this, alfor Joseph Scaliger. 66 man whose sayings and writings against | in their show of scholarship, add to the good spiritual despotism in all its phases, whether cheer on the Table, and to our appreciation papal, priestly, or presbyterian, had been so of the Talker. Selden resembled Johnson keen and so determined. The testimony of in at least three particulars: he wrote a good Chief Justice Hale is therefore mark-worthy, cumbrous style; he was a capital talker; that Selden was "a resolved serious Chris- and he had at least one good listener to stetian;" and it is interesting to know that dur- reotype his winged words. The contrast being his last illness, he was visited by his old tween Johnson writing and Johnson talking, friend-older by some three years than him- is notorious; the one all stiffness and polyself, and surviving him nearly as long-syllables-the other terse, pithy, clear, direct, Archbishop Usher, who seems to have found hitting straight at his mark, without circumprofit and comfort, as well as imparted them, locution or "circumbendibus." A similar in these death-bed visitations, and who distinction obtains between Selden in his preached the funeral sermon when the death- study and Selden at his table. His English bed had yielded up its dead. as well as Latin style, Dr. Irving remarks, is 'deficient in smoothness and elegance." Clarendon complains that "his style in all his writings seems harsh, and sometimes obscure"-(уvwới σɛavτov, my lord chancellor, when you rate a style as “obscure")—which obscurity and harshness, the chancellor goes on to say, "is not wholly to be imputed to the abstruse subjects of which he [Selden] commonly treated, out of the paths trod by other men, but to a little undervaluing the beauty of style, and too much propensity to the language of antiquity." Selden was not without jealous interest, however, in the integrity of his mother-tongue, and used to "hit out" now and then against neologisms, foreign importations, and piebald phrases. If you look upon the language spoken in the Saxon time," he observes upon one occasion, "and the language spoken now [scil. towards the middle of the seventeenth century], you will find the difference to be just as if a man had a cloak that he wore plain in Queen Elizabeth's days, and since, here has put in a piece of red, and there a piece of blue, and here a piece of green, and there a piece of orange-tawny. We borrow words from the French, Italian, Latin, as every pedantic man pleases." Selden's own parts of speech, when fairly off in table-talk, were straightforward, concise, nervous: "in his conversation," again to quote Clarendon," he was the most clear discourser, and had the best faculty of making hard things easy, and presenting them to the understanding, that hath been known." Grateful, then, as we are to Boswell, jeer his memory as we may, for his matchless record of Johnson's tabletalk, so ought we to be to Milward, for his disjecta membra of Selden's. Had but every man of genius his Boswell or his Milward! Selden's learning has the credit of being genuine in quality, solid in substance, and extensive in its range. Ben Jonson calls him the "Monarch of Letters." Buddæus calls him "Britanniæ illud immortale decus." Colomesius says, "Selden était prodigieusement savant"-" c'est le plus grand homme que l'Angleterre ait jamais eu pour les belles lettres." Clarendon says, "He was of so stupendous a learning in all kinds and in all languages (as may appear in his excellent writings), that a man would have thought he had been entirely conversant amongst books, and had never spent an hour but in reading and writing,"-although behaving in society with none of the mere scholar's shyness, or bookworm's bêtise, or pedant's priggishness," but like a courtly and experienced man of the world. Mr. Hallam, among the moderns, pays his respects to the "unparalleled stores of erudition" at Selden's Command. But these stores are resorted to, now-a-days, by few except the erudite. What Selden is known by, to the unlearned as well as to savants, what he is prized for by lay folk as well as cleric, is the book of his Table-talk, diligently compiled by his admiring follower, Mr. Richard Milward, who for twenty years was a reverential listener to his "most exquisite reasons," and who prepared the compilation for the press within a few years after his patron's decease, though actually pub lished it was not until the first year of William and Mary. A new edition of this popular collection has been put forth by Dr. Irving,* who also acted as its editor in the early part of the present century, and whose biographical preface, though somewhat meagre in matter and desultory in treatment, and whose notes and illustrations, though rather too demonstrative *The Table-talk of John Selden: with Notes by David Irving, LL.D., Edinburgh: Constable. 1854. Mortalia cuncta peribunt; 'STEα Trepoεvrα of many a rare table-talker | the hyperbolic vulgarism, could talk a horse's have taken to themselves wings, only to flee leg offaway; and listeners have let them evanish,* "My banquet," says Lucentio, in "Taming My banquet is to close our stomachs up, What sort of Trencherman John Selden may Estivam sermone benigno extendere noctem. without an endeavor at capture, as though to | Τοις 'αρα μυθων ήρχε Γερήνιος ιππότα Νέστωρ. stay their flight were not, on the listener's part, as laudable an effort, as to shoot folly as it flies, on the part of the talkers. By table-talk we are to understand, comprehensively, the conversation of genius in undress, chez lui, and generally speaking after the "table" is cleared, or without any table at all-(lucus à non)-for the table, as a gross, material fact, provocative to sensual indulgence, is, in fact, or used to be, rather a let and hinderance than an aid and appliance to the flow of talk. We find Boswell once complaining to Johnson of having dined at a splendid table without hearing one sentence of conversation worthy of being remembered. "Sir," said Johnson, "there seldom is any such conversation." Then why meet at table? humbly suggested Bozzy. "Why," was Johnson's answer, "to eat and drink together, and to promote kindness; and this, sir, is better done where there is no conversation; for, where there is, people differ in opinion, and get into bad humor; or some of the company, who are not capable of such conversation, are left out, and feel themselves uneasy. Woe to the wight who might try to draw out our Great Bear at feeding time!when, as Macaulay (after Boswell) depicts him, he was in the act of tearing his dinner like a famished wolf, with the veins swelling on his forehead, and the perspiration running down his cheeks. Ursa major must have been a pleasanter sight in his postprandial than in his prandial hours when the table was cleared than when it was covered when good digestion was following, than when it was waiting, on appetite. A modern dinner is a more refined, a less inhuman and overtly carnal repast; but our ancestors, while the pièce de résistance was on the board, accounted themselves to be "better engaged" in confining attention to its merits, than in illustrating the feast of reason and the flow of soul. It was not until Nestor's guests had subdued the Homeric rage of hunger, that the old gentleman began to prose-first comes the trite formula, Αυταρ έπει πόσιος και εδητύος εξ 'ερον 'εντο, and then begins the table-talk of one who, in -Whither are they vanish'd! .. His company might, as they broke up, tender their thanks and appreciation in the style of Sir Nathaniel to Holofernes: "I praise God for you, sir: your reasons at dinner have been sharp and sententious; pleasant without scurrility, witty without affection, audacious without impudency, learned without opinion, and strange without heresy."* The last clause some would think just applicable, and others not at all, to the not unfrequent mood wherein Selden talked at table such things as this: "The Turks tell their people of a heaven, where there is sensible pleasure, but of a hell where they shall suffer they don't know what. The Christians quite invert this order; they tell us of a hell where we shall feel sensible pain, but of a heaven where we shall enjoy we can't tell what." (A remark, by the way, to which may be attached a pendant from Mrs. Jameson's new book, where she tells us that Wilhelm Schadow, the president of the Academy at Dusseldorf, in exhibiting to her his church-picture, in three compartments, of Paradise, Purgatory, and Hell, explained that he had not attempted to paint the interior of Paradise as the sojourn of the blessed, because he could imagine no kind of occupation or delight which, prolonged to eternity, would not be wearisome.) Or again, the following, if al Not the reader (who, like the writer, is, by hypothesis, all-knowing) - but some readers (which is not personal, and so quite another thing) --may bear with the remainder, touching certain phrases in the above characteristic sentence of Sir Nathaniel, that by "reasons" we are to understand 'discourses" (at which the pedagogue was au fuit); by "affection," affectation ; and by "opinion," opinionativeness, or obstinacy. |