Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 10.djvu/25

 11 S. X. JULY 4, 1914.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

19

0n looks.

Shaftesbwn' 's ' Second Characters.' Edited by

Benjamin Rand. (Cambridge University Press,

7s. Grf. net.)

THE present volume brings us a real contribution to the available literature of the early eighteenth century. It comprises four treatises on art and manners or rather three treatises and the material for a fourth the work of the last year of Shaftesbury's life, which was spent, for the sake of his declining health, at Naples. Of these treatises the first, the ' Letter concerning Design,' was printed for the first time in the fifth edition of the author's best -known book, the ' Cha- racteristics ' ; and the second, ' The Judgment of Hercules,' was published in French in the Journal des Scavans for November, 1712, appearing in English form separately in 1713, and in the second edition of the ' Characteristics ' in 1714. The fourth treatise, ' Plastics ' inchoate, but none the less clear as to intent, and of wider range than the others is published here for the first time, as are also the notes of the design for grouping the four together as a single work under the title of ' Second Characters.'

Dr. Rand, who has already done important work in regard to Shaftesbury, gives a sufficient Introduction. Shaftesbury's name on the whole a deservedly high one gains by this addition to his achievement. ' The Judgment of Her- cules ' may strike the modern reader as enunciat- ing rather obvious principles in regard to unity and propriety in the treatment of an historical scene in painting ; these principles did not, how- ever, appear so self-evident to Shaftesbury's contemporaries, and, even now, if used as a test in criticizing the new or newly approved work which occupies attention at the present day, might prove to be not so much ignored of set purpose as neglected. The beginning of the essay, with its distinction of the possible " moments " for the artist's portrayal, remains admirable and suggestive.

The ' Letter ' on design is virtually a confession of faith in the soundness of aesthetic perception and judgment in the people at large remarkable as coming from a man of Shaftesbury's position, whom ill-health, too excluding him from public work might have been expected to render some- what narrowly fastidious in his estimate of the average. Moreover, he has the insight to perceive the dependence of a people's soundness in art upon their civic rectitude and wisdom.

Shaftesbury's translation of the ' Tablet of Cebes ' is given in the third place in lieu of the ' Appendix concerning the Emblem of Cebes,' which remained unexecuted at his death. This enables the student to acquaint himself with an allegory which, in Shaftesbury's view, offered considerable opportunity for what we may call " civative comment," as well as here and there a pithy, suggestive counsel, though it cannot be pretended that, in itself, it is anything but a dull and frigid scheme for an interpretation of human life.

Prom ' Plastics, an Epistolary Excursion on the Original Progress and Power of Designatory Art,' it is tempting to draw matter for discussion at 'almost every page. We will allow ourselves only to mention as examples the fourteenth section,

on the " five parts in painting," which include- some penetrating remarks on affectation ; and the sixteenth section, where the functions of the " machine " are set forth. " Dens interxif. Always necessary," says Shaftesbury, " in tin- high heroic," and he goes on to contrast tin- poverty (pictorially) of common history, where no " machine " is introducible, with the scenes in which the Christian " machine " appropriately enters, to the advantage of the latter, though these in their turn must, he thinks, yield to scenes in which the ancient mythological " machine " may with truthfulness be employed, because Christian scenes are almost exclusively martyrdoms or other " invenuste subjects." We may notice that he says Domenichino's ' St. Jerome' is the best picture in the world, and that, criticizing Raphael's ' Transfiguration,' he bids us observe how the false double piece (viz., the part above) serves, however, as the machine part with infinite advantage."

As he says himself in the notes on the Idea of the Book, Shaftesbury's design was to convey, through the medium of criticism of art, a subtler and more profound criticism of human life,, capacity, and morality. In this he has been- followed by many writers from Lessing onwards ; but, familiar as the line of thought is nowadays- to the shallowest tyro who can dawdle over- Ruskin, it strikes one here as new and original taking one back, perhaps, to Plato more dis- tinctly than to any one else if for nothing else, yet for the particular tone of its ethic.

The formlessness of the most important part of the book, and that which will be new to students, shows itself, very suggestively, as something of a positive advantage.

Comment and Criticism : a Cambridge Quarterly Paper for the Discussion of Current Religious and. Theological Questions. (Longmans, 6rf.) THIS number (Vol. II. No. 1, May), appears in a new form, the object of which is to render the preservation of copies practicable. It contains an article on the exact import of the historicity of the- Gospel, entitled ' Under Pontius Pilate, ' by Prof. Burkitt ; a plea for the reconstruction of English Ecclesiastical Courts, from the pen of Mr. Leslie : an appreciation and criticism bv Mr. H. L. Pass of Mr. Knox's recent book ' Some Loose Stones ' ; and a suggestive paper by Mr. W. Spens on current controversy, as delivered in the recent pamphlets by Dr. Bethune-Baker, Dr. Sanday, and Bishop Gore.

MB. E. T. JAQUES, who is a solicitor of the Sui >reme Court, has made an interesting contribution to Dickens literature by giving, under the title of Charles Dickenx in Chanceri/, an account of Dickens's proceedings in respect of the ' Christmas Carol,' to which he has added some gossip in relation to the old Law Courts at Westminster. Messrs. Long- mans are the publishers, and the price is one shilling net. Mr. Janues is better known to 1 our readers as "Christian Tearle." the author of ' The Pilgrim from Chicago ' and ' The Gardens of Gray's Inn.'

MESSRS. A. & C. BLACK send The Social Guide for the present year, edited bv Mrs. Hugh Adams and Miss Edith A. Browne. The ' Guide ' includes the Indian seasons, Egypt, and Continental resorts. The price is half-a-crown net.