"

or those longings after immortality," which are powerful incentives to much that is good and great; but I am led into this train of reasoning, by hearing it so constantly objected as a misfortune to the actor, that his best efforts are but fleeting shadows, and cannot survive him. This, being interpreted fairly, means that he cannot gain all that genius toils for, but he has won the lion's share, and ought to be satisfied.

Formerly the actor had to contend with prejudices which stripped him of his place in society, and degraded his profession. This was assuredly a worse evil than perishable fame; but all this has happily passed away. The taboo is removed, and he takes his legitimate place with kindred artists according to his pretensions. His large salary excites much wonder and more jealousy, but he is no longer exposed to the insult which Le Kain, the Roscius of France, once received, and was obliged to swallow as he might. Dining one day at a restaurateur's, he was accosted by an old general officer near him. "Ah! Monsieur Le Kain, is that you! Where have you been for some weeks we have lost you from Paris?" "I have been acting in the south, may it please your Excellency," replied Le Kain! "Eh bien! and how much have you earned?” In six weeks, Sir, I have received 4,000 crowns.' "Diable!" exclaimed the general, twirling his moustache with a truculent frown, "What's this I hear? A miserable mimic, such as thou, can gain in six weeks double the sum that I, a nobleman of twenty descents, and a Knight of St. Louis, am paid in twelve months." Voila une vraie infamie! "And at what sum, Sir," replied Le Kain, placidly, do you estimate the privilege of thus addressing me?" In those days, in France, an actor was denied Christian burial, and would have been roué vif if he had presumed to put himself on an equality with a gentleman, or dared to resent an unprovoked outrage.

66

66

The large salaries of recent days were even surpassed amongst the ancients. In Rome, Roscius, and Esopus, his contemporary, amassed prodigious

fortunes by their professional labours. Roscius was paid at the rate of £45 a day, amounting to more than £15,000 per annum of our currency. He became so rich that at last he declined receiving any salary, and acted gra tuitously for several years.' A modern manager would give something to

*

stumble on such a Roscius. No wonder he was fond of his art, and unwilling to relinquish its exercise. Esopus at an entertainment produced a single dish, stuffed with singing-birds, which, according to Dr. Arbuthnot's computation, must have cost about £4883 sterling. He left his son a fortune amounting to £200,000 British money.† It did not remain long in the family, as, by the evidence of Horace and Pliny, he was a notorious spendthrift, and rapidly dissipated the honest earnings of his father.

Decimus Laberius, a Roman Knight, was induced, or, as some say, compelled by Julius Cæsar, to appear in one of his own mimes, an inferior kind of dramatic composition very popular amongst the Romans, and in which he was unrivalled, until supplanted by Publius Syrus. The said Laberius was consoled for the degradation by a good round sum, as Cæsar gave him 20,000 crowns and a gold ring, for this his first and only appearance on any stage. Neither was he "alone in his glory," being countenanced by Furius Leptinus and Quintus Calpenus, men of senatorial rank, who, on the authority of Suetonius, fought in the ring for a prize. I can't help thinking the money had its due weight with Laberius. He was evidently vain, and in his prologue, preserved by Macrobius, and translated by Goldsmith, he laments his age and unfitness quite as pathetically as the disgrace he was subjected to. "Why did you not ask me to do this," says he, "when I was young and supple, and could have acquitted myself with credit ?" But, according to Macrobius, the whole business was a regular contract, with the terms settled beforehand. "Laberium asperæ libertatis equitem Romanum, Cæsar quingentis millibus invitavit, ut prodiret in scenam.' Good encou

Cic. Orat. pro Q. Roscio.

Macrob. Sat. Lib. ii. cap. 10.

Macrob. Sat. Lib. ii. cap. 7.

ragement for a single amateur perform

ance!

Garrick retired at the age of 60, having being 35 years connected with the stage. He left behind him above £100,000 in money, besides consider. able property in houses, furniture, and articles of vertû. He lived in the best society, and entertained liberally. But he had no family to bring up or provide for, and was systematically prudent in expenditure, although charitable, to the extreme of liberality, when occasion required. Edmund Kean might have realised a larger fortune than Garrick, had his habits been equally regular. George Frederick Cooke, in many respects a kindred genius to Kean, threw away a golden harvest in vulgar dissipation. The sums he received in America alone would have made him independent. John Kemble and Mrs. Siddons both retired rich, though less so than might have been expected. She had through life heavy demands on her earnings, and he, in evil hour, invested much of his property in Covent-garden Theatre. Young left the stage in the full zenith of his reputation, with undiminished powers and a handsome independence. Macready is about doing the same, under similar circumstances. Liston and Munden were always accounted two of the richest actors of their day, and William Farren, almost "the last of the Romans," is generally reputed to be “a warm man. Long may he continue so! Miss Stephens, both the Keans, father and son, Macready, Braham, and others, have frequently received £50 a night for a long series of performances. Tyrone Power would probably have gone beyond them all, such was his increasing popularity and attraction, when the untimely catastrophe occurred which ended his career, and produced a vacancy we are not likely to see filled up.

When

Catalani, Pasta, Sontag, Malibran, Grisi, Taglioni, Rubini, Mario, Tamburini, Lablache, cum multis aliis, have received their thousands, and tens of thousands; but, until the Jenny Lind mania left everything else at an immeasurable distance, Paganini obtain ed larger sums than had ever before been received in modern times. He came with a prodigious flourish of trumpets, a vast continental reputation, and a few personal legends of the most exciting character. It was said that he had killed his wife in a fit of jealousy, and made fiddle-strings of her intestines; and that the devil had composed a sonata for him in a dream, as he formerly did for Tartini. you looked at him, you thought all this, and more, very likely to be true. His talent was almost supernatural; while his "get up" and "mise en scene" were original and unearthly, such as those who saw him will never forget, and those who did not can with difficulty conceive. The individual and his performance were equally unlike anything that had ever been exhibited before. No picture or description can convey an adequate idea of his entrance and his exit. To walk simply on and off the stage appears a common-place operation enough, but Paganini did this in a manner peculiar to himself, which baffled all imitation. While I am writing of it, his first appearance in Dublin, at the great Musical Festival of 1830, presents itself to "my mind's eye," as an event of yesterday. When he placed himself in position to commence, the crowded audience were hushed into a death-like silence. His black habiliments, his pale, attenuated visage, powerfully expressive; his long, silky, raven tresses, and the flash of his dark eye, as he shook them back over his shoulders; his thin, transparent fingers, unusually long, the mode in which he grasped his bow, and the tremendous length to which he drew it; and, climax of all, his sudden manner of placing both bow and instrument under his arm, while he threw his hands behind him, elevated his head, his features almost

distorted with a smile of ecstasy, and his very hair instinct with life, at the conclusion of an unparallelled fantasia! And there he stood immoveable and triumphant, while the theatre rang again with peals on peals of applause, and shouts of the wildest enthusiasm! None who witnessed this will ever forget it, nor are they likely again to see the same effect produced by mere mortal agency.

The one string feat I always considered unworthy of this great master of his art. It has been done by fifty others, and is at best but an imperfect exhibition on a perfect instrument; a mere piece of charlatanerie, or theatrical "gag," to use a professional term, sufficiently intelligible. There have been, and are, mighty magicians on the violin. Spagnoletti, De Beriot, Ole Bull (who, according to some, plays without any string at all), Sivori, Joachim, Ernst, Levey, &c. &c., are all in the list of great players; but there never was more than one Paganini; he is unique and unapproachable.

In Dublin, in 1830, Paganini saved the Musical Festival, which would have failed but for his individual attraction, although supported by an army of talent in every department. All was done in first rate style, not to be surpassed. There were Braham, Madame Stockhausen, H. Phillips, De Begnis, &c. &c.; Sir G. Smart for conductor, Cramer, Mori, and T. Cooke for leaders, Lindley, Nicholson, Anfossi, Lidel Herrmann, Pigott, and above ninety musicians in the orchestra, and more than one hundred and twenty singers in the chorus. The festival was held in the Theatre-Royal, then, as now, the only building in Dublin capable of accommodating the vast number which alone could render such a speculation remunerative. The theatre can hold two thousand six hundred persons, all of whom may see and hear, whether in the boxes, pit, or galleries.* The arrangement was, to have oratorios kept distinct on certain mornings, and miscellaneous concerts on the evenings of other days. The concerts were crushers, but the first oratorio was decidedly a break down. The com

mittee became alarmed; the expenses were enormous, and heavy liabilities stared them in the face. There was no time to be lost, and at the second oratorio, duly announced, there stood Paganini, in front of the orchestra, violin in hand, on an advanced platform, overhanging the pit, not unlike orator Henley's tub, as immortalised by the poet. Between the acts of the Messiah and the Creation, he fiddled "the Witches at the Great Walnut Tree of Benevento," with other equally appropriate interpolations, to the ecstatic delight of applauding thousands, who cared not a pin for Haydn or Handel, but came to hear Paganini alone; and to the no small scandal of the select few, who thought the episode a little on the north side of consistency. But the money was thereby forthcoming, every body was paid, the committee escaped without damage, and a hazardous speculation, undertaken by a few spirited individuals, was wound up with de

served success.

When the festival was over, the town empty, and a cannon-ball might have been fired down Sackville-street without doing much injury, Paganini was engaged by himself for a series of five performances in the theatre. For this he received £1143. His dividend on the first night's receipts amounted to £333 (horresco referens!) without a shilling of outlay incurred on his part. He had the lion's share with a vengeance, as the manager cleared with difficulty £200. The terms he demanded and obtained were a clear two-thirds of each night's receipts, twenty-five guineas per night for the services of two auxiliaries, worth about as many shillings, the full value allowed for every free ticket, and an express stipulation that if he required a rehearsal on a dark morning, when extra light might be indispensable, the expense of candles should not fall on him-a contingency which by no possible contrivance could involve a responsibility exceeding five or six shillings. In 1848, the second year of the famine, and the first of the rebellion which did not take place, the six performances of Jenny Lind in Dublin produced seven thousand pounds sterling, of which five thou

sand eight hundred were paid to her and the parties with whom she was associated. In America, if the furor she has at present excited continues,

as is almost certain, for the next twelve months, her receipts will reach a sum sufficient to buy the fee simple of ten German principalities.

THERE seems no very good reason for reading disquisitions on the principles of translation, unless a man is about executing some work of the kind himself, and wishes to receive instructions from a master in the art. Dryden's prefaces,

"Though writ at first for filling,

To raise the volume's price a shilling,"

Mr.

are an exception, as they are really very entertaining, and the principles of an art in which he excelled are, we think, more distinctly and successfully stated than in any other works we could mention. The genius of the language into which any work is to be translated, be that work prose or verse, and not that from which he translates, should guide the translator throughout. This seems so obvious that we can scarcely imagine it disputed; yet practically it is denied, and the forms of the original are for ever reproduced, when they ought to be disregarded altogether. Blackie is one of the most successful translators we know, and one of the most conscientious. He does what he can perfectly to master the entire meaning of his author, and having so done, to express it, and neither more nor less than it, in his own language, disregarding unimportant forms, and writing very often with all the power and vigour of one expressing his own original thoughts. There is, now and then, great and successful boldness, more often great beauty of expression. The style is always manly. It is perfectly an English style-we speak of the translation, not the prefaces and noteswith a dash of Scotch in it which in truth were better away: but it is really

a pleasant thing to meet so good a book.

Mr. Blackie defends himself for having written in verse, not in prose. Had he written in prose, we should as little think of looking at his book as at any other school-book, for with such books alone could it be classed-an imperfect help to a stumbling boy, to be used, thrown away, and forgotten. These prose translations have their use; the worst of them are better than bad verse, as making no pretensions; but the moment any pretensions are made for them their claim should be altogether ignored. Poor Smart, whose Horace has helped hundreds and thousands of schoolboys, was so thoroughly ashamed of having worked as a bookseller's back in its production, that, having some talent in verse, he commenced a translation in metrical forms, in order to secure oblivion to his prose exploit. In vain his verse-Horace has shared the fate of most of his verses, while his prose work promises to be as immortal as the generations of schoolboys. The book is useful as a spelling-book is useful; it is not, and ought not, to be named at all; and we cannot understand why it is that Mr. Blackie is led to discuss this question. Each of these classes of works are for their own purposes useful, but there is no object in comparing things so utterly unlike. The one, at best, is the appropriate work of the preterpluperfect schoolmaster; the other, at worst, the ambitious effort of an overgrown schoolboy.

Mr. Blackie's is, if we think of a translation of all the dramas of Eschylus, probably the best translation. Of the Agamemnon, we prefer Dr.

Two vols. 8ra

Kennedy Bailie's translation to any other, and next to him as a translator, or with him, we should place Harford. Our readers will probably feel pleasure in comparing some single passage in which the strength of the respective translators is tried, and we scarce know any furnishing so fair a test as that remarkable one, in which Clytemnestra describes the line of watchfires along

ÆSCHYLUS.

ΧΟ. καὶ τὶς τόδ' ἐξίκοιτ' ἂν ἀγγέλων τάχος ; ΚΛ. Ηφαίστος, Ἴδης λαμπρὸν ἐκπέμπων σέο

λας.

φρυκτὸς δὲ φρυκτὸν δεῖρ ̓ ἀπ' ἀγγάρου πυρὸς અે ἔπεμπεν· ἴδη μέν, πρὸς Ἑρμαῖον λέπας Λήμνου· μέλαν δὲ πανὸν ἐκ νήσου τρίτον ̓Αθῷον αἶπος Ζηνὸς ἐξεδέξατο, ὑπερτελής τε, πόντον ὥστε νωτίσαι, ἰσχὺς πορευτοῦ λαμπάδος, πρὸς ἡδονὴν πεύκη, τὸ χρυσοφεγγές, ὥς τις ἥλιος, σέλας παραγγείλασα Μακίστου σκοπαῖς. ὁ δ ̓ οὔ τι μέλλων, οὐδ ̓ ἀφραδμόνως ὕπνῳ νικώμενος, παρῆκεν ἀγγέλου μέρος· ἱκὰς δὲ φρυκτοῦ φῶς ἐπ ̓ Εὐρίπου ῥοὰς Μεσσαπίου φύλαξι σημαίνει μολόν. εἰ δ ̓ ἀντέλαμψαν καὶ παρήγγειλαν πρόσω, γραίας ἐρείκης θωμὸν ἅψαντες πυρί. σθένουσα λαμπὰς δ ̓ οὐδέπω μαυρουμένη, ὑπερθοροῦσα πεδίον ̓Ασωποῦ, δίκην φαιδρᾶς σελήνης, πρὸς Κιθαιρῶνος λέπας, ἤγειρεν ἄλλην ἐκδοχὴν πομποῦ πυρός. φάος δὲ τηλέπομπον οὐκ ἠναίνετο φρουρά, πλέον καίουσα τῶν εἰρημένων· λίμνην δ' ὑπὲρ Γοργῶπιν ἔσκηψεν φάος ögos τ' ἐπ ̓ Αἰγίπλαγκτον ἐξικούμενον, ὤτρυνε θεσμὸν μὴ χατίζεσθαι πυρός. πέμπουσι δὲ ἀνδαίοντες ἀφθόνῳ μένει φλογὸς μέγαν πώγωνα, καὶ Σαρωνικοῦ πορθμοῦ κάτοπτον πρῶν ὑπερβάλλειν πρόσω φλέγουσαν· εἶτ ̓ ἔσκηψεν, ἔστ' ἀφίκετο Αραχναῖον αἶπος, ἀστυγείτονας σκοπάς· κάπειτ' Ατρειδῶν εἰς τόδε σκήπτει στέγος φάος τόδ', οὐκ ἄπαππον Ιδαίου πυρός. τοιοίδε τοί μοι λαμπαδηφόρων νόμοι, ἄλλος παρ' ἄλλου διαδοχαίς πληρούμενοι νικὰ δ ̓ ὁ πρῶτος καὶ τελευταῖος δραμών. τέκμαρ τοιοῦτο σύμβολόν τε σοὶ λέγω, ἀνδρὸς παραγγείλαντος ἐκ Τροίας ἐμοί.

KENNEDY BAILIE.

"CH. What herald could such wondrous speed achieve?

Cr. Hephaestus, his clear light from Ida sending.

Torch-fire from torch-fire, with successive gleam,

Sped hither: Ida to th' Hermæan crag

Of Lemnos sends it: Jove's Athoan steep Caught the bright beacon from the island next, And speeds it in its onward strength, o'erpassing

The deep's broad bosom, harbinger of joy,

the coast, by which, in accordance with her preconcerted plan, she learns the destruction of Troy. The passage presents no difficulties, and is one of singular vigour and beauty in the original. Some of the effects it is impossible for any translator to exhibit, as the names of places have occasionally a meaning in the original language which is of course altogether lost in ours.

POTTER.

"CH. What speed cou'd be the herald of this news?

CL. The fire that from the height of Ida sent Its streaming light, as from th' announcing flame

Torch blaz'd to torch. First Ida to the steep
Of Lemnos; Athos' sacred height receiv'd
The mighty splendor; from the surging back
Of th' Hellespont the vig'rous blaze held on
Its smiling way, and like the orient sun
Illumes with golden-gleaming rays the head
Of rocky Macetas; nor lingers there,
Nor winks unheedful, but its warning flames
Darts to the streams of Euripus, and gives
Its glitt'ring signal to the guards that hold
Their high watch on Mesapius. These en-
kindle

The joy-denouncing fires, that spread the blaze
To where Erica hoar its shaggy brow
Waves rudely. Unimpaired the active flame
Bounds o'er the level of Asopus, like
The jocund Moon, and on Citharon's steep
Wakes a successive flame; the distant watch
Agnize its shine, and raise a brighter fire,
That o'er the lake Gorgopis streaming holds
Its rapid course, and on the mountainous
heights

Of Egiplanctus huge, swift-shooting spreads
The lengthen'd line of light. Thence onwards

waves

Its fiery tresses, eager to ascend

The crags of Prone, frowning in their pride O'er the Saronic gulf: it leaps, it mounts The summit of Arachne, whose high head Looks down on Argos: to this royal seat Thence darts the light that from th' Idæan fire Derives its birth. Rightly in order thus Each to the next consigns the torch, that fills The bright succession, while the first in speed Vies with the last: the promis'd signal this Giv'n by my lord t' announce the fall of Troy.”