τοὺς φίλους, ὅμως ὑπ ̓ αἰσχύνης ὧν ἐπίστευσαν, οὐδ' έτε προσίεσθαι αὐτοὺς ἢ τὴν ἀλήθειαν τολμῶσι· εἰ δ ̓ ἄρα συνειδότες ἐστὲ ἀταλαίποροι, ὡς οὐδὲν ἐκείνοις ἥδιον τῆς κατ' εμοῦ γλωσσαλγίας, τῷ παιδαριώδει καὶ ἀνοητῳ ὑμῶν μορίῳ ἀποχρησαμένης, εἶθ ̓ ὤφειλον μετὰ παρρησίας σχολαστικῆς τὴν ἑαυτῶν ἄνοιαν ἐπανορθώσητε, εἰς τὸ καθορίζειν ἐκείνους των ἰδίων ἐννοιῶν το Ἀπηχες ἅπαξ γὰρ περιγινομένου μοῦ τῆς τούτων σκευωρίας, τὴν κόπρον ἐκκαθάραι αὖθις τοῦ Ἀυγείου ἀν επιθυμῴην, ἢ τούτοις πάλιν συμπλέκεσθαι. Τοῦτο μόνον ὑμᾶς αὐτοῦμαι, εὐδι άγειν πασὶν ὑμῖν προσευχόμενος. Λονδώνοθεν Μουνυχιώνος ἡμέρᾳ ΚΗ αχνε. axve. τῆς ὑμετέρας δόξης καὶ εὐφημίας ἐπιθυμητὴς Ριχάρδος Ιακσον. Translation. I doubt not, reverend sirs, that it has been plain to you how that those our adversaries, (living tools of Satan) have been incited to unholy ragings, being pricked by the darts of envy, which ever slandereth most one that is held in honour or is worthy to be so: for by reason that this man stirreth the envy of those that fall short of him, all shoot at him as though seeing in him some hindrance and impediment to themselves. The which is no marvel. For each, wishing himself to be first, thrusteth aside his neighbour and essayeth to trip him that is before him. Whereby the good man verily hath been dragged at and at last thrust out with contumely. And as touching such evil dispositions it is the plausible man and the flatterer who is held in good repute and by seizing his opportunity hath entire 6 * εὔπορον μὲν ἀεὶ τῶν κατηγορίων κτλ. Cf. Lucian, Calumniae non temere credendum, §4:—ἄπιστος γὰρ αὐτόθι ή κατηγορία πρόδηλον ἔχουσα τὴν αἰτίαν... § 25, εἰσὶ δέ τινες οἳ κἂν μάθωσιν ὕστερον αδίκως διαβεβλημένους παρ' αὐτοῖς τοὺς φίλους, ὅμως ὑπ' αἰσχύνης ὧν ἐπίστευσαν οὐδ ̓ ἔτι προσίεσθαι οὐδὲ προσβλέπειν τολμῶσιν αὐτοῖς ὥσπερ ἠδικημένοι, ὅτι μηδὲν ἀδικοῦντας ἐπέγνωσαν. 7 * τὴν κόπρον συμπλέκεσθαι. Lucian, Fugitivi, 23: καὶ μὴν ἄμεινον ἦν, ὦ πάτερ, τὴν κόπρον ἐκκαθάραι αὖθις τὴν Αὐγείου ἢ τούτοις συμπλέκεσθαι. power with the judges, whose ears are pleasantly tickled by the slanderers so that they are believed lightly and without examination. By which evil dispositions cloaked in sophistries this man of fair words with his sworn witnesses have left no rope unturned, seeking by their trickery some things to lay hold of whereby I may be overwhelmed by ill fame. For to him (being a great blusterer) it seemeth a strange thing, a poor man that doth not cower but freely speaketh of that which hath come about, since he by no means endureth that a tale should be told openly and in truth. For which cause he asked to have you as umpires, whom I judged proper persons thereto as who should be superior to bribes and malice and having no biassed mind but ever weighing evenly what is just. Wherefore these writings are sent to you for a proof and testimony of our innocency and likewise of their mischievousness. From which when ye have read them and have strictly examined the lads who are being reared here, ye may convince the most malicious of folly, unless ye shall be willing to surrender to the evil devices of men the poor preacher of the Gospel, given over unto villany. It is easy indeed to get the better of accusations, which everywhere are beyond belief, having a cause manifest, unless there are some among you who even if they afterwards learn that their friends have been slandered among them unjustly, nevertheless from shame at having believed, dare not even then to admit them or the truth. But if, as men indifferent, ye know in yourselves that to them nothing is more sweet than to revile me and so abuse the young and thoughtless part of you, I would that with the plain speech of the school ye would correct their thoughtlessness so that they should put some bound to the discord of their own thoughts. For when I have once got the better of their mischievousness, I would desire to clear the dung once more from the Augean stable rather than to engage with these men again. This is all I ask of you. Praying for the prosperity of you all from London A wellwisher of your glory and good fame 28th day April (or May) 1655. R. F. S. (To be continued). IBSEN. HAVE no intention of giving any account of Ibsen himself in this paper. His life can be read elsewhere by anybody who wishes to know more of him. Here one must content oneself with an endeavour to get some reasonable idea of his works and meaning. For the benefit of the uninformed one may premise that he was born at Skien, in Southern Norway, in 1828, and finally left his country in 1864, to divide his life between Italy and Germany, his favourite places being Rome and Munich. No one, I suppose, will deny that he is a great man, or that he has at least elements of greatness. A little man could not have produced the effect he has had on the minds of men. It is into the sources and nature of this greatness that we have to inquire. In the first place, so far as can be gathered from translations which are supposed to be very faithful, he is no great stylist. The jerk that is so painfully obvious in his social dramas may be due to Mr Archer. It is true that it is less perceptible in Brand which is translated by Mr Watson, but even there it is not absent. Hence one may not unreasonably lay it to Ibsen's charge. It may be also said that he has no very conspicuous gift of humour. There are those who say he has none at all. This may be exaggeration. Still such humour as one meets is too often commonplace. The distress of the philosopher Kytron, the trick of Anitra, and the delusions of the Cairo mad-house people, are not very high flights after all. Many people find him hard to read from other causes. His work has little padding, and is obscure. His characters are oftener mad than is usual in most books. Moreover there is a sort of nudity about their spirits, which is a little perplexing to those who see chiefly what I may call the clothing of actions. You see too far into his characters to be able to feel they are quite real people after all. This however may be the reader's fault rather than Ibsen's. No doubt if one could see right through people, one would find them very much as he finds them. Setting aside his manner, we may pass on to his matter. On this people are less agreed than before. This may arise from the fact that one finds in Ibsen as elsewhere chiefly that for which one looks. Hence one man finds in him a sort of museum of specimens of psychology, while another finds normal human beings -or nearly normal. One finds morality subverted, another finding it more firmly based than ever. Generally speaking you may say most people admit a certain deGrundyzation, so to speak, of morals to be a leading characteristic of Ibsen. This, with all due regard to that pillar of society, whose name I have taken in vain, I am prepared to admit. Whether again he teaches this, that, or the other doctrine, or merely paints human life, I am not prepared to discuss. Perhaps one may conclude from the type of picture he usually paints, and from the way in which one picture complements another, that he has after all something to say of importance. This we must endeavour to discover. Should we fail to discover anything, every man must draw his own conclusion for himself concerning Ibsen's mind and his own. The question now meets us, How should we begin? If you begin with The Master Builder or Rosmersholm, it is highly probable you will soon leave off. These are to my mind the hardest of his plays. Nor would I advise beginning with a social drama, unless it were The Lady from the Sea or Pillars of Society. Anyone who begins with The Doll's House, for example, or Hedda Gabler, will have a tendency to conclude abruptly that Ibsen believes marriage to be a failure, its tie of no importance, suicide not at all culpable, and society generally worthless. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I should therefore recommend beginning with Emperor and Galilean, and then going on to the following: Brand, Peer Gynt, The Lady from the Sea, and The Enemy of Society, and thereafter any play one pleases. For the present I propose to adhere more or less closely to this order, until we get something better to work at. Beginning then with Emperor and Galilean, you will find it a strong play of great interest, with very little of the so-called "Ibsenism" which the British Public in its rough and ready way identifies with lunacy. The central figure is of course Julian, and the setting is admirable. Christian, orthodox and heretic, heathen, philosopher and scoffer, all are there. Student, courtier, townsman and soldier, Greek and barbarian, all help on the action of the play. The characters are clear and very typical of the classes they represent. So far as I can judge, the tone and aspect of society are well caught, while generally speaking the history of the period is religiously respected. The piece consists of two plays of five acts each, the second being to my mind more striking than the first. It need hardly be said that the story of Julian's apostasy is the theme of this great work. One is made to see very clearly the stages by which he came to revert to the old gods. The chief cause was, according to Ibsen, a feeling that the Christianity of his time failed to include all human life, that many important and valuable elements of it fell outside the teaching of the Church, and that the religion of the Nazarene was too hard and austere to be the final religion. Accordingly Julian betakes himself to philosophy and mysticism, and throughout the book the Mystic Maxi |