EXTRACTS FROM NEW BOOKS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVIII, Issue 6201, 1 October 1881, Page 7

EXTRACTS FROM NEW BOOKS.

OUR SHAKESPEARE. [From " English Studies." By the late J. S. Brewer, 11. A.) Not one of these plays was reproduced in another form : scarcely a word or sentence in any of the thirty-seven can bo traced to other sources. This is as wonderful as anything else in Shakespeare. Other poets " toil after him in vain." Tears and laughter, the inseparable attendants of surpassing genius, are equally, and at all times, .and in all degrees, at Shakespeare's command. The wit of Dogberry and the sailora in "The Tempest," the wit of kings in "Henry TV." and "Love's Labour's Lost," the wit of FalstafT and of Hamlet; native wit, philosophic wit, the wit of the fat and of the lean man ; wit in the half-glimmerings of dawning reason trenching upon madness ; the wit of temperaments like Mercutio's, of topers like 55ir Toby Belch, of mischief as in Maria ai]d;*Clcopatva, of confident villany as in Richard lll.—all these, and many more, flow from him with inexhaustible fertility. I Nor is the pathetic and the tragic exhibited under less multiplicity of forms. Nor is it less sudden and meteoric than the wit. The reader is taken by surprise. It flashes on him with the suddenness and vividness of an electric flash. He is prostrated and melted by it, before he is aware. Whether the reader be prepared for what is coming, whether the poet in the consciousness of his might forewarns him that he may be forearmed, or whether he darts on him by surprise, the result is the same, it is inevitable. In FalstafFs ridiculous exploits, though the whole scene is inexpressibly comic, the burst, "By the Lord, I knew ye, as well as he that made ye," &c., is as sudden and surprising as if it had flushed upon us out of the darkness—out of the most serious scene ; as in "Lear," whilst every fibre of the heart is quivering with irrepressible emotion, one expression in his dying speech, "Pray you, undo this button," standing conspicuous in its commonplaceness against the rest, sweeps away the little self-restraint that remains to us with the suddenness and overwhelming force of a torrent.

ALGERIA AS A COLONY. {From " En Altjerie : a travers l'Kspange et le Moroc." Tar. M. Vernes d'Arlancies.] Three elements are necessary for colonisation : arms, wood, and water. Now, in Algeria all these things are often wanting together. The traveller, as he traverses so many districts still uncultivated, sadiy calculates how many sources of wealth are lost or unexplored : he is distressed that people should not know how to use land which must be fertile, or to take advantage of the wonderful climate, which must make everything fruitful. But closer observation leads to the conviction that, in this country of light, much more labour ami perseverance are needed to obtain remunerative results than in other lands less favoured by the sun. There is a lack of arm*, since the negroes have begun to disappear. As workmen and labourers the services chiefly of Spauiards and Morocco-men are sought, for they are tolerably industrious when away from home. They live on a very little, and withstand better than others the persistent attacks of fever: but then they are 110s numerous enough. Of wood there is none, or rather there is none left. The tribes whose nomad life leads them to prefer broad indefinite pasture lands, have long siuce removed from this province, wherever they could, all traces of trees and even of bushes. As for water, there is none throughout the greater part of the interior. I adduce as witnesses the miserable streams which are honoured with the name of rivers, and which, as tliey are dried up during eight months of the year, present the appearance of a bed of' pebbles, among which spring up the oleanders, powerless to conceal the lamentable want of water—only too frequently the too faithful image of the poverty of the colonist, whose crops have been burnt up by the sirocco, just as in the north a fire will rage at full liberty when the cold has frozen up the canals.

AMOXG THE MAHEXGE. [From " The Central African Lakes and Back." By Joseph Thomson.] A Royal proclamation was sent over the country, making it known in African fashion that the chief, ever mindful of his loving subjects, had, regardless of expense, Secured a real white man, and that all who desired to see this great curiosity must come at once, as lie could only be detained a few days. In response to this invitation the people flocked to the exhibition in crowds. They issued, miserable and sooty, from tlib swamps and marshes of the east; they flocked down in wild array from the high mountains in the west; tiie rishermen from the rivei-s Urania ar.d Ruaha sent their quota till Mkomokero was filled with visitors. lat once became all the rage, and it would have quite delighted any philanthropist to see the way in which they studied my every movement. Even the mysteries of the toilet could not bo veiled from their curious eyes, a fact which caused me much embarrassment. . . . But as in the case of the lions at the Zoological Gardens, the "feeding" was the great attraction. A husk of expectancy would fall upon the crowd as the hour approached, and tliey watched with a feeling of awe the box being laid out and the camp stool set beside it, with the metal plate and cup, the bottle of salt, and the can of sugar, together with the knife and fork. As the boy appeared witli the stewed fowls and sweet potatoes the excitement usually rose perceptibly, and a crush for front places would ensue, threatening io upset my humble meal. The climax was usually readied when, with all the gravity I was capable of assuming, I took the knife and fork in my hands. The fowls, I however, were leathery, and my unavailable i attempts to cut or carve reduced the whole spectaeli from the sublime to the ridiculous, | and afforded such food for satire and laughter to the wags of the tribe that I blushed and scowled.

PASCAL. [From *'* Unbelifif in the Eighteenth Century." Br Kev. Y)z. Cairns, of Edinburgh.] Though grovingupon the territory of Rome, and in connect',on with one of the most remarkable passages in its history—the attempt to unite Augustinian theology with Roinish discipline—the effort of Pascal was essentially in the spirit of the Reformation, for it based faith not tipou tht testimony of a Church, or a set of so-call«d evidences outside of Christianity itself, out upon the characteristic nature and operation of Christianity. The greatness and miser' of man—the enigmas of his being which no.hing else can solve, its desiderata, which nothing else can supply— the coming of Christ in His own order of greatness—the liighes of the.three physical, intellectual, and spiritual, and as much requiring the seeing eye to discern it as the others, while alone awakening in the soul the thrill of deepest recognhiou—this is the keynote of Pascal's apologeti;, to which all questions of books and liiftory, all miracles, prophecy, and propagation, are but subsidiary. If he can awake tie soul out of the slumber of indifference, lmke ic find its true self in genuine awe, fear, nmorse, perplexity, and unsatisfied longing, tlfcn the condition is found of finding God in Christ; the Bible, with all its wonders, predictions, prefigurations, leads up to the Saviojr ; and yet He is discerned not so much by wlat these prove— though the proof is solid —ss by the light which streams from His ovn person and work as the God Incarnate, th> Redeemer of men—their Redeemer and Las. End in one. " This religion, so great in miricles, so great in knowledge, after having exlnusted all its miracles and all its wisdom, rejects all, and says that it has neither signs nonvisdom, but the cross and folly." Pascal is thus the most evangelical of apologists. It jj with him nothing to conquer atheism or De'sm by other weapons, if the spiritual glory ol Christ has not subdued the heart to living ftith. He is rich in new arguments on all tie standard topics; his fragments more than the full thoughts of other men, his divinations more than the results of all their learning. But he never looses the central point of view—the dawn of Christ's heavenly ligh; upon the humble and loving heart. This, : too, as he solemnly urges, may be defeated by pride and self-will, that love the darkness. Hence the idea which he is never wearied of lepeating, that Christ came not only to be revovled, but to be concealed.