MR JAMES SMITH’S LECTURES.

Evening Star, Issue 2870, 1 May 1872, Page 2

MR JAMES SMITH’S LECTURES.

On Monday, at St. George’s Hall, this gentleman delivered the first of a course of five lectures, on literary subjects, to an audience which listened with unflagging attention to an essay occupying an hour and twenty minutes in the delivery, Mr Justice Chapman, as President of the Mutual Improvement Society, occupied the chair, and introduced Mr Smith in a few felicitouslyworded sentences. The subject of the lecture was “Shakespeare, the Dramatist and the Man ” In preference to a general disquisiiion on the plays and poetry of the great writer, Mr Smith presented his hearers with a critical and expository analysis of King hoar, illustrating it with readings of some of the most striking passages in that noble tragedy ; selecting those chiefly which are most conspicuous for sublimity and pathos. In doing so, the lecturer pointed out the scriptural simplicity and xnonosyllablic structure of the language employed, with a view to impress upon his hearet s the fact that dignity, power, grandeur, pathos, and picturesqueness of style are perfectly compatible with the utmost sobriety of dictum. He passed on to show that Shakespeare was the greatest of artists, as well as the king of poets ; and that—as was first demonstrated by Gervinns, the German critic—the method adopted by the dramatist in the construction of his plays was identical with that which governs the formation of an arch in architecture,—the line of the action rising to the catastrophe or key-stone, and thence falling to the conclusion. With respect to the biography of Shakespeare, Mr Smith deplored the fact that “ the most supremely gifted man the world had ever seen came and went like a veiled figure.” We knew all about his contemporaries, how much a yard Manager Henslowc paid for his velvet and taffeta, and what were the jesis uttered by Tarleton, who played the clown in Shakespeare’s theatre; but of the life of the great dramatist here, we bad only a few meagre particulars. These, however, were combined and expanded by the lecturer _ into a really copious memoir; so that the audience were enabled to follow the poet from his cradle to his grave, to obtain an insight into his inner life—mainly by the aid of his sonnets —to guess at the infelicities of his uncongenial marriage, and to behold him very much as he lived—a splendid genius, but not a faultless man. Mr Smith drew a lively picture of the poet in his retirement at Stratford on Aveu ; and concluded with an eulogistic peroration in which the world-wide and enduring fame and influence of Shakespeare were dwelt upon with contagious enthusiasm. “To us,” said the lecturer, “he is the representative man of our race, the standard, gauge, and measure of its intellectual face; the demonstration of its august capacities; the symbol of its power ; the exponent of its best faculties in their fullest, happiest, and most beneficent exercise; the highest register upon the scale of its mental greatness ; the sovereign poet, humanest teacher, wisest councillor, and most loving friend of all who deduce their lineage from English sires.” During the delivery of the foregoing lecture, the attention of the audience was so complete and unbroken, that one might have heard a pin fall; and when the lecturer resumed his seat, the gratification of those present was testified by a burst of hearty and prolonged applause. A vote of thanks was passed to, and suitably acknowledged by, the lecturer and the chairman ; his Honor paying a high compliment to Mr Smith for the condensation of so much information within the limits of a single lecture.

Mr Smith’s second lecture—that on “ Wit and Humour,” a subject upon which the former editor of “Melbourne Punch” during its palmiest days ought to be able to write an amusing essay—will be delivered on Thursday instead of Wednesday evening, as originally announced, so as not to clash with Professor Black’s introductory lecture on the latter evening at the University.