MR JAMES SMITH LECTURES.

Tuapeka Times, Volume V, Issue 223, 9 May 1872, Page 6

MR JAMES SMITH LECTURES.

On Monday, at St./** es RM > thl * &*' tleman delivered tb> st °/ * COUrSe f. five lwtures, on liter/ 8ul f ot8 ' to " ""^"T which listened 118 at * ei > tlon to an essay «,"&"« an hour and twenty minutes V ne delivery - Mr Jußtice Cha Pm /resident ef the Mutual Improve- . jociety, occupied the chair, and intrp .aced Mr Smith in a few felicitouslysentences. The subject of the lecture was "Shakespeare, the Dramatist and the Man." In preference to a general disquisition on the plays and poetry of the great writer, Mr Nmith presented his hearers with a critical and expository analysis of King Lear, 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 monosyllablie structure of the language employed, with a view to impress upon his heareis 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 Gervinus, 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 Henslowe paid for his velvet and taffeta, and what were the jests uttered by Tarleton, who played the clown in Shakespeare's theatre ; but of the life of the great dramatist here, we had 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 son- ] nets— to guesß 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 Aven ; 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 lovmg 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.

We wore not surprised to find the lower hall of the Athensum crowded to excess on Thursday evening to hear Mr Smith's second lecture — that on wit and humor. As Mr Justice Chapman, who presided, tritely observed in introducing the lecturer, it was remarkable for the excellence of its matter and the manner of its delivery. From first to last he kept his audience in roars of laughter by the excellent manner in which he told the innumerable jokes and witticisms, with which his remarks were plentifuly interspersed. Considering, said the lecturer, the number the eminence, and the special qualifications of the writers who have attempted to describe the nabure, define the boundaries, and differentiate the qualities of wit and humor respectively, and who have failed to do so either to their own satisfaction or to that of the student who consulted them, as the highest authorities on the subject, it would be an unpardonable piece of impertinence on his (Mr Smith's) part to venture upon a very elaborate definition of the two things. In his opinion the closest approximation to the truth in respect to these great principles of mirth was that arrived at by an American essayist, who said that " Wit exists by antipathy, and humor by sympathy. Wit laughs at things ; and humor laughs with them." Into most forms of wit there entered some element of malevolence or misanthropy, or scorn, or cynicism, or envy, or scepticism — not always, but more often th n not ; whereas humor was genial, benevolent, tolerant, and humane. Instancing the wide difference between the two, he said wit was a portion of the choice fruitage of the mind converted into vinegar; humor was the transformation of some of its 'generous juices into exhilerating wine. Wit was the strong, tierce light which beats on the surface of things, hardening what it brightened. Humor was like the gentle rain which softly sinks into the grateful soil, with a fertilising and refreshing influence. Then followed a rapid glance at some of the witticisms of Henniker, Thackery, Dickens, Sydney Smith, Jerrold, and other great lights ; and the lecturer proceeded : — He suspected that individual temperament had a great deal to do with wit and humor. He was inclined to bel eve also that much depended on national character : since it might be asserted that seme nations were witty, whilst others were humorous. A serious and sedate people — a people whose character reposed on a basis of gravity and solidity — would produce more humorists than wits. It was so, for example, with the English, the Scotch, the German, and the Spanish. On the other hand, a people of a vivacious and volatile temperament, like the Irish,| the French, and the Italians, would produce many wits, but few humorists. Irish wit was spontaneous and natural, unconscious and unforced. It rose sparkling to the surface, like the bubbles in a glass of champagne French wit, like the complexion of some of tbe French ladies was somewhat artificial ; and it was often sharpened by a little malice prepense. An Irishman's repartee sprang to his lips unstudied : it was just as native to the mind of the bog-trotter as to that of the barrister. French wit, as he had said, was always flavored with malice ; and some of the best witticisms in the language could not be quoted on account of their indelicacy or on account of their profanity. Scotch humor was dry demure, and pawky. It was grave, if not solemn, in the midst of its drollery. It was externally rugged ; but internally rich, like a pine apple. It made you chuckle rather than laugh. What it wanted in superficial briliancy was made up for by its depth and fcolidity. The Americans were humorous, I but seldom witty ; and this was in keeping with the national character : for they are at bottom a grave and saturnine people, with a great fund of reserve, and a power of selfseclusion quite equal to that of your •vnrage

Englishman. Their humor, however, differed from that of all other nations. It was racy of the soil ; had great breadth, like American enterprise and American territory ; and great extravagance, like the opulent classes of American society. It dealt in exaggeration and grotesque similitudes ; it was sometimes terribly grim, and when it ran riot, its tricks resembled those of an elephant disporting himself in a plantation of sugar canes. One ■as amazed as well as amused by its va«aries>. After making a brief reference to epigrammatists, to satirists, from Dryden to Byron, and to modern parodists, passing a compliment en passant to the j cleverest of the many contributors to Melbourne Punch, Frederick Sinnett. and James Stiffe. the lecturer read Dr Barron's exhaustive definition of wit and humor, fitting it clause by clause with an apposite illustration, and concluded with a defence of cheerfulness, which is worth quoting '"Cheerfulness," remarked Mr Smith, "is both contagious and diffusive. A cheerful nature impresses something of its own airy grace and brigntness upon the minds of those with whom it is brought into contact. It makes the human face more beautiful and enables us to discern greater loveliness in that of nature. Tt disposes a man to take general and tolerant views of human character, and reconciles him to the vicissitudes of human life. It is the sign of both mental and bodily health ; an admirable antidote to the malice of oar enemies and not less efficacious for the multiplication of our friends. Let us be grateful, then, to all wits and humorists who have filled the world 'with the sunshine of their own fine genial loving natures. For us they have made it infinitely more pleasant and more habitable by animating it with frolicsome creatures, and when we come to reckon up the blessings of this life — and they are neither inconsiderable in number nor small in magnitude— l think we must assign a foremost place to that faculty by which nature enables most of us, if not to originate, at anyrate to appreciate wit and humor."