XI.

IV., i., 76, 9

,From such misery doth she cut me off."

This verse halts, and must be restored by reading

„From such a misery doth she cut me off."

IV., i., 95, 7

XII.

Of one poor scruple; nay, if the scale do turn.“

This lame verse can easily be cured by omitting the unnecessary auxiliary do. The termination of the verse is then, if the scale turn. This termination looks faulty at first sight, at least, if we apply the laws of classical versification. For there it is a fundamental principle that the last foot of every verse should represent the pure rhythm. The rhythm of the blank verse is iambic; the last foot, therefore, we might think, should not consist of two such words as scale turn, which can only be considered a spondee, and not an iambus. What makes this apparent neglect of the true iambic rhythm still worse, is the circumstance that in the preceding foot, if the, the rhythmical accent (the arsis) is on the short, insignificant article. I must confess this kind of verse is not pleasant to my ear. But they are so frequent in Shakspere, that we must look upon them as perfectly legitimate, and need not hesitate to introduce them in an emendation. In the Merchant of Venice," alone, we have the following examples:

II., i., 3

,,Pluck the young sucking cubs from the she-bear." III., ii., 37

,,I have engaged myself to a dear friend."

,,I take this offer then: pay the bond thrice." IV., i., 106

Therefore thou must be hang'd at the states' charge."

XIII.

IV., i., 133

99

And if your wife be not a mad woman."

-

The rhythm of this verse seems even more irregular than that of those we had just now under consideration. For here the last foot deviates more from the iambic rhythm than a spondee. It is a pure trochee, and, therefore, the verse reads precisely like a Greek skazon, i. e., limping iambic verse, where the last foot is regularly and purposely a trochee, in order to produce a peculiar and almost ludicrous effect. But, upon closer examination, much of this oddity disappears. The expression, mad woman," namely, is to be considered, not as two words, but as a compound substantive, the feminine of ,,madman." There is a difference in the accents on ,mádman" and „mad mán“ the first is a trochee, the second an iambus. Just so, „mad woman" differs from „mádwoman." The former has the accent on the penultimate, the latter on the antepenultimate. Now, by a fundamental law of the English language, in every word of three syllables, that syllable which immediately adjoins the accented syllable can, in poetry, be used as an unaccented (or short) syllable; and that syllable .which immediately adjoins this short or unaccented syllable and is, therefore, separated by it from the accented syllable receives a secondary accent, and can, therefore, be used as long. Thus, in devoteé, disregárd, entertáin, the antepenultimate receives a secondary accent; in májesty, provident, tówering. the ultimate does the same. Applying this rule to the word madwoman, we shall find that it can be scanned as amphimacer mádwomán, or in other words, that the second part of it, the word "woman" can change its original accent from that of a trochee to that of an iambus.

XIV.

V., i., 24

Jessica.

"I am never merry, when I hear sweet music."

It is worth while to inquire what is the precise meaning of "merry." Surely, Jessica cannot mean to say that music makes her sad. She speaks in general of „sweet music," not of solemn adagios, only, that melt the heart, and produce that sweet, softening melancholy, so soothing and delightful. To get at the true meaning of "merry," we must widen the enquiry, and compare the opposite of „merry,“ viz., „sad.“ There is an obvious connection between „,sadness" and ",attention," ",thoughtfulness" and "reflection;" and between ,,mirth," and „thoughtlessness," and „inattention." Thus, in „Midsummer Night's Dream," IV., 1.

„Then, my queen, in silence sad,
Trip we after the night's shade.

Winter's Tale," IV.

„My father and the gentleman are in sad talk."

Here, as Warburton observes, sad signifies only grave, sober. Blackstone quotes a statute 3 Henry VII., c. xiv., which directs certain offences, committed in the king's palace, to be tried by twelve sad men of the king's household. Here we have the judex tristis of Latin phraseology, who is not a sad melancholy judge, but one composed to serious attention and gravity, the very opposite quality of that which charakterises the reveller and the merry-maker. This connection between mirth and thoughtlessness is exemplified in Goldsmith's „Deserted Village," 122

and 255

„And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind,“

,Spontaneous joys, where nature has its play,
Lightly they frolic o'er the vacant mind;"

and, on the other hand, how closely correlative are sadness and thought is shown in the same poem, v. 136

The sad historian of the pensive plain"

99

where "pensive" evidently means mournful." Jessica, therefore, in saying she is not merry when she hears sweet music,

Archiv f. n. Sprachen. XXXI.

28

means to imply that she cannot think of anything else — that she is riveted by music - that she must listen and attend to it; and this is precisely the sense in which Lorenzo takes it, and which he fully explains by saying

„The reason is, your spirits are attentive."
Liverpool.
Dr. W. Ihne.

Beurtheilungen und kurze Anzeigen.

Die Verwendung des deutschen Lesebuchs für den deutschen Unterricht in Gymnasien und Realschulen. Nachgewiesen an Götzinger's Lesebuch von Dr. Ludwig Frauer. Schaffhausen, Hurter'sche Buchhandlung. 1861.

,,Ein deutsches Lesebuch ist an sich etwas Todtes, Leben erhält es erst durch die Art, wie es vom Lehrer angesehen, benützt und behandelt wird." Das deutsche Lesebuch soll den Mittelpunkt des deutschen Unterrichts in der Mittelschule bilden." Mit diesen beiden Sätzen eröffnet der Verfasser seine Ansichten über den Zweck und Gebrauch eines Lesebuchs; über den Werth desselben für die Bildung der mittleren Volksschichten und geht dann näher ein auf das Götzinger'sche Lesebuch und dessen Verwerthung für mündliche und schriftliche Arbeiten.

Bei der Wichtigkeit, die der Gegenstand hat zumal für uns, die wir, worauf ich erst kürzlich in meinem Jahresbericht nachdrücklichst hinge. wiesen habe, dem deutschen Unterricht noch nicht das volle Recht einräumen, das er beanspruchen kann und muss, bei der Gründlichkeit und Gediegenheit der ganzen Arbeit des Verfassers scheint es mir angemessen, den Inhalt des Buches ausführlicher, als es bei Büchern ähnlicher Art nöthig ist, darzulegen.

Eins der wichtigsten Mittel zur Bildung des Mittelstandes, sagt der Verfasser, ist neben der Lateinischen Sprache, neben der Geschichte des Vaterlandes, neben Naturwissenschaften, Mathematik und Zeichnen der rechte Betrieb der deutschen Sprache. Die Gelehrsamkeit, so weit davon die Rede sein kann, dieser mittleren Schichten des Volkes wird eine naturwüchsige und nationale sein müssen; sie wird besonders auch darin bestehen müssen, dass sie das, was gut deutsch und was schlecht deutsch geschrieben ist, verstehen und unterscheiden konnen, und dass sie selbst gut deutsch zu sprechen und zu schreiben im Stande sind. Zur Erlangung einer solchen Schulbildung ist freilich für diese Kreise eine Verlängerung der Schulzeit nöthig. Wer Kaufmann, Apotheker, Buchhändler, Bucbdrucker, Fabrikant, Techniker, Forstmann, Oeconom u. s. w werden will, der muss, wenn er später als Deutscher Bürger dem Beamten ebenbürtig zur Seite, beziehungsweise auch ihm gegenübertreten will, bis zum sechzehnten oder siebzehnten Lebensjahre die humanistische oder realistische Gymnasialschule besuchen. Die Einführung in die Literatur und Poesie fällt nicht zusammen, die letztere geschieht früher, die erstere später, wenigstens in vollständiger Weise am Schlusse des Gymnasialcursus. Dass dazu auf dieser Stufe auch das Studium des Altdeutschen gehört, versteht sich von selbst; und