Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson: Selected and Edited With an Introduction and Notes by William Lyon PhelpsStevenson, Robert Louis
General
Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson: Selected and Edited With an Introduction and Notes by William Lyon Phelps
Stevenson, Robert Louis
Essays
[Note 37: _Webster, Jeremy Taylor, Burke_. John Webster was one of the
Elizabethan dramatists, who, in felicity of diction, approached more
nearly to Shakspere than most of his contemporaries. His greatest play
was _The Duchess of Malfi_ (acted in 1616). Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667),
often called the "Shakspere of Divines," was one of the greatest
pulpit orators in English history. His most famous work, still a
classic, is _Holy Living and Holy Dying_ (1650-1). Edmund Burke
(1729-1797) the parliamentary orator and author of the _Sublime and
Beautiful_ (1756), whose speeches on America are only too familiar to
American schoolboys.]
[Note 38: _Junius_. No one knows yet who "Junius" was. In the _Public
Advertiser_ from 21 Jan. 1769 to 21 Jan. 1772, appeared letters signed
by this name, which made a sensation. The identity of the author was a
favorite matter for dispute during many years.]
[Note 39: _David Hume_. The great Scotch skeptic and philosopher
(1711-1776).]
[Note 40: _Shakespeare's fairy pieces with great scenic display._ So
far from this being a novelty to-day, it has become rather nauseating,
and there are evidences of a reaction in favour of _hearing_ Shakspere
on the stage rather than _seeing_ him.]
[Note 41: _Calvinism_. If this word does not need a note yet, it
certainly will before long. The founder of the theological system
Calvinism was John Calvin, born in France in 1509. The chief doctrines
are Predestination, the Atonement (by which the blood of Christ
appeased the wrath of God toward those persons only who had been
previously chosen for salvation--on all others the sacrifice was
ineffectual), Original Sin, and the Perseverance of the Saints (once
saved, one could not fall from grace). These doctrines remained intact
in the creed of Presbyterian churches in America until a year or two
ago.]
[Note 42: _Two bob_. A pun, for "bob" is slang for "shilling."]
[Note 43: _Never read Othello to an end_. In _A Gossip on a Novel of
Dumas's,_ Stevenson confessed that there were four plays of Shakspere
he had never been able to read through, though for a different reason:
they were _Richard III, Henry VI, Titus Andronicus_, and _All's Well
that Ends Well_. It is still an open question as to whether or not
Shakspere wrote _Titus_.]
[Note 44: _A liberal and pious education_. It was Sir Richard Steele
who made the phrase, in _The Tatler_, No. 49: "to love her (Lady
Elizabeth Hastings) was a liberal education."]
[Note 45: _Trait d'union_. The French expression simply means
"hyphen": literally, "mark of connection."]
[Note 46: _Malvolio_. The conceited but not wholly contemptible
character in _Twelfth Night_.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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