we proceed by arrondissement, and give separately the statistics of several large cities, which seems desirable and necessary to produce a complete work. Neither can the Committee undertake directly all the monographies, which will amount perhaps to three hundred, which is nearly the number of the important monuments in our country which appear to merit a special work. Time and money would be wanting for such a colossal work. On the other hand, it would not do to let the designs of the Committee be regulated by chance, or to abandon them to the individual caprices of all those who might think proper to undertake an historical work on the monuments. It has therefore been thought indispensable to fix an uniform plan, and to apply it invariably to everything that shall be undertaken, without as well as within the Committee. "Two means of attaining this result offered themselves; both have been adopted. In the first place monographies and statistics will be given as models, to which all future monographies and statistics will conform, as well in the scientific plan as in the material execution. Next, instructions will be sent to all the correspondents, and to all the antiquaries in France, to indicate the plan according to which their researches must be made, to fix the expressions which are to be used in the description of a monument, and the characteristic signs which serve to class the works of art, and to determine their age. "As to the statistics, they will be of two kinds; those which include all the monuments of an arrondissement, and those which only comprehend the monuments of a great town. "For the model of the statistic of an arrondissement, that of Reims has been chosen-one of those which are most numerous in communes, and one of the richest in monuments. An architect of Reims, M. Hippolyte Durand, has been employed to make all the drawings; the archivist and librarian of the same town, M. Louis Pâris, will write the history of the edifices; the secretary of the Committee, M. Didron, will give the description of all the monuments which will be represented by engraving and lithography. "Paris has been chosen as the model of the statistic of a great town. This work has been entrusted to M. Albert Lenoir, who will give drawings and descriptions of all the Roman, Merovingian, and Carlovingian monuments which formerly adorned the town of Paris, and which have left numerous and imposing ruins. Paris, which possesses monuments of all epochs, from Julius Cæsar to our own days, will serve as a type for those great towns in France, Lyons, Rouen, Bordeaux, and Strasbourg. "The Committee will give also two models of monography; for, the monuments of France being splendid or austere, it is necessary to take a severe monument and a sumptuous one. "The cathedral of Noyon," graver still since the revolution and the course of ages have broken the statues of its portal and its painted windows, has been selected as the type of a church at once severe and original. By an exception which is rare in France, this cathedral is rounded at the extremity of its transepts, as at its apsis, and it is fronted by a porch on the west. M. Ramée has just finished the drawings of this curious monument, and M. L. Vitet, member of the Chamber of Deputies, is preparing the text. "The Cathedral of Chartres appeared to be the monument the most complete and the richest in France-we may almost say, in Europe. Nôtre Dame de Chartres is a cathedral far more considerable than the others, by its crypt, which extends the whole length of the building; by the numerous sculptures which decorate its royal portal and its lateral porches ; by its two western spires, perfect models of the architecture of the twelfth and of the fifteenth centuries; by the six amorces of towers which rise at the croisillons and at the apside; by the delicate sculptures which adorn the enclosure of the choir; by the painted glass which fills all the windows; by a great chapel-we may almost say, a little church-which the fourteenth century has attached to the great edifice of the thirteenth. "The drawings and text of this monography appeared to be of too high a degree of importance to be entrusted to a single person. Two artists have been joined together for the graphic work: MM. Lassus, architect, and AmauryDuval, painter. M. Lassus will make all the drawings of architecture and decoration, and will make the plans, and give the sections and elevations; M. AmauryDuval will draw all the sculpture. The text itself, which will accompany and explain these numerous designs, will also be divided. In a literary work on a monument like Nôtre Dame de Chartres, there are two parts which are very distinct: the history of this monument, which relates its foundation, its vicissitudes, the life of the personages who have inhabited it, so to speak, that of the bishops who have adorned, enlarged, and modified it, in fact the history of its former times; and the description which tells its present state, which describes by language all its stones one after another, all the statues, all the figures painted in fresco or on glass, all the various forms which sculpture has impressed on different materials to give them a character, a style, which indicates an epoch, an age. The history of a monument, in fact, is still more different from its description, than architectural drawings are from drawings of figures; and, since there were two artists for the graphic part, it was but logical to make the same division of the literary part of the undertaking." Besides doing all that may be possible to preserve the ancient monuments from ruin, the Committee of Arts and Monuments has taken measures to form a Museum of National Antiquities, in which the fragments of such monuments, as their endeavours have not been able to save from destruction, may be deposited. the proposition of the Committee, and has made a formal promise to dedicate the church of St. Martin-des-Champs, now dependant on the Conservatory of Arts and Manufactures, to the reception of the fragments of Christian architecture and sculpture which may be collected at Paris and in the departments. This church, which, with St. Germain-des-Prés, is the oldest in Paris, is also the most curious for the originality of its construction and decoration; it is admirably fit for its new destination-the casket will be worthy of the precious objects which it will contain. The Minister of the Interior has promised to cause to be restored, for the object above specified, this church, which threatened to fall into ruins from the effects of age, or which was going to be demolished to make room for a mairie. The Committee regards this result as one of the most important it has yet obtained, and knows not how to thank sufficiently the Minister of the Interior. "In spite of the zeal of the correspondents, in spite of the ardour of the Committee itself in defence of monuments threatened by men or ruined by time, many objects of art perish, many edifices fall; and, since there exists no place destined to receive the fragments, we lose even the last trace of the most interesting monuments. Since the destruction of the museum of the PetitsAugustins, our national archæology has sustained losses of this kind which are irreparable. Latterly, when the restorations were made at the church of St. Denis, when the mutilations were perpetrated on the church of St. Benoît, when the churches of St. Côme and of Cluny were demolished, they were forced to throw away among the rubbish bases and capitals of columns, sculptured tumulary stones, carved frieses and gargoyles, because the royal museums which are consecrated to pagan antiquities, cannot and will not receive national antiquities. Such a state of things could not last long without the greatest detriment to history; for no archæological studies are possible without monuments, and the monuments become rarer every day. "Struck with these injuries inflicted upon art and historical studies, the Committee, on the proposition of Baron Taylor, begged the Minister of the Interior to grant a place for the temporary reception of the objects of art scattered in a thousand places, and which may be collected together. Afterwards, the necessity will be felt of forming a gallery of the fragments which will be gathered by little and little at a small expense, and we shall thus have a museum of Christian antiquities, which may be compared with pride to the museums of pagan antiquities. In this museum, besides the pieces which are originals, may be placed, as has been done at the Louvre for the Greek and Roman monuments, plaster-casts of the finest works of art, statues, and bas-reliefs which decorate our edifices of the Middle Ages. Several provincial towns already possess a Christian museum; Paris must not be behind Dijon, Orleans, Puy, Mans, or Carcassonne. The Minister of the Interior received in the most favourable manner "When a monument falls of itself, as has lately happened to the church of St. Sauveur at Nevers, the Committee will have but one resource, and that one it will use immediately; this will be to send an architectural draughtsman to the scene of the disaster, and to give him the task of collecting, or causing to be preserved in a museum, all the valuable fragments which may not be bruised to pieces; of drawing, on the faith of traditions, on the inspection of old engravings, and the examination of the locality, a plan, sections, elevations, details; of stating, in a circumstantial report, the cause of the accident, in order to prevent the fall of monuments which may be threatened with ruin under the same circumstances. The draughtsman will return to Paris with the fragments, which will be placed in the museum,-with the drawings, which will be engraved,— with the report, which will be published. Of the ruined monument will be presented at least its portrait and some fragments. This is precisely the mission which, in the case of St. Sauveur, the Committee has entrusted to M. Robelin, architect, nonresident member of the Committee, and charged with important works in the Cathedral of Nevers, his native place." All the evils here mentioned and provided against, are felt equally, if not more, in England; our national antiquities are daily perishing; we have no museum to receive the fragments, no public spirit in our government to provide for them, and only here and there a solitary individual who, at his own risk and inconvenience, will use his exertions to preserve, will afford a shelter to what can be saved, or will publish, or cause to be published, drawings and descriptions. We rejoice at the exertions of our neighbours, though we have reason to be ashamed at being left so far behind them. Yet we think we see at home a new spirit rising and spreading itself, and we hope that it may bear its fruit before it be too late. We ought to add, that the Committee of Arts and Monuments is publishing manuals of the different branches of archæology, drawn up by the first scholars in each branch, and intended more particularly for the use of its correspondents, to draw their attention to the different points most necessary to be observed, to fix a standard to guide them with certainty in their researches and observations, and to give with accuracy and certainty that elementary knowledge which is necessary to enable them to work efficiently. MR. URBAN, Chelsea, Jan. 16. REGARDED as a picture there are few events more striking; considered historically there are few more interesting, or more instructive, than that of the elders of a community, be it religious, political, or literary, coming forth in all the majesty of authority to frown down some daring heretic who has set tradition at defiance, and followed an unlicensed reason to conclusions which are not agreeable. Your last Magazine exhibited something of this kind in its papers upon the orthography of Shakspere. It seems that the Madden heresy, for so we are taught to believe it to be, finds friends. Mr. Charles Knight's conversion alarms Mr. Hunter, Mr. Hallam's all-but-approval calls up Mr. D'Israeli, who vouches for Mr. Collier and Mr. Dyce, and under the authority of these, the conscript fathers of dramatic literature, (and no one is inclined to pay them more respect, or to value their literary labours more highly than myself) we are called upon to proceed against all disbelievers in the first e and the second a, with bell, book, and candle; the peril being -if we fail-that Prince Posterity may lose the real name of our great dramatic poet, and be horrified by "the barbaric curt shock of Shakspere," Now, Mr. Urban, I avow myself to be a Maddenite. I renounce the first e; I abjure the second a; I believemisbelieve if you like-in the "barbaric curt shock;" and, having made this confession, I request permission to be heard in my defence. GENT. MAG. VOL. XIII. It is conceded on both sides, that we know of six genuine signatures of the great Bard; one to a conveyance dated the 10th March 1612-13, another to a mortgage deed dated 11th March 1612-13, three to his will signed on the 25th March 1615-16, and a sixth written in a copy of Florio's translation of Montaigne, of the edition of 1603. It is, I believe, further agreed that, in all these various places, the poet signed “Shakspere." Now the indestructible foundations of Maddenism are erected upon these admitted facts. We rest upon the continued and consistent usage of the great Bard himself, and upon his unvaried signature of his own name upon all occasions that have yet been discovered. The signatures adduced were written, it will be remarked, at three different times; all but one were affixed to legal instruments, which men generally sign with more than ordinary care; and all of them were written during a period, when it is admitted by the advocates of the e and the a, that proper names were capriciously varied by their owners in a most fantastical manner. If, therefore, there had been any want of uniformity, it would have been far from extraordinary; irregularity of signature was the thing to be expected, and the uniformity is, consequently, the more remarkable and the more cogent. With a name, which Mr. Hunter tells us, was written in ten or twelve various forms during the poet's life-time, Shakspere, as far as we know, never varied. Superior to the coxcombry Y And now, what are the objections brought against us? The first which I shall notice is, that Shakspere has not a pretty sound; it is not euphonical; it is a mere "dialectical orthoepy;" it is Warwickshire and not Middlesex; it is "unmusical to London ears, and harsh in sound to "-Mr. D'Israeli's. I cannot but regret that so renowned a name should offend any one, but, with all submission to those who maintain this opinion, I would remind them that we are not seeking to make a name but to find one, and, when we have found it, it is rather harsh usage to "jeer and flout it thus," merely because it does not happen to agree with the mincing speech of "those who never walk further than Finsbury." Consider, Gentlemen, whether the Bard himself has not sounded the very heart of your objection, and discovered that it arises not so much from the discordant character of this name of names as from the circumstance of your ears being unaccustomed to it. You have been cradled in Shakespeare-nursed in Shakespeare -you have grown up in Shakespeare, and it is no light matter that "Can chase away the first conceived sound;" but try it again,-" use will breed a habit in a man," and, by way of dissipating any little prejudice, let your imagination follow the poet from the polite circles in which Mr. Hunter thinks he was known as "Mr. Shakespeare," to the office of the scrivener who prepared the conveyance and the mortgage, and see him there subscribing "Shakspere" to the formal documents throughout which the man of business had spelt the name as you would have it; go with him from the Fortune, or the Globe, where he no doubt had some more familiar appellation, to the study in which he gave birth to the enchantments of Prospero, and behold him consigning to immortality the book which lent a feeble help to his imagination by inscribing that name which you term "a provincial corruption" upon its fly leaf. If Shakspere, with a short sharp sound, be Warwickshire, and the attenuated Shakespeare, Metropolitan, the uniformity of our poet's adherence to the former evidences an attachment to home, to family, and to the sounds and recollections of his birth-place, which no fashion, no friendship with those who would "smooth his name," could eradicate; it, in effect, converts these signatures into a protest by the poet against that pretty-sounding name which you would uphold. The second objection I shall notice is, that we ought to adopt Shakespeare, because it is the true and genuine name, accordant with the arms; a spear, the point upwards: by which I understand that the name, whatever may have been its origin, was primarily compounded of the two words which are now spelt shake and spear. I do not perceive that the arms are any authority for the first syllable, and they are very little for the second, but let that pass. If the argument from the supposed origin be worth any thing, it is equally good when applied to other names, as to that of Shakspere, and, if so, whither would it lead us? We ought to bring back all proper names to their original elements. The Smyths, and the Smythes, and the Smithes must be told-"Gentlemen, you are all wrong; such orthography is evidence of a dialectical orthoepy; your names are Smith." The Dean and Chapter of Westminster, instead of being hooted, as they deserve to be, for taking up the fine old stone of memorial inscribed, "O rare Ben Jonson," and putting in its place, a trumpery piece of modern masonry bearing "O rare Ben Johnson," should be lauded to the skies as the restorers of the true and genuine name. John Locke should descend to our posterity with the barbaric curt shock of Lock; Sir Thomas Browne should become plain Brown; and Coke be degraded into "Cook." If we are to " syllable men's names" after this rule, what is to become of the Seymours? the Bohns? the Moons? the Hammonds? the Fosters? and innumerable others. If this be the law, "chaos is come again," and all our names must go into the melting pot in search of their primary elements. Again, if" true and genuine" is to be the rule, how can Shakespeare be shewn to have more truth or genuineness than Shakspere? Both are presumed to be compounded of a part of the verb scacan and the substantive spere, and, if so, the difference between them is, not that one is true and genuine and the other not so, but, that whilst both are true and genuine, that for which I contend is merely an earlier form of both the original words. I know it is now called dialectical and barbaric, and several other hard names, but it is not the less true that in the progress of our language-not the language of a province, but that of the country-there was a time when the words now spelt shake spear assumed the forms of shak spere, and that that time was anterior to the period of their being found in the forms of shake speare. And this leads us to another question,-if we are to resolve names into what is presumed to be true and genuine, to what form in which that true and genuine is expressed are we to give the preference? Is it to be the earliest form? the form contemporary with the individual spoken of? or the modern? It is obvious that the advocates for Shakespeare must contend for the contemporary, as their adopted is not the earliest form of either syllable, nor the modern form of the latter. What follows? If the contemporary form is to be the rule in Shakspere's case, so ought it to be in all others. Family names must fluctuate according to the fluctuations of the words of which they are presumed to be composed, and a man must resign his name-perhaps all that he has derived from his ancestors-as soon as public taste, or want of taste, has modernised the orthography of its component parts. The son's name will differ from his father's, the grandson's from both, and confusion worse confounded will be the issue. I am now led to a third objection, which is, that the poet himself considered his name to be Shakespeare. This is rather a bold assertion in the teeth of his own consistent signature, but let us examine the question. The proofs adduced are the first editions of his Poems, and especially that of his Rape of Lucrece, " printed by himself [i.`e. by Richard Field for John Harrison] in 1594," a copy of which was before Mr. D'Israeli at the time of his writing, and seems to have excited him almost to ecstasy. No doubt it was to the influence of that enchanting editio princeps that we are indebted for the burst of enthusiasm in which Mr. D'Israeli denies the possibility of his ever forsaking his first love, and protests that, whilst a drop of ink circulates in his pen, he will continue loyal to the e and the a. I think of Benedick and hope better things, but the point before us relates not to inward opinions, but to outward evidence. The affection of your heart of hearts, Mr. D'lsraeli, may remain firm to Shakespeare, but do you not think it possible that you may yet stand before the world in such a position as to lead men to believe that you approve what you have told us you condemn ? You, of whose life no small part has been spent amongst printers,—and I shall ever express my satisfaction that such has been the case, and my gratitude to you for much amusement and instruction,-youknow very well that we are not our own masters in these matters; "There are compositors who spell our words, Rough-write them as we will." I need not tell you how entirely those gentlemen will sometimes thwart our very best intentions; but lest, in your enthusiasm for the e and the a, you are inclined to overlook this first principle of the practice of literature, I will give you a case in point. Turn to the last edition of your own Curiosities of Literature, very lately published in one volume 8vo. and there, at p. 137, you will find an article in the heading of which there is an instance of the barbaric curt shock" of Shak, under the sanction of your own name. The same dialectical barbarism—as you esteem it is repeated five times in that article, and, perhaps, many other times in other parts of the book, but I have not searched for them. Do I blame you for this? certainly not. I am perfectly satisfied that you wrote Shakespeare as plain as a pike-staff. Your truth, faith, and loyalty are pledged to the fact. The rogues of printers did it all. By their abominable artifice you have been brought into this very |