679 



STEFANI, TOMMASO DE'. 



STEFFENS, HEINRICH. 



oso 



and greater precision in verbal criticism. Neither bis character nor 

 that of the age to which he belonged would have led him to any 

 complete conception of Shakspere's excellence ; but what he professed 

 to do, he did satisfactorily. He collated all the copies diligently ; he 

 restored many readings which had been tampered with by his editorial 

 predecessors ; and he judiciously adhered to the old copies, without 

 attempting to regulate the metre according to the poetical creed 

 of his day. In 1778 the second edition by Johnson and Steeveus 

 appeared, in which Malone had rendered some assistance; but 

 Maloue, in 1780, published a supplement containing the doubtful 

 plays and the poems. This appeared something like a setting- 

 up on his own account ; and Steevens, who thought top highly of 

 himself to pay much respect to others, scarcely forgave this. He and 

 Malone at length became rival editors, each working with very laudable 

 diligence in that species of commentary which resulted from their 

 antiquarian knowledge ; but each quite incapable of throwing any 

 new light upon the poet by a genial admiration and a philosophical 

 estimate of his wonderful performances. Their rivalry, in all proba- 

 bility, gave a new direction to the labours of Steevens. He dedicated 

 himself to tho production of another edition, in which he should cast 

 aside the principles which had guided his former labours. He pos- 

 sessed a more decided and more acute mind than Malone ; and, with 

 an ill-concealed contempt of the plodding diligence of his old fellow- 

 labourer, he went to work to give us a new Shaksperian metre, such 

 as would satisfy the most precise disciple of the ten-syllable school. 

 He proposed, " instead of a timid and servile adherence to ancient 

 copies," to proceed to the " expulsion of useless and supernumerary 

 syllables, and an occasional supply of such as might fortuitously have 

 been omitted." The edition in which this process was perfected was 

 produced in 1703, in 15 vols. ; and such was his commendable anxiety 

 for its correctness, that he often walked from his house at Hampstead 

 to his printer's in London, before daybreak, that he might correct the 

 proof-sheets. His experiment was perfectly successful with a public 

 not very critical, who were thus presented with what he called " a 

 commodious and pleasant text of Shakespeare." That text remained 

 undisputed in its authority till the publication of Malone's posthu- 

 mous edition by Boswell in 1821, in which some attempts were made 

 to adhere to the early copies ; and no popular edition, conducted upon a 

 different principle, appeared till that of Mr. Knight, in 1838. In his 

 edition of 1793 Steevens made his well-known avowal that he did not 

 reprint the poems of Shakspere, "because the strongest act of parliament 

 that could be framed would fail to compel readers into their service." 



With the exception of his various editions of Shakspere, Steevens 

 did not apply himself to any extensive work. He assisted Nichols in 

 Ms ' Biographical Anecdotes of Hogarth,' and Isaac Reed in the 

 'Biographia Dramatica." His ample means put him above the necessity 

 of literary labour. But his leisure was amply filled up by a system of 

 excitement, which was not calculated to add to his happiness or his 

 reputation. He had the command, which his acuteness and sarcastic 

 power might easily secure, of a newspaper and a review ; and the ' St. 

 James's Chronicle ' and the ' Critical Review ' were made the vehicles 

 of the bitterest attacks upon the literary characters of those to whom 

 in private he was all smiles and courtesy. In some satirical verses, as 

 malignant as his own paragraphs, and rather coarser, we have this 

 character of him ( Nichols's ' Literary Anecdotes,' viii. 540) : 



" Mark the old beau's grimaces, his smirk and palaver ; 

 Mark his crest and fine folds, but beware of his slaver." 



Johnson said of him, in answer to Beauclerk's assertion " He is very 

 malignant," " No Sir, he is not malignant. He is mischievous, if you 

 will. He would do no man an essential injury; he may indeed love 

 to make sport of people by vexing their vanity." This, most probably, 

 was the true state of the case. Steevens had no domestic ties, and 

 men were afraid of him. Johnson said, on another occasion, in which 

 there is little doubt he alluded to him, " Sir, he lives like an outlaw." 

 His mock praise, his sarcastic politeness, his anonymous ridicule, 

 gratified his sense of power. He had higher abilities and more scholar- 

 ship than many of the solemn critics who were then busied about our 

 early literature; for then, as it always must be, the small men, who 

 applied themselves to verbal criticism, fancied themselves great (to 

 use Bentley's forcible image) when they were on a giant's shoulders. 

 While Steevens, in his own notes on Shakspere, is making the most 

 profound bows to this man's learning and that man's ingenuity, we 

 can seo him winking as it were upon his readers, and whispering, 

 " what owls ! " Amongst other tricks, and his tricks were very numer- 

 ous, and Borne of them rather elaborately concocted with a view to 

 mislead his successors, he set up mock commentators, under the names 

 of Amner and Collins, to perpetrate dirty annotations to which he was 

 ashamed to put his own name ; and he once signed a bitter attack on 

 Capell, in his own edition, with the name of his timid rival Malone. 

 George Steevens died at Hampstead, in January 1800 ; and was buried 

 at Poplar, where his memory is graced by one of Flaxman's monuments. 

 STE'FANI, TOMMASO DE', the first Neapolitan painter mentioned 

 at the revival of art in the 13th century, was born about 1230. A 

 contemporary of Cimabue, he has been represented by Neapolitan 

 writers as superior to that painter, but Marco da Siena says that he 

 was inferior to Cimabue in grandeur of style. Tommaso was patrouisec 

 by Charts of Anjou and Charles II. He painted the chapel of the 



klinutoli, in the Duomo, mentioned by Boccaccio, with a series of 

 'rescoes representing the Passion of our Saviour. None of his works 

 lave come down to the present time. The year of his death is 

 uncertain. 



STE'FANO (called FIORENTINO), was born at Florence in 1301. 

 Though his most celebrated works, in the church of Ara Coele at 

 (OIIH-, Santo Spirito at Florence, and elsewhere, are no more, he 

 deserves to be mentioned as a disciple of Giotto, and the only one 

 who attempted something beyond the mere imitation of his master, 

 whom, according to Vasari, he excelled in every department of the 

 art. He was the son of a daughter of Giotto's named Caterina. He 

 was the first who attempted foreshortening, and if he did not com- 

 pletely succeed in this, he certaiuly made improvements in perspective, 

 ind gave new variety of character and life to his heads. He died in 

 1350. No authenticated picture of his remains in Tuscany, " unless," 

 says Lanzi, " we except a Christ, in the Campo Santo of Pisa," which 

 is in a greater style than the works of his master, but retouched. 



STE'FANO, TOMMASO DI, supposed to have been the son and 

 pupil of the preceding, born according to Vasari in 1324, was called 

 GJiOTTiNO, from the resemblance of his works to those of Giotto. A 

 Pieta, at S. Remigi at Florence, and some frescoes of his at Assibi, 

 bear indisputable marks of that style. Vasari says that he finished 

 bis works with great care and devotion, being always desirous rather 

 of glory than gain. He died of consumption at the atre of thirty-two. 



STE'FFANI, AGOSTI'NO, an Italian composer of great eminence 

 in the 17th century, was born, about 1650, at Caatello Frauco. In 

 bis youth he was entered a chorister at St. Mark's, Venice, where a 

 German nobleman, pleased with his singing and appearance, obtained 

 bis discharge from the church, took him into Bavaria, there bestowed 

 on him a learned and liberal education, the musical part of it under 

 Ercole Bernabei, and finally, when he had arrived at the proper age, 

 got him ordained. He thenceforward took the title of " abate," by 

 which he is now commonly known. His ecclesiastical compositions 

 soon became numerous, were much admired, spread his fame, and 

 attracted the notice of Ernest, duke of Brunswick, father to George I. 

 of England, who, though a Protestant, invited the Roman Catholic 

 and clerical musician to Hanover, made him director of his chamber 

 music, and committed to him. the management of the opera, then just 

 beginning to raise its head in Germany. But the intrigues of singers 

 at length wearied him of his theatrical and rather incongruous occu- 

 pation, though not till he had composed several operas, which, 

 translated from Italian into German, were performed at Hamburg 

 between 1694 and 1700. These however are forgotten; but his 

 madrigals, motets, and, more especially, his duets, of which Caroline, 

 consort of George II., collected nearly a hundred, are the best known 

 of all his works, and of which it is enough to say, that Handel 

 acknowledged his twelve celebrated duets to have been written in 

 imitation of them. 



Steffani was not only a musician but a statesman. He had a consi- 

 derable share in concerting, with the courts of Vienna and Ratisbon, 

 the scheme for erecting the duchy of Brunswick-Liinenburg into an 

 electorate, for which service the elector assigned him a handsome 

 pension, and Pope Innocent XI. gave him the bishopric of Spiga. In 

 consequence of this he no longer put his name to his compositions, 

 but adopted that of his secretary, Gregorio Piva; and in 1708 relin- 

 quished his appointments in Hanover in favour of the, afterwards, 

 great Handel. He died at Frankfurt, in 1729. 



STEFFENS, HEINRICH, was born at Stavanger in Norway on 

 May 2, 1773. His parents removed in 1779 to Helsingiir, where he 

 received his early education, and in 1787 he was taken to Copenhagen, 

 as his early-displayed piety and eloquence seemed to point out 

 divinity as his proper study, though he had already acquired a great 

 fondness for natural history. In 1790 he was entered at the University 

 of Copenhagen, where he so distinguished himself that he received in 

 1794 a travelling prize. He spent the summer of that year at Bergen 

 in Norway, and in the autumn while proceeding to Germany he suf- 

 fered shipwreck at the mouth of the Elbe, saving only his life, and that 

 with difficulty. After residing about a year in Hamburg, he removed 

 to Kiel, where in 1796 he gave lectures in natural history, and acted 

 as private tutor. He however felt a want of a fundamental principle 

 in natural science, and, repairing to Jena, imagined that he found in 

 the theories of Schelling what he needed. He was intrusted with the 

 revision of Schelling's writings on natural philosophy in 1800, and 

 became one of the warmest supporters of the doctrines of Schelling's 

 school (then in its most flourishing state), at least so far as they 

 were restricted to natural philosophy. After having been created 

 adjunct to the professor of philosophy in the University of Jena, he 

 repaired to Freiberg, where he was instructed by and acquired the 

 friendship of Werner. While here he wrote his ' Geognostisch-Geolc- 

 gischen Aufsatze ' (' Geognostic-Geological Essays '), not published till 

 1810, which he expanded in 1811-19 into three volumes of a 'Handbuch 

 der Oryktognosie.' On returning to Denmark in 1802, he excited 

 considerable attention by his lectures ; but as he experienced some 

 coldness from influential persons, he accepted in 1804 a call from the 

 University of Halle to become professor there, and while there pub- 

 lished (in 1806) his 'Grundziige der philosophischeu Naturwissen- 

 schaft ' (' Fundamental Features of Philosophical Natural Science '). 

 The years 1807-9 he spent with his friends in Holstein. He then 



