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Heber gave up the translation of The Messiah, "from a real doubt how far we may venture to attribute to so awful a Being, at such a moment, words and actions of our own invention." Otherwise, there is so strong a personal resemblance between Heber and Klopstock, not only in devotional spirit and blameless purity of mind, but in the sweet and flowing character of their genius, that it will be long before we may hope for another translator so appropriately designated for the task. This similarity can, indeed, be had but seldom. Men of original genius choose to ride their own horse, and to set on their own account. At first sight, the necessities of translation would seem absolutely to require little more than a susceptibility to the differences of style and character in composition, together with a power of successful imitation. Yet, will experience warrant this conclusion? The profusion of parodies with which literature has been infested, and the compass of mimicry of this description displayed in works of the nature of the Rejected Addresses, prove that, up to a certain point, these qualifications are by no means either very valuable or very rare. The paucity of tolerable translations, on the other hand, can only be accounted for by supposing that some far scarcer talent is wanted, or that there is often some inherent impracticability in the task, of a kind for which sufficient allowances have not been always made. Of course, the more natural and more varied the style of any author may chance to be, in the first case the less mechanical peculiarity will there be to catch; and in the second, the more improbable will it be that the imitative skill of the copyist should enable him equally to catch all. In parodies, the buffoon is helped by our ill nature he selects the passages whose mannerism most assorts with his monkey talent, and he has an almost indefinite license of caricature. Instead of any latitude of this sort, the translator is bound, throughout a work of whatever length, to severe expectations, and exacting terms. The likeness, as looked for at first, is almost that of a reflection in a mirror. The difference in these conditions, is difference enough. But the great and decisive distinction lies in the fact, that imitation altogether evades the chief obstacle which translation has to overcome. This obstacle consists in the change from one language to another. Because words seem but the clothes in which thoughts are dressed, it does not follow that thoughts may be put into a new language, and that it is only like a man putting on a new coat. A national costume is indeed no trifle: but this comes to much more than disarming, as it were, the idea, and the substitution of vulgar broadcloth for the tartan plaid. The secret power of a language is frequently as undefinable as it is intransmittible. We are speaking now of the general effect produced by a whole language-as the creation and representative of national character; not of that exquisite grace of expression, which, in the case of certain writers, has always been felt and admitted to be as personal and as impossible to be copied as the charm of individual manners. The language of a nation becomes its atmosphere-its own breath is in it. Ariosto in English verse (Mr. Rose will excuse us) must always be out of place, and have something wanting. If Lord Bristol had managed to get every stone of the Temple of Vesta safe to Ick worth, the best part of it would still have been left behind, in that which is irremovable and incommunicable-the beautiful accompaniments of its ancient glory and Italian sky. So far, therefore, as any language is impressed more or less strongly with a characteristic individuality, the immediate sacrifice made, in this respect, is of a nature which no possible ability in a translator can supply. There is an evaporation that cannot be prevented. The spirit is

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gone out of it on the stranger's touch. This must be positively and universally true, whatever is the other language. Such is the sacrifice which consequently is found to be, to a certain extent, unavoidable in all cases. In any given case, it must further vary with the degree of relationship (whether in descent, principle, colouring, or other often inexplicable association) which may subsist between the language from, and the language into, which the translation is to pass. According as the genius of two tongues approaches or recedes from each other, this specific difficulty will, on all ordinary occasions, diminish or increase. A comparison, thus instituted, will therefore determine the loss which will be likely to attend the transfer, or selling, as it were, out of one, and buying into the other. Lastly, in proportion as the peculiar excellencies of an author depend more exclusively on idiomatic felicity and niceties of expression, the difficulty of the undertaking rises towards an impossibility.

We will illustrate these several cases shortly. Under the first, can we be mistaken in mentioning the name of Homer? or is the change really in ourselves? can it be possible that another dialect might do as well as that of early Greece, were we ourselves only but made young again,-what we were when borne along the proud hexameters of "the blind old man of Scio's rocky isle," as on the waves of his Ægean Sea? It is surely not all the mere redolence of youth: nor can we err in mainly attributing the untranslatableness of Homer to the unrivalled and unapproachable nationality by which the Homeric Greek appears to be so wonderfully distinguished. Like the song of Sion, it refuses to be sung in a strange land. In this experiment, Pope and Cowper have tried the two extremes of opposite systems. Scholars will agree only in the result, namely, that the real and genuine Iliad is equally lost in both. The character of its scenery seems entirely changed; stripped bare in one-gilded over in the other. However admirably particular passages may be rendered, there is an alteration introduced, fatal to the impression of the whole. A botanist's herbal may preserve small specimens; but no exotic, truly and grandly such, can be naturalised in its native magnificence. The palm-tree in our climate, whether it were petted artificially in a hot-house, or whether it could struggle into a stunted existence out of doors, would not be the palm-tree of the East. Thus, the romantic poets (poets of the same class) have a rural and matin air about them belonging to the dayspring of society, which can be neither prolonged nor restored. Until we can call back the freshness of the morning breeze, the same objects looked at with the rising sun gleaming on them, or under the general glare of noon, will no longer be the same. Dryden's imitations of Chaucer,-Pope's imitations of Donne, are in fact translations from an early into a later language. In satire, the effect is not so perceivable. But in the first of these instances, an impediment may be supposed to be insurmountable, which Dryden has only surmounted by the substitution of matchless beauties of his own! He wins his cause, like Phryne pleading before the Areopagus.*

The principle which renders the language of different countries or periods, when distinctly marked, an inadequate instrument for conveying a correct idea of each other by translation, very much agrees with the spirit of the elegant discourse by Jacobs on the dialects of Greece. After observing on the singular perfection to which so many distinct dialects were brought, he enquires how it came to pass, that a particular dialect was, in such distant places, and for such a length of time, exclusively set apart for particular compositions. Reasons are assigned, why the nature of man is supposed to have unfolded itself in Greece more naturally, gradually, and perfectly, through the successive stages of childhood, youth, and manhood, than is evidenced in the literature of any other country. And accordingly, whilst the Eolic and Doric dialects represent the lyric feelings of a later growth, and the Attic dialect the manly combinations of a still more advanced age, the flexible and imaginative Ionic, varying with, and sensible to, the vivid impressions of external

The comparative history of languages, and a cursory enquiry into the list. of approved translations which have been made from each to each, furnish abundant proof that this literary exchange is carried on much more extensively, and on a much more advantageous footing, between some countries than others. A mere examination of their dictionaries will not explain this; any more than the weighing or pronouncing the names of Cæsar and of Cassius will testify on the merits or the fortunes of those who bore them. No doubt, a philosophical explanation of all these distinctions might be rendered, in case we had but the appropriate facts in elucidation of the origin and formation of the respective languages sufficiently in detail before us. But, without waiting for so unlikely a revelation, the waste of a great deal of valuable labour might have been spared, if this truth had been practically attended to. The fact that the poetry of one language has been well translated into some other, is, without more, no authority for the inference that it will submit to this process in our own. The difference between the capabilities of languages in copying from each other the same subject with accuracy and effect, may be greater than the comparative powers of representation, between a picture and the engraving from it, or even than between the same representation in colours and in marble. It must, however, further be observed, that the character of no language is so fixed and stereotyped, but that the degree of its individualisation depends a good deal in every instance on the character of the person using it. The most vernacular dialect possible may be generalised, under an artificial style, till it is made any and every language, or rather none at all, and shall want no further translation than the construing of the words. The same consequence may follow from a higher cause, and in more sturdy hands. The language, that is, the material used, becomes a matter comparatively indifferent in the case of a writer who relies almost entirely for his effect upon energy of thought, or a sort of strong sense plainly and vehemently expressed. Thus we have three or four excellent translations of Juvenal; and every nation of Europe might have, whenever it thinks fit, as many as it chooses. On the other hand, a great master of his native tongue will so far make it his own, as to find in it, or give it, peculiar properties of power or sweetness which it was never suspected to possess. There are in the literature of the world no more striking instances of this mastery over language, than the tractable ease and softness into which Terence and Horace brought so unmalleable a speech as that of Romewhose iron substance might have been constructed by the Appian family, as well as their own everlasting way. Terence breathed into it a new colloquial elegance, and Horace a winning grace almost inconceivable-that vultuɛ nimium lubricus aspici of bright expression, which makes the fascination of his Odes. An attempt at translating them-at leading them, as it were, in chains to grace an English triumph, can be made only in the glorious ignorance with which the conqueror of Corinth threatened the supercargo, who had charge of the plundered miracles of art for the Roman Louvre, that whatever was damaged must be replaced. Dryden's Paraphrases are the nearest and only approximations. The things themselves will not bear removal. Like delicate wines, whose flavour perishes if

nature, became the natural organ of the poetical Heroic Age. As the Rhapsodies of Homer are the great example of Epic Poetry, so Herodotus, although of Dorian descent, is conceived to have adopted Ionic Prose as the most fitting record for that most Epic History of naïve and picturesque society.

carried beyond their native vineyard, you must drink them on the spot. Of all writers, it would appear, therefore, that none are more entitled than successful translators to the credit of la difficulté surmontée. However, not looking upon this as so absolute à criterion of the merit of poetry as is the habit of our neighbours on the other side of the Channel, we have been accustomed to consider the translations of long poems as rather thankless undertakings. In nine cases out of ten they give a very deficient, and indeed delusive, idea of their original; and in none can they give so perfect à representation, but that, if a long poem is indeed worth reading, it is worth while to learn the language in which it was composed. No substitute can answer the purpose. Charles the Fifth's rodomontade in encouragement of linguists, that a man was worth as many more men just in proportion to the number of languages he knew, is a Quixotical exaggeration. But it may be safely said, that the language of every people contains the truest revelation of its character:-also, that the best part of beauty, of every kind, has something about it too evanescent and mysterious to be transmitted by any expedient of art. In the human countenance, it is that which no portrait-as, în poetry, it is that which no translation-can ever give. Applying our principles to the case before us, what is the result? If there is no special evidence in confirmation, there is nothing to raise a suspicion that our general theory should be changed. Various and yet peculiar as is the German language, nevertheless its roots, connections, and sympathies, are so intertwined with that of England, that from amidst the numerous attempts now making in poetical translations, we would back the translators from the German against the field. We are, indeed, disappointed in the present instance. By some mistake or caprice, Lord Leveson appears to us to have generally selected subjets not at all suited to his power. There are exceptions. Among the smaller poems, of those whose merit principally consists in their spirit, some are rattled off with very considerable effect, like a piece of noisy music;-two or three of Körner's especially. His "Song of the Sword," written a few hours before the battle where he fell, brought back to our thoughts Leyden's "Address to his Malay Krees," written whilst a French privateer was pursuing them off Sumatra. But Körner's verses are as much superior to those of our Oriental scholar, as the inspirations of patriotism over those of simply fearless valour might be expected and ought to be. Again, there are occasionally a few conversational couplets scattered up and down the dramatic dialogues, very smartly and cleverly done. But our real opinion on the two principal translations must of course be determined by the impression that the whole produces. As translations of a whole, however spirited in parts, they are decided failures. The degree to which they are failures, we can explain on no other supposition than that they have been taken easy, as the playthings of an idle afternoon. This appears also more probable from there being here and there such obvious mistranslations as seem incompatible with the fact, that the text was corporally and seriously under the translator's eye at the time he was turning it into rhyme. By a little more care, Wallenstein might be improved exceedingly. If Faust is translatable at all-which we almost doubt there can be no doubt that Lord Leveson is not the pre-appointed instrument for that most arduous literary achievement.

The boldness is more to be admired than the discretion which could lead any one, for a trial of strength, to the choice of Faust. It is a sort of monster in literature;-redeemed only as a work of art by the prodigious hardihood displayed in its invention, and by the marvellous ease of its exe

cution. Redeemed in a better sense we cannot say it is. Notwithstanding the omission of sundry objectionable passages, the immoral tendency of the design and incidents is so ground into the whole substance of the work, that the selection of it for the exercise of his talents must negative whatever claim Lord Leveson might otherwise bring forward to the proverbial epithet of his poetical namesake. It is a book which Lord Eldon would assuredly outlaw at once. The story is, in plain English, neither more nor less than the adventures of a German Student, who, having overread himself into weariness and disappointment, quits his books for life and nature, by turning debauchee, and seducing a servant-maid. The poetical machinery, by which a subject so unpromising is worked up into one of the most extraordinary dramas in existence, turns on a bargain between God and the Devil; the terms of which are, that the luckless Professor is to be surrendered up, after the example of Job, to the temptations of Satan in his immortal character of Mephistopheles. This bargain the said Professor afterwards confirms in his own person, by a deliberate sale of himself to the Devil, who makes his first appearance in the shape of a poodle dog. The remainder of the poem consists of the half-reluctant and halfpenitent apprenticeship which Faust, whilst nominally the master, is really serving to his diabolical companion. The human incidents, thus moralised or diabolised, are simple enough; but their effect is widely diversified with poetry, profaneness, and demonology, in an infinite variety. We are hardened against the consequences of books in England; but in a country where a book is said to be received as a fact, we should dread this splendid sneer on the imbecility, vanity, and hypocrisy, of human learning and human virtue. If young men take to the road, on the authority of The Robbers, commit suicide because they find a precedent in Werther, many a lecture-room in a German University, among the various causes under which they occasionally blow up, may set down Faust for a principal element of explosion. Faust appears to us, both in its matter and manner, the extreme compound of German genius and German extravagance. Is it likely that any one but an English Goëthe should find the magic style, etc. which could popularise so supernatural, and at the same time so familiar, a fiendish fiction among us? There are some remarkable fragments of it by Bysshe Shelley. But Goëthe has combined in the several parts of this strange production, examples of every species of his boundless talents-Shakspearian imagination-the obscene caustic scepticism of Bayle or Gibbon-the cold and flippant irony of Voltaire. If the author of Cain and Manfred might have done justice to the bitter and sublime remonstrances against God and Nature, yet the author of Don Juan could scarcely have preserved the intermingling shades-now strokes of coarse buffoonery-now touches of light and playful humour. The simplicity of its deep and natural tenderness, it is clear, he could not have maintained at all.

The poetry, of course, is the chief compensation which will support an English reader, and carry him through these chambers of incongruous imagery, and among scenes more uncouth and incomprehensible than the temptations of St. Anthony, to the points of brightness and of rest. Now poetry is the very part in which Lord Leveson is the most feeble. He seems often to be in Audrey's condition: "I do not know what poetical is. Is it honest in deed and word? Is it a true thing?" We have room to refer only to the beautiful lines prefixed as in Goethe's own person to the prologue of Faust. They are either diluted into vague abstractions, or weakened by the substitution of an artificial and ornamental phraseology

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