"Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man As e'er my conversation coped withal. A man that fortune's buffets and rewards Whose blood and judgment are so well co- That they are not a pipe for fortune's finger Such a man Horatio is, till the last dire extremity arrives, when at the fatal moment of his friend's advancing death, the secret passion of his nature is revealed. The silent depths of his sensibility are disclosed-the affections rise in revolt against the despotic rule-the emotions defy the master hand, and the man, distracted, clutches at the poisoned cup. "I am more an antique Roman than a Dane; Here's yet some liquor left." Hamlet arrests him: "As thou art a man, give me the cup- If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart, tacks of the base, from the rust and moth that corrupt, and from the thieves who break through and steal to instruct, with a view to this end, the yet unknowing world how these things came about, not when the blow has once fallen passing into the extravagances of grief and mourning, recital of facts, and addressing himself but entering immediately upon a plain to Fortinbras with the settled composure which is becoming to a faithful messenger. Particular qualities distinguish families, races, and nations; the northern races are the more restrained, the southern the more demonstrative. The English are noted at once as a reserved and as a poetical people. "La nation Anglaise," says M. Ch. de Rémusat, with a just acknowledgment of our national qualities rare in a French writer, "est loin d'être un peuple sans imagination. Quel pays moderne plus fertile en grands poëtes?" The French, with their profuse words, their love of attitude, their natural tendency to display, diffuse their emotions over a wide surface, and their writers are sentimental and epigrammatic rather than And in this harsh world draw thy breath in passionate and poetical. pain To tell my story." Horatio obeys. The obedience is evidently consistent with the whole character; but the momentary triumph of an intense suffering is not less so. Hamlet loved in Horatio, not an insensible man, but a man whose sensibilities were under a fixed control. It was natural that he should appeal to such a man to be the vindicator of his fame. The silent, reserved, just man, would speak only to convince, he would not waste his force, he would live to tell the story truly and faithfully, and his story would be believed. The sang froid Anglais, which, being truly translated, is English reserve, is at once a theme for the satire and the respect of the French authors. The well got - up English gentleman in French comedy is ludicrous in his composure. With a sandy wig, sandy whiskers, an eye-glass, and a stoop of the neck, he walks quietly through the most agitated scenes, never hurrying his step nor altering his favorite position. And when things have reached their dramatic climax, in the general torrent and whirlwind of passion, continuing to take his cool observation of proceedings, and uttering nothing more than these two monosyllables, "Oh! yes." But the most eloquent, ardent, and imaginative of French writers has chosen a calm Englishman for the hero of her romance. While Lord Nevil is sailing away in serene dignity, Corinne is beating her head against a stone. Hamlet appeals in the first instance to that strong manhood, which he with his more passionate and feminine characteristics clings to; but in the next, to the self-denying tenderness which his own fine susceptibilities have been able to recognize. And so we see Horatio survive to fulfill the last wish, to take upon himself The impulsive nature is undoubtedly the sacred office (and what is more sacred the more popular, but the reserved comthan this?) to defend the dead from slan- mands a higher and a deeper love. The der, to keep the name that remains pure impulsive, ardent in profession, eager in from taint as the life was that is gone-to expression, in action can do no more than preserve a high reputation from the at-keep pace with promise, and more com monly falls below it; while the reserved | and fancy, you may walk pleasantly and self-contained, making no promise, through sunny paths and meadows, and holding out no hope, is ever in advance of pull sweet flowers as you go. It is only his own word, and the smallest act of when you would enter upon the avenues kindness comes from him like a deed of of feeling that you run against the high grace. "Dark, and true, and tender is closed gate. the north," says the poet; and "fierce, and false, and fickle is the south." But this is rather in semblance than in fact. The cold and silent north seems true by refraining from speech; the hot and forward south seems fickle, by speaking too much; for it is certain that no human being is altogether constant and consistent; only as long as he suppresses his opinions and feelings, the changes they undergo are not found out, while those who are given to much speaking, furnish the record of their own fluctuations, and are judged or misjudged accordingly, being often accused of insincerity where they should be the rather praised for their candor in admitting the error of a preconceived opinion, too great a haste in publication being the only fault of which they are really guilty. The danger of the ready speaker lies in an expenditure of force. He runs the risk of being satisfied with the good word, to the neglect of the good deed; while the reserved man runs the risk of totally extinguishing the fire that he seeks to hide; for affection at last will languish to death for want of expression-and life of all kinds will lose itself in darkness. If a nature be nobly stamped, is it not a pity to call in art to alter its face? Let vice have recourse to the screen, let the deformed visage be thickly covered, but let virtue show us something of the fairness of her aspect, and let the vail she wears be delicate, that we may discern through it the sweetness of her counte nance. Reserve is often mistaken for shyness, and sometimes for pride; with shyness it has in truth no kindred. Shyness is a timidity, an embarrassment in the presence of others, which proceeds rather from the physical condition of the nerves, than from any peculiar mental quality. Reserve is a mental effort. A baby may be shy, but a baby can not be reserved. Reserve is steadfast and not troubled; and except where the emotions are called into play, does not affect the flow of social intercourse. With the reserved man, so long as you remain in the regions of taste Wordsworth in describing a poet has described a reserved man: "He is retired as noontide dew, Or fountain in a noonday grove; Have come to him in solitude." But how, cries the hasty reader, can a poet be reserved? Is it not the business of his life to proclaim his passion, to detail to the public all the conflicts, struggles, and agonies of his fighting soul? Does he not confide his griefs, and open the inner shrine of his heart, to printer and publisher? It is true, and yet he could not do it to a friend. He can address a public whom he does not see, but not the friend whom he does see, because he knows the exact boundary of his friend's sympathies; while in that large mass of unknown, there are unsounded depths of sensibility to appeal to, and to them, as the player to his audience, he may make his soliloquy aloud. The hight and depth of the love cherished towards the reserved has been spoken of. It is so deep, because we admire the more reverentially whatever is beyond the extent of our perception. "Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter yet." And there is "the unknown joy that knowing kills.” Is not the fascination of the difficult and the dark entrancing in its kind? See how navigators are pressing on constantly to the north pole, at the risk of being icebound, wrecked, and miserably starved, merely because there is something to be discovered. This affection is so high, so exalted, because it is free from the taint of self-love, and does not venture to ask for a return; content with the happiness of esteeming a true excellence and of giving without expecting to receive. The impulsive man trusts his friend too much: the reserved man trusts only himself. The impulsive man may be despised, but can not be hated. The reserved man may be hated, but can not be despised. asked by too indulgent parents what he He occupies the fortress; he holds the would wish to be in after-life, he would strong, impregnable position. He is be- unhesitatingly reply, "a reserved man," hind the walls, and our shots whiz past him. He reveals no front to the foe. He will tire out the besieger. Only let him take care that while he makes his lines of defense against the enemy so strong he does not also close the way to friendly supplies. All virtues may be carried into an excess which converts them into faults; and reserve, which is, after all, control, may pass into a repelling stoicism. Such a danger attends its constant exercise. And yet, if the present writer could be transported by the touch of a wizard's wand back into childhood, and then be in order to taste those peculiar pleasures, that timid homage, that proud sense of impenetrability, which have here been described. There is no wizard's wand; and no such choice is offered to him; he has nearly run his course out, and there is no turning back. He can not disguise from himself (not being apt at disguise) that he has not been hitherto a reserved man; but he may do his best with the little space that remains; and in writing at the present moment, he is conscious of viewing himself with a respectful satisfaction for the concealment that he practices while he holds back his name. From Fraser's Magazine. POEMS AND BALLADS OF THIS volume of translations is one of very considerable merit. The work has been well done, and it is but little to say that the material has deserved all the pains that have been bestowed upon it. Among Goethe's smaller lyrical pieces are some of the most beautiful and most characteristic of his compositions, and the present translators have brought to the task of turning them into English an unusual amount of literary skill and poetical experience. They have a fair claim to venture in so good a cause upon that most difficult form of original composition -the translation of poetry into poetry. The two great objects and two great difficulties of all such translations may be stated as follows: We have first to give the meaning, the spirit, and tone of the original; and secondly, to make the work really native in the new language. Our labor is first to be faithful, and then to be vernacular. Pope in his Homer and Dryden in his Virgil are conspicuous instances of success in the latter respect. They have signally *Poems and Ballads of Goethe. Translated by W. EDMONSTOUNE AYTOUN, D.C.L., and THEODORE MARTIN. Edinburgh and London: Blackwood and Sons. 1859. GOETHE.* fallen short in the former. Dryden's Virgil is Dryden not Virgil; and Pope has utterly failed to reproduce, what he himself in his preface extols-the simplicity and directness of Homer. But he has written a real English book, quite as truly and thoroughly English as any of his own satires or epistles. Considering the extent of the work, we can not be surprised at hearing it called, as Johnson called it, the noblest version in any language. Dryden has passages of greater spirit, and here and there has performed miracles of execution. Witness some parts of the Tyrrhena regum progenies, and the opening of the Quarrel of Ajax and Ulysses: The chiefs were set, the soldiers crowned the field: To these the master of the sevenfold shield His boiling rage, he rolled his eyes around So much 'tis easier, etc., etc. But Dryden is sadly negligent and dreadfully unequal; and as a whole we may say of Pope's Iliad that there is no translated book in which, with less absolute variation from the text, you have less sensation of the uneasy process of rendering sentence by sentence, verse after verse, and phrase for phrase, or in which you could more easily suppose that you were reading an original. Hence its popularity and the great influence it has exercised. It should be said, however, at once that the two chief poems of the volume-both of them exceedingly difficult-have both of them been very fairly rendered. The Bride of Corinth, though for the sake of obtaining the essential double rhymes it deviates here and there rather widely from the letter, is in spirit faithful enough to "the awful and undefined horror" of that wonder of the critics; and The God and the Bayaderé is equally successful. Certainly it is not obligatory in all cases to translate in the same meter. Who would try to turn Virgil into English hexameters? But in these instances we think the translators have judged wisely that it was their duty at all hazards to make the attempt. These two singular pieces are extremely characteristic of Goethe, and may very well serve to establish for the English reader the point of view from which the great German writer regarded the world, and the things of the world, visible and invisible, sensual and supersensual. But were we asked to name the compositions which above all others bring before us the man Goethe, and place us in communion with his mind and spirit, we should turn to such poems as Prometheus, Mohammed's Song, The Limits of Humanity, The Song of the Spirits over the Waters, and Ganymede. It is satisfactory to find that these, given in English, as in German they were written in rhymeless lyrical meter, have been carefully and scrupulously recomposed. They may be accept But in translating a great poem like the Iliad, or any work of a great writer like Goethe, the really important thing is to give the peculiar, individual, and distinctive character. And perhaps yet more than elsewhere is this the case where the poems are brief and lyrical-where the story is little and the style much. Even in Pope's heroics, Achilles shows who he is, and the march of events, though not of the narrative that tells them, is true to Homer. Calypso, Circe, and the Cyclops are original, though versified in Mr. Pope's manner by Broome or Fenton. But Goethe's lyrics will not be worth a great deal, if they are not presented in a style and manner very nearly approaching that style and manner in which Goethe wrote them and expressed himself. This is no case in which a pretty tale has but to be told again-a romaunt of the rose to be romanced once more. We have the portraiture of a particular human mind to re-portray, and the fine personal details of a human experience to reëxpress. Some delicate autobiographical confidence is perverted by every seemingly slight alter-ed as translations giving not the sense ation; some spiritual communication is recommunicated amiss; the scientific values of some subtle and exact psychology are, in the new notation, falsely conveyed. And there are bits of verse in the collection where the outlines and contours are as hard to copy as those of antique sculp ture. The translations in the present volume, made by two different hands, bear the impress of two different minds, and may be roughly divided into two classes following the two principles that have been mentioned. One of the two writers is remarkable for ease; and the other laudable for fidelity. There are efforts here, which readers tender of Goethe will find rather harsh, to make at all events an English poem out of a German. There are studies almost so careful as to be tame, to reproduce the exact original. only, but, in kind if not in degree, the true tone and feeling of the original. They have not, indeed, the perfection either in diction or in rhythm which they have in the German, but they do produce (and that is the great thing) the same effect and impression. LIMITS OF HUMANITY. When the Creator, For never against |
