original is lost-least lost on those qualities which are the most important. The native air and real meaning of a work are more essential qualities, than the charm of its numbers, or the embellishments and the passion of its poetic style. The first is the metal and the weight; the second is the plating and the fashion. This is one of those underhand truths which, where it has gained ground, has been as yet acted upon in fact, rather than acknowledged in principle. From the impracticableness of their language as an organ of poetical expression, the French seem early to have been driven to the necessity of its adoption. A people who, by the admission of their most national writer, has not la tête epique, and of whose poetry M. Bourbon said long ago, that the reading it was like drinking water, would appear to themselves, whether justly or unjustly, to be losing less by this tame expedient, than if they had been accustomed, in poems of native growth, to the effervescence of sparkling champaigne. The time, however, is, we think, at hand, when reluctant critics must submit to openly, and universally recognise, the nature of the dilemma which the problem of translation offers, and the truth of the only principle on which the balance of advantages and disadvantages can in such a case be rationally struck.

Mr Hayward's own example may now be added to the prece dents on whose authority he relies in behalf of prose translations. He says he was encouraged to make the attempt, by hearing that Mr C. Lamb had remarked that he had derived more pleasure from the meagre Latin versions of the Greek tragedians, than from any other versions he was acquainted with. The sense and object of the original is at least directly conveyed in them; which is more than can be said of Potter. It is plain also Goethe must have approved of his experiment. In the first place, the author of Faust was so dissatisfied with our only previous version, (the metrical one by Lord Francis Leveson Gower,) as to tell Dr Granville that it was as the author of 'Faustus travesti, and not as the translator of Goethe's Faustus,' that the noble translator could have obtained any share of popu lar applause. But further, Goethe has borne personal testimony to the specific and powerful influence which translations in prose may exercise upon the poetical character of a nation.

6

We

Germans had the advantage, that several significant works of 6 foreign nations were first translated in an easy and clear 'manner. Shakspeare translated into prose, first by Wieland, then by Eschenburgh, being a reading generally intelligible, ' and adapted to every reader, was enabled to spread rapidly, ' and produce a great effect. I honour both rhythm and rhyme, by

VOL. LVII. NO. CXV.

H

'which poetry first becomes poetry; but the properly deep and 'radically operative,-the truly developing and quickening,is that which remains of the poet, when he is translated into 'prose. The inward substance then remains in its purity and fulness, which, when it is absent, a dazzling exterior often deludes us with the semblance of, and, when it is present, con'ceals.' The experience of English literature is certainly very limited in such translations. Two instances, however-and from not very tractable languages, the Hebrew and the Gaelic -have rendered us competent and familiar judges of the probable success with which such a plan might be more extensively pursued.

Up to the point, and with the limits which we have mentioned, we are the advocates of prose translations. But we are desirous of guarding ourselves against being implicated to the full extent of Goethe's apparent statement. The improbability in most cases-in some, the impossibility that the poetry of one language can be translated into the poetry of another, except by the exercise of a discretion in which the most characteristic features of the original are in danger of being paraphrased away,-is an inherent difficulty which may often force us into prose as the least of two evils. Poetical reconstruction is clearly unadvisable, as often the substance must be sacrificed by it to the ornamental forms. To the truth of the doctrine so stated, we give in an unconditional assent. But if the above paragraph is at all near the truth, when it declares, that by rhythm and rhyme poetry first be'comes poetry,' the surrender of them must, under all circumstances, be an irreparable loss. The real and the tinsel must be kept distinct. Our business is only with the first: it alone can be worth transferring. We deny, in the case of genuine poetry, that rhythm or rhyme constitute a dazzling exterior,' by which the real poetical principle is in the least concealed. On the other hand, a proposal to melt down the currency of the muses, because counterfeits are abroad, and because, forsooth, there are in the land simple folk, who otherwise will be putting up with nonsense upon the credit of harmonious numbers, is still more unreasonable. Such people need not meddle with these matters. If they do, they may be conscientiously left in their agreeable delusion, or intrusted with the drudgery of making their own prose for their own protection. Mankind is not called upon to halt in the march of their enjoyments till the fools come up. Wherever poetry and prose of equal merit can be got from a translator, we are all for poetry. We only say, from the nature of the case, that this cannot always happen; and that unless it does, we prefer good prose to bad poetry-the prose of our psalms to the melo

dies of either Sternhold or Brady-the prose of Mr Hayward to his predecessor's rhymes.

The following passage from Mr Wordsworth's preface to the Lyrical Ballads is also prayed in aid by Mr Hayward: 'It would 'be a most easy task to prove, that not only the language of a 'large portion of every good poem, even of the most elevated 'character, must necessarily, except with reference to the metre, in no respect differ from that of good prose, but likewise, that 'some of the most interesting parts of the best poems will be found to be strictly the language of prose when prose is well 'written.' Since the particular case of translation is thus mixed up with and supported by reference to a formal theory on poetry in general, it becomes necessary to say a word or two more, in order not to be misunderstood. Truth has not only to fear the caricatures of enemies. It loses its cause almost as frequently from the zeal with which friends pursue their triumph, even into their adversaries' strongholds, and insist on the ease with which they can prove more than is consistent with the experience of mankind. A great part of the opposition which Mr Wordsworth's poetry has had to encounter, is the consequence of the extent to which he has reduced this theory to practice. Of course, he attributes the indifference or alienation of the public to the dulness and corruption of the popular taste, which glitter or stimulants can only excite. In our opinion, the slowness with which his works have made their way up to an influence and a reputation which their beauties were sure of ultimately commanding, is most naturally accounted for by the weary length to which, passage passage, a doctrine of this sort systematically entertained must often throw its shade. This is the more unfortunate, since, in whatever proportions nature and art hold a poet in partnership between them, Mr Wordsworth is far too good a workman to have had an interest in quarrelling with his tools. In order to verify the fact for the purpose with which it is applied, it will not be enough to open a volume of poetry and transpose a page of it. There will be always, in point of fact, in a poem of any length, a number of verses, and good verses too, which differ in nothing from prose but in the collocation of the words, without any body laying it down as a rule that this ought to be the case. Of the chance of bad and neutral verses, nothing need be said. Lord Byron, in his defence of Pope, asks where is the poem with ten good lines together? Besides, the alternate indolence and bustle in which every one lives at present, encourage slothful and rapid reading. We like to feel sure that there are plenty of passages on which the mind may either go to sleep, or hurry over them at its pleasure. Readers, as well as writers, have of late

after

displayed an evident tendency to return in literature to the irregular habits of our forefathers, who required nothing from the greater part of a poem than that it should be a string to hold a few brilliant passages together. For the sake of these, they waded through the whole as patiently as many an amateur will sit out the recitative merely for the air which follows. The infirmity of our nature, which continued excellence fatigues, calls for some indulgence of this description. But the narrower the compass within which it can be restrained, the better. The necessity exists also, much more in some kinds of poetry than in othersmore, for instance, in narrative and dramatic, than in lyrical composition. The single paragraph quoted by Mr Hayward reads a little suspicious. But it affirms no universal proposition. On the principle, expressio unius est exclusio alterius, quite the contrary. To be sure, we are left to guess, what is included and what excluded. A reader of it by itself, would nevertheless imply that there was another portion, which, when summoned to undergo this test, might plead the privilege of its order. He would like to know, in what respect these privileged exceptions differed from the rest. In their case, he would ask to what nondescript condition was the residuum reduced, which, on taking away the metre, had not the good fortune to become prose, although, according to common intent, and Mr Wordsworth's apparent admission, it would have ceased to be poetry by the change? Mr Hayward must wish to know what he is to do with it.

Mr Wordsworth, however, does not really leave him in the supposed dilemma. For, provided the subject be of a poetical cast, it is an article of faith, according to which the Lyrical Ballads have been composed, and which it was the purport of the preface to defend, that good prose may be made good poetry by adding metre to it, and that the most elevated poem would become good prose, when the metre was removed. For what follows? Mr Wordsworth proceeds to declare, 'I do not doubt that it may be safely affirmed that there neither is nor can be any essential difference between the language of prose and 'metrical composition.' This is good news for prose translators. But whence then the fact that few great poets have succeeded as prose writers? Notwithstanding his theory, what a difference between his own power over the prose and the poetry composition of our language! If this be so, whence, too, can arise, in respect of diction, the difficulty (for which Mr Hayward claims an allowance, to which few will think the undertaking does not entitle him) of reducing verse into even readable prose. The difficulty is not peculiar to the versified coxcombry of Darwin -it belongs to verse generally-the simple and manly verse

of Goethe. If the language of the two not only is, but must be the same, transcribers and translators would have nothing more to do than to knock off the verse-fetters by a transposition of the words.

It was sufficient for Mr Wordsworth's personal object to have proved that there was no universal inconsistency between the language of poetry and of prose; and that on every occasion words which are most natural and suitable to it, might, when skilfully selected and applied, answer also the purposes of the poet. We hate to hear of schools in a thing so universal as poetry. We would have heartily joined with him, therefore, if he had confined himself to exposing the partial pretensions of certain schools by which poetry, as well as philosophy, had been made, both in subject and expression, a field for sophistical science and theatrical display, instead of being brought home to the bosoms and hearts of men. There are critics, we agree, who have wandered from the end and means of poetry quite as widely as logicians and school-divines ever lost sight of the principle and the aim of reasoning or reason. Instead of this, Mr Wordsworth preferred building a school-room of his own, of which he himself was to keep the key. His practice is at times very defective, and from causes directly attributable to his theory. But our main objection to it, as he has propounded it, is to its exclusiveness. We quarrel with him, not so much for what he admits as for what he proscribes. We bow to him as in the presence of a great poet, and would have given a good deal up to him out of reverence and for peace. But the sacrifice of nearly the whole race of preceding songsters at his altar, is a hecatomb on which we dare. not venture. Like Mr Bentham in philosophy, he sees so straight that he takes one view only. The concession that they are right themselves, is also in neither case enough you must allow them (beyond the wants of their arguments) that every body else is, and always has been wrong. Thus Mr Wordsworth informs his readers that to entirely enjoy his poetry, they must give up much of that which they have been in the habit of enjoying, and that our judgments concerning the works of the 'greatest poets, both ancient and modern, will be far different 'from what they are at present.' This is not the way to conciliate persons who, like ourselves, love all the poets. We can state on our own experience, that he puts the penalty of admiring him higher than the truth. Otherwise, a dish of nightingales' tongues-those tongues which, from our youth upwards, have doubled our joys, and charmed away more than half our sorrows -is more than we could have afforded to bring with us as the terms of admission to his table.