panding, and occasionally adding to, the original. In the eyes of those rabbinical critics who estimate the fidelity of a translation by its containing the same number of words and lines as the text, some passages may perhaps be found (like that which Mr. Talbot most unfairly quotes as a specimen of the general manner) which may give the charge an imposing appearance. But no man who looks beyond the surface of the language, and numbers not words, but ideas, in the comparison, will agree in Mr. Talbot's conclusion. If there be an occasional expansion of the text, it is generally "the addition of a clause which does little more than express something more fully implied in the German, than in such English phrases as occurred to the writer." In some instances perhaps (as in pages 120, 276), the license is stretched a little too far. But, in general, he but uses the privilege of what is called compensation, so freely accorded and so much admired in Coleridge's Wallenstein, and many of our most approved translations. There can scarcely be a better example of this, than in the following beautiful lines of Coleridge, an amplification certainly, but yet an exquisite translation, of Schiller's couplet:

"Die alten Fabelwesen sind nicht mehr,

Das reizende Geschlecht ist ausgewandert."
"The intelligible forms of ancient poets,
The fair humanities of old religion,
The Power, the Beauty, and the Majesty,

That had their haunts in dale, or piny mountain,

Or forest, by slow stream or pebbly spring,

Or chasms and watery depths; all these have vanished-
They live no longer in the faith of reason."

Very rarely indeed does Dr. Anster push the privilege so far as in this beautiful passage. But perhaps it is fair to give an example of his manner, by placing a short extract from his version side by side with the literal prose translation of Mr. Hayward. In the following passage Faust is represented as contemplating the sign of the microcosm, and lost in amazement at the wondrous operations of nature. The leading idea is "Eins in dem andern wirkt und lebt”—the ceaseless, unchanging, yet changeless, activity, with which the several influences intermingle in the grand but varied order of the universe.

ANSTER.

"See all things with each other blending-
Each to all its being lending-

All on each in turn depending;
Heavenly ministers descending,
And again to heaven up-tending;
Floating, mingling, interweaving,
Rising, sinking, and receiving,
Each from each, while each is giving
On to each, and each relieving
Each; the pails of gold, the living
Current through the air is heaving!

Breathing blessings, see them bending,

Balanced worlds from change defending,

While everywhere diffused is harmony unending!"

HAYWARD.

"How all weaves itself into a whole; the one works and lives in the other! How the heavenly influences ascend and descend, and reach each other the golden buckets; on bliss-exhaling pinions press from heaven to earth, all ringing harmoniously through the all !"

What could be finer or more expressive of the leading idea of the text than this exquisitely poetical amplification? What, in like manner, could be happier than the storm of the Brocken scene, the contents of the "huckster-witch's " basket, the hurry-scurry scampering flight of the motley groups which throng to the wild festivities of the Brocken. You can hear the "zischen" and "quirlen," the "rutschen" and "klappern" of their flight, in the very march and sweep of the magnificently expressive versification. To proscribe such licences in poetical translation is to exile true genius from this most attractive field, and to hand it over, in undisputed possession, to the creeping pedants or brainless autoinatons of the lowest walks of literature.

There is, however, another defect charged upon the translation, towards which we are less disposed to be indulgent. We cannot help coinciding in the regret that so successful a master of versification should have drawn so largely on blank verse. We are aware that he has not done so without a principle; but we are unwilling to concede the justice of its application. It is perfectly true that there is a great difference between the English and German languages as regards the facilities of versification. Those who have read the original of Faust, or still more, any of the lighter poets of GermanyWieland, for example, in his minor romances-will have felt that they wrote in a language susceptible of modifications, which it would be hopeless to attempt in ours; one in which "it is perfectly possible to preserve the form without the colouring

of poetry." But that even the lower forms of English versification may be made not only readable but attractive, there needs no other evidence than the eminent success with which Dr. A. has himself executed some passages which, on this score, are unquestionably the most difficult in the whole drama. It is true, as he alleges, precedent may be advanced in defence of the rhymeless verses. Göthe himself has had recourse, in Faust, not only to blank verse, but even to prose; and Shelley has dealt much in blank verse in the small portion which he translated. But Shelley's are, after all, but unfinished fragments; and, as such, claim an indulgence to which a regular translation is not entitled; and Göthe, so far from following the principle which Dr. Anster lays down, has reserved his rhymeless verse, and, still more, his prose, for the most vehement and impassioned scenes of the play. Still less can we be influenced by what is said on the other hand,* that in the doggrel of Swift and Butler the interest, if it be not positively injured, is but little increased, by the metrical form. There is very little in the Faust that bears the slightest analogy, either in matter or in tone to these compositions; and for the little there is, we should have no difficulty in admitting the principle. The bustling and shifting dialogue of the "Gate scene" is, perhaps, more spirited in Dr. Anster's blank verse than in the rhymes of his fellow-translators; nor should we object to see the principle extended to the buffooneries of the cellar, to the gossipings of Martha Schwerdtlein, or the absurdities of the "Witch's Kitchen.' But we cannot help complaining that the fear of becoming, like Swift or Butler, a tedious and weary study," should have deterred him from adopting the metrical form in so large a portion of the "Compact scene," and still more in that thrilling interview of Faustus with the maniac Margaret, with which the tragedy closes. Surely there is no capriciousness of versification which the author of the following magnificent passage might not hope" to follow with success:

"Bin ich der Fluchtling nicht ?-der unbehaus'te?
Der Unmensch ohne Zweck und Ruh ?

Der, wie ein Wassersturz von Fels zu Felsen brauste,
Begierig wuthend nach dem Abgrund zu?

Und seitwarts sie, mit kindlich dumpfen Sinnen,

Im Huttchen auf dem kleinen Alpenfeld,
Und all ihr haüsliches Beginnen

Umfangen in den kleinen Welt.

Und ich, der Gottverbasste, hatte nicht genug

Dr. Anster's Prefaçe.

Dass ich die Felsen fasste

Und sie zu Trümmern schlug!

Sie, ihren Frieden, musst' ich untergraben!
Du, Hölle, musstest dieses Opfer haben!
Hilf Teufel, mir die Zeit der Angst verkürzen!
Was muss geschehn, lass gleichs geschehn!
Mag ihr Geschick auf mich zusammen stürzen,
Und sie mit mir zu Grunde gehn !"

TRANSLATION.

And am I not the outcast-the accurst

The homeless one, whose wanderings never cease!
The monster of his kind! No rest for me-
No aim-no object; like the stream that, nurst
With swelling rains, foaming from rock to rock,
Along its course of ruin,

On to the inevitable precipice,

Plunges impatient down the blind abyss,
And violently seeks the desperate shock !
And by the side of such mad stream was she,
A child with a child's feelings; her low cot
In the green field upon the mountain slope,
And all that she could wish or hope-
Her little world—all, all in that poor spot;-
And I, the heaven-detested! Was it not
Enough that the mad torrent grasped and tore
The rocks, and shivered them to dust, and bore
All that opposed me in my downward course
On with me? Her, too, her-her peace, her joy-
These must I undermine-these, too, destroy?
Hell! hell! this victim also! Thy support,
Devil! and the dreadful interval make short!
What must be, be it soon! Let the crush fall
Down on me, of her ruin-perish all—

She-I-and these wild thoughts together!"

Of the last translation of the Faust, by Jonathan Birch, Esq. (London, 1839), the less we say the better. Had it appeared while the idea was still entertained that the Faust was untranslatable, it might have met some indulgence; but the success of its predecessors has cut away this ground of justification. It is incomparably the worst which has yet been attempted. As a translation, it is bad; as a poetical translation, it is worse; but as a translation of Faust it is worst of all.

With so many excellent guides before him, one might suppose it absolutely impossible that a new translator should lose his way, much more that he should be perpetually falling into the grossest blunders. We have compared the entire of the

"Compact scene," as being one of the most remarkable, with the original. It is replete with errors. Instead, however, of going through a detailed examination, we shall merely submit one short passage, as a specimen of the translator's capabilities. It will be found in page 79:

"Schlägst du erst diese Welt zu Trümmern
Die andre mag darnach entstehn.

Aus dieser Erde quellen meine Freuden,
Und diese Sonne scheinet meinen Leiden;
Kann ich mich erst von ihnen scheiden,
Dann mag was will und kann geschehn."

This is a very simple and obvious passage, the sense of which it would appear almost impossible to mistake.

Birch translates it,

"The then' concerns me not-that feeling ceases
When once the world you've smashed to pieces.

I take no interest in the next one's riot;

Out of this earth flow all my joys.

It is this sun which witnessed my 'passion,'
And, am I parted from its sweet decoys?

Then come what will, and in what fashion!"

Mr.

We should not think much of the absurd paraphrase of die andre mag entstehn (the other may arise)" I take no interest in the next one's riot." But it is almost incredible that any one, with the sense of the passage stareing him in the face, could translate meine Leiden (my sufferings) my passion; still more, that, in the following line, he should render mich von ihnen scheiden, "and am I parted from its sweet decoys?" There needs but slender knowledge of German to show that the plural pronoun ihnen must refer to leiden, and not to Welt, and that the meaning of the line is precisely the opposite of Mr. Birch's "sweet decoys," "if I can but separate myself from them," that is, "from my sufferings." Nor is this a solitary example. A little further on (p. 82), there is scarcely a line without a mistake. There are no less than six obvious mistranslations in this single page-in the eleventh, twelfth, fourteenth, twentieth, twenty-third, and twenty-fourth lines. The reader may perhaps suppose that these errors are induced by the necessities of the versification; but the fact is, that, in this particular also, the author sets all rule at defiance. His work is filled with the oddest words, as "keckish," "twinking," lactic,"" stellar," "obescular," &c. ; and the rhymes are even more absurd. He seems to consider it enough if the last