SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY.
POETRY,
The Poems and Ballads of Schiller. By Si' Edward Bulwer Lytton. Bart. With a Sketch of Schiller'e Life Blackwood and Sons. The Minor Poems of Schiller, of the Second and Third Periods, with a few of those of earlier date. Translated, for the most part into the same Metres with the Original, by John Herman Merivale, Esq., F.S.A. Pickering . Furrrox.
The Mau without a Profession. By Charles Rowcroft, Author of "Tales of the Colonies, or the Adventures of an Emigrant." to three volumes.
SciErrrisic Gossip, Saunders and &ley. Scenes and Tales of Country Life; with Recollections of Natural History. By Ed- ward Jesse, Esq. Surveyor of her Majesty's Parks, Palaces, &c. With wood-cuts.
Taav ELi. Murray. Mexico as it Was and as it Is. By Brants Mayer, Secretary of the U. S. Legation to that Country in 1841 and 1842. With numerous Illustrations on wood; engraved by Butler Wiley and Putnam.
RATIONALE OF PUINSESIENT,
The Impolicy and Injustice of Imprisoning O'Connell. Demonstrated to Sir Robert Peel. By the Author of " Ireland and its Rulers since 1829." Newby.
STATISTICS,
Filth Annual Report of the Registrar-General of Births, Deaths, and Marriages, in
England. Second edition, revised sod corrected Climes and Sew.
SCHILLER'S POEMS AND BALLADS.
IT is probably a more difficult task to translate a good lyric than a great epic. Not that an epic can be translated by a man of powers and acquirements inferior to his who can translate a lyric ; but the competent workman will find the former comparatively the easier task. In the epic, the greatness of the characters and events speak for themselves, even to prosaic minds, in the same manner though not so vividly as they did to the poet whose inspiration they were. The weakest or lamest translation cannot divest the story of their massive grandeur and human interest. But the interest excited by the lyric it owes to itself alone, not to its subject : it is a felicitous expression of a cherished sentiment, of an idea long brooded over : in the intense simplicity with which it expresses the poet's thought consists its charm. The happy phrase, the apt rhythm, and the touching or elevating idea, are so completely one, that the beauty of the whole suffers from anything that impairs the perfection of any one of them. And it is scarcely possible to transfer the felicitous structure of expression and rhythm into another language : no one can express an idea which he has at second-hand so forcibly as the original thinker ; and besides, every man's thoughts are influenced by, or derive their form to a certain extent from, the structure of his mother-tongue, in which he thinks as well as speaks. What Sir LYTTON BULWER says of the Song of the Bell is true of every lyric worth translating. "Much of its beauty must escape in trans- lation, even if an English Schiller were himself the translator." Any translations of lyrical poems which have become popular, will be found, on close examination, to be more properly original com- positions, suggested by the original, than translations. None but a poet can translate poetry ; and even he, after he has done his best, must feel conscious that he has only produced what he can hold out to those ignorant of the original and say, "This is something like the verses that have so charmed me." The task of translating lyrical poetry is an elegant amusement for the accomplished poet : his translations may tempt the unlearned to study the language of the originals, or may enable those who are already acquainted with it to compare notes, as it were, with the translator, and thus attain a more perfect knowledge of their common favourite the author. Both of the translators of ScauLaa's Minor Poems, whose works are now on our table, appear to have entered upon their task fully impressed with this view. The Preface of Mr. MERIVALE, the Ad- vertisement of Sir LYTTON BULWER;* and the explanatory notes which both have appended to most of the poems, tacitly imply as much. The prose is mingled with the poetry to express more dis- tinctly the sense which the translator is conscious his verse but dimly shadows out—to inform the reader of some felicitous turn of expression, some exquisite modulation of rhythm, which he has failed in reproducing. The adoption of this method is honourable to both ; for it shows a power of appreciating their original—an. honest and earnest desire to make him as perfectly known as is possible to readers ignorant of German, and to increase the number of proselytes to their own faith in him. Both publications may perhaps be called most fitly reviews of SCHILLER'S Minor Poems— reviews extended to such a length, and accompanied with so many illustrative specimens, as to have become books. It is only in this way that any thing approaching to a just esti- mate of SCHILLER can be conveyed to the mere Eaglish reader. To call that great genius a poet, or a philosopher, is to fail in ex- pressing the peculiar character of his mind : he was both, and he was neither. An original thinker—a discoverer in philosophy—he was not : yet, taking his impulse from KANT; he carried that great thinker's speculations into the regions of art and history—threw new light upon them—perhaps unconsciously communicated to them a truth and a reality which the original logical abstractions can he scarcely said to possess. A striking example of this will be found in his application of the Kantean classification of the active powers of the human mind, into moral, ratiocinative, and artistical, to explain the excesses of the French Revolution. A poet SCHILLER was not in the same sense as SHAKSPERE; or GoTHE, or MILTON, or ARIOSTO. Even in SCHILLER'S Dramas we never lose sight of himself: all his works, whatever may be their external form, are properly dissertations—efforts to bring others to view things in the • In glancing over a proof-impression of this notice, we perceive we have, unconsciously, been calling Sir BULWER LYTTON by the name xhich has been most familiar to the world. We need not alter it : all honour to his veneration for a departed mother, but Bur.wsa was and will be the name of his literary distinction. same light as himself. But, though we no more lose sight of the writer in these works than we do of a preacher in his sermon, the play of fancy and glow of impassioned imagination with which he is rapt make him apoem ifnot a poet. Again, SCHILLER, though he could sympathize with the learned, and judge their pursuits more truly than they themselves could, was not, properly speaking, a learned man. How could he be? Any one, by merely following the brief but masterly resume of his career prefixed by Sir LYTTON BULWER to his translations, will see that it was impossible. But, though not learned himself, he possessed the power of instigating others to become so. He was not, and probably under no circumstances could he have become, a Mosza, or a MULLER, or a SAYIGNY : but be saw to what their researches led ; he gave new forms to the results of their inquiries from his plastic imagination ; he suggested new fields of inquiry for historical students; and his passionate eloquence drove the young forward on the toilsome path. It would be a misapprehension of our meaning to infer that SCHILLER was remarkable only for the universality of his tastes and sympa- thies—for his power to attain a certain degree of eminence in a great variety of intellectual pursuits. He belonged not to this secondary class of distinguished men, but to that of the great ori- ginals—men with strongly-marked individual characters. His greatness, however, was not that of a poet, or historian, or philo- sopher, but of a pure, lofty, and impassioned will. His " earnest- ness," which Sir LYTTON BULWER so justly dwells upon as the most striking feature in his character, was the secret of his strength. He was, as CoTHE justly described him, essentially "practical," a" man of action." The end and aim of his being were to origi- nate action—to set others in motion—to impel them to the attain- ment of some definite object ; and his poetry, his philosophical speculations, his historical reading, were merely the instruments of which he availed himself for this purpose. The greatness and power of SCHILLER'S mind are proved by its influence. "How largely, though indirectly," says Sir LYTTON Buravaa, "he has influenced the spirit of our recent poetry, must be apparent to those familiar with his writings : not, perhaps, that all in whom that influence may be traced were acquainted even with the language in which he wrote. The influence of genius cir- culates insensibly through a thousand channels, impossible to trace; and as, in Elizabeth's days, the Italian mind coloured deeply the very atmosphere in which Shakspeare breathed inspiration, so, in the earlier years of the present century, the spirit of Schiller operated almost equally on those versed in and those ignorant of the German language. It affected each peculiar mind according to its own peculiar idiosyncracy—was reflective with Coleridge, chivalrous with Scott, animated and passionate with Byron, and transfused its lyric fire into the kindling melodies of Campbell." But it was in Germany that the influence of SCHILLER was most powerfully felt. The four hundred students who crowded his lecture-room at Jena, got there, from a tyro in history, what the most learned historians could not have given them. They left the lecture- room with the conviction that history was only valuable as a reflec- tion of real life—as a collection of practical lessons : they left it with a passionate desire to be doing; inspired with a pure and lofty ambition. The experience of after life might be necessary to give body and precision to the vague imaginations which then floated before them, but the spirit then breathed into them never deserted them. The influence of SCHILLER'S writings was strengthened by those who had thus enjoyed his personal converse. In his Vier Norweger, STEFFENS has given a striking picture of Jena at that time, and of SCHULER'S influence. Years after the death of Scum- LEE, when the Germans rose as a people and burst the foreign yoke, it was the spirit of SCHILLER that animated them : it was literally his words, repeated through the mouths of others, that goaded them to the fight. LESSING, Gorna, and others, had be- fore SCHILLER pointed out the paralyzing influence of the nightmare aristocratic forms of Germany ; but it was " Kabale und Liebe" that shook them down, as it was "Wilhelm Tell" that showed the value of old institutions, and placed limits to the merely de- structive Revolutionary spirit. The universality of Gem:la's in- fluence over the German mind is unquestionable ; it was ani- mating, vivifying, all.pervading. But he did not, like SCHILLER, awaken and direct the national will. GoTHE was the poet, the artist : SCHILLER was "practical," the "man of action." He is to be classed with TYRT/EUS, DEMOSTHENES, LUTHER, BURKE, and ROUSSEAU; and the greatest of his class do not overtop him. An adequate idea of such a character cannot be conveyed by specimens of his poetry, or even by all his poems. His poems are but a part of him. And therefore it is that we think Sir LYTTON BULWER and Mr. MERIVALE have taken the best way to give the English reader some idea of him. In one or other of his Minor Poems may be found all that is characteristic in his greater works. They are so frequently expressions of favourite theories, or moods of his mind, or reflections upon the literature and social peculiarities of Germany, that a running comment is required to enable the Eng- lish reader to understand them. And these comments afford the translating commentator an opportunity of throwing as much light as is necessary upon SertiLLea's other occupations and the inci- dents of his life.
A work constructed upon this plan cannot fail to be pleasing and instructive. The mere power of projecting it implies the possession, to a certain degree at least, of the faculties and tastes requisite for its execution. This, we fear, is as much as can be said of Mr. MERIVALE'S book. It is executed in a right and reverential spirit. But the translator appears to have a mere dictionary-knowledge of the language. The consequence of this is, that he frequently confounds words which though etymologically almost identical have conventionally received sharply distinct mean- ings, and consequently fails to convey the true or full meaning of his original. An illustration of what we mean occurs in The Partition of the Earth," where he renders " Junker " simply " youth "; while Sir LYTTON BULWER, with a truer understanding of the passage, has translated it by "squire." A more serious disadvantage under which Mr. MERIVALE labours is his want of a rhythmical ear. His verses contain numerous examples of the "ten low words oft creep in one dull line" : and his most success- ful efforts scarcely rise above the monotonous rumble of Monk LEWIS'S "Alonzo and Imogene" stanza. Mr. MERIVALE is, not- withstanding, an elegant and accomplished scholar ; and his trans- lations sometimes, his comments frequently, may well afford amuse- ment and instruction to the reader. He has perhaps succeeded best in his capacity of translator in the "German Muse" and "The Hostage." Some of the most felicitous translations in Mr. Maar- YALE'S collection are contributions of friends : among the most pleasing of this class are those to which the signature " Florence " is appended.
Sir LYTTON Brmwza's translations and comments are altogether of a higher cast : they are the work not merely of an accomplished scholar, but of one who has many of the elements of a poet and in- dependent thinker in him. Either Sir LYTTON has a more practi- cal acquaintance with the German language than Mr. MERIVALE, or the instinct of genius has taught him how much may depend upon a single phrase, and rendered him more attentive to the exact con- ventional meaning of words. An example of this has been already mentioned. In general, when Sir Lyrrox fails in conveying the exact sense of his original, it is from too ambitious an attempt to give an exact and equally forcible counterpart of SCHILLER'S mysti- cal reflections. To this we attribute his failure in the third stanza of " The Words of Belief," not only to seize SCHILLER'S exact meaning, but to express any distinct meaning of his own. It is in such cases that Mr. MERIVALE'S publication will be found va- luable as a supplement to Burman's : there the mere scholar has succeeded better than the man of genius, from not attempting too much. In regard to versification, Sir LYTTON BULWER'S transla- tions are far superior to Mr. MERIVALE'S : they may be read with the same pleasure as original compositions. And the structure of Sir LyrroN's book is altogether more artistically complete— the consequence of a more definite idea of what he proposed to do, and executed more in a spirit akin to Senna.za's, than that of his competitor. Some of Sir EDWARD'S besetting sins of manner strike one at the commencement of the biographical sketch ; but the just and high-toned "critical summary" in the concluding chapter amply compensates for these blemishes ; and the remarks on the peculiar character of SCHILLER'S Ballads, in the note at the end of "The Diver," and the remarks appended to "The Song of the Bell," (why has Sir EDWARD called it "lay" ?) are enough to efface all recollection of them. Taken together, the life, translations, and notes, convey probably a more just estimate of Scnn.i.ea—of his individual character, his pursuits, and his influence over the minda of others—than has previously been presented to the English reader. And while this appears to have been honestly and exclu- sively the aim of the author, (for the book in this respect rises to the dignity of an original work,) he has, as a necessary consequence, succeeded in producing a work pregnant with the most instructive artistical suggestions for every one who aims at distinction in literature. It is one of the most valuable of Sir LYTTON BOLIVIAN'S numerous and diversified literary efforts.
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