Son, and Marston.)---This translation of Auerbach's latest novel is the
first of a new Tauchnitz series of German works for English readers. Albert Smith called Galignani the amiable pirate of the Rue Vivienne, and at one time Baron Tauchnitz might have claimed that appellation, substituting Leipsic for Paris. But he has long since been converted, and has paid English authors for the privilege of circulating them on the Continent. Few travellers resist the temptation of the light-yellow cover, though Custom-House officers have a keen eye for a contraband novel, and are most zealous for national copyright. The present German series of the Baron is a good idea, but we cannot say that it opens quite
to our satisfaction. On the Heights, though marked by great ability, is unequal and inordinately long. Almost the whole of the last volume is
surplusage. Nor has Miss Burnett always performed her task adequately.
She is sometimes too literal, at other times she misses the point of the original or fails to catch its meaning. Thus, she talks of a king giving
for dessert a survey of church history, when the whole force of the sentence lies in his having learned men at table from whom such a survey is demanded. But the translation is generally fluent, and though occasionally stiff, not too manifestly German.
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