HEINE'S WORKS IN ENGLISH.*

Ma. LELAND has embarked on the gigantic and rather hazardous task of presenting to the public Heine's " Collected Works" in an English garb. We are not quite sure whether the undertaking, from which Lord Houghton seems to have shrunk, is a very judicious one, and whether it would not have been more advisable to translate a careful selection only from Heine's writings, copious enough to entertain the reader, and sufficiently characteristic to show the peculiar bent of his genius,—in fact, all that is really worthy of being preserved. In raising our objections to a translation of Heine's complete works, we are by no means actuated by any prudish motives, more especially as we notice that Mr. Leland has had the good taste, without rigorously bowd- lerising Heine, to omit or modify the grossest obscenities— the anticipated Zolaisms— in his translation, which fact becomes particularly apparent in the version of the fragment, From the Memoirs of Herr von Schnabelewopski. It may be of interest to point out on this occasion that the obscenities in this curious sketch—as probably in many others of Heine's -writings—were not so much the result of any innate levity of mind, or of a desire to gratify the prurient taste of frivolous readers, as of the intention to conceal the serious import of his writings. He actually said as much, in a letter to his mother, under date of March 4th, 1834, with reference to the volume containing the above-mentioned Memoirs. " Many obscenities have been inserted," he candidly confessed, "but this was done from mere finesse." He wanted, in fact, to turn public opinion with regard to himself into a new direction. " Let people rather say of me," he wrote in that letter, " that I am a polisson [Gassenjunge] than a serious saviour of my country ; to be which is nowadays no desirable distinc- tion." The literary historian, in his critical function, must, of course, take account of those gross obscenities, and more especially of the cause which induced the author to pen them ; but there is no reason why they should be presented in all their crudeness to the English public, to whose taste they are repulsive, and we think that Mr. Leland will do well to con- tinue to winnow, in some measure, the chaff from the grain, or to cover it with a scarcely perceptible film.

There is, however, another element largely represented in Heine's works, which makes a complete translation of them rather undesirable. We allude to the numerous attacks directed against persons whose sole importance is derived from the fact that they have been selected as butts for Heine's witty onslaughts. The same is the case with a number of topics touched upon in his works, and which are void of interest for the present generation; at any rate, for our countrymen, to whom most of the allusions must be utterly unintelligible. We think, therefore, that it might have been advisable, as we intimated above, to give to the English public a judiciously made selection from Heine's works, or, if given in extenso—for the sake of that completeness of which our countrymen are so fond—that they should have been provided • The Works of Heinrich Hrine. Translated from the German by O. G. Leland. Vole. I.-111. London: William Heinemann. DM. with notes imparting the requisite information about persons and things, both important and unimportant ones. This want of sufficient annotation is sadly felt at nearly every page of the three volumes before us. Thus, in recounting, in the Memoirs of Herr von Schnabelewopski (Vol. I., p. 104), the curiosities of Hamburg, Heine mentions the " beauti- ful Marianne," and the "original manuscripts of Mares Tragedies." Who was the schone Marianne, and who the playwright Marr ? The reader might easily be led to place the former in the same category with the two grisettes

mentioned in the subsequent chapter, whilst she is invariably described as both " beautiful and virtuous." She was Marianne Schindler, the famous hostess of a much-frequented restaurant at Eimsbiittel, near Hamburg, round whose life a tale of romance was woven by her admirers, which might furnish an appropriate

subject for a three-volume novel to some imaginative romancer. Heine mentions the "beautiful Marianne," half in jest, and half in earnest, among the Merkwiircligkeiten of Hamburg, and some explanation about her would have been of interest for the reader. Herr Marr, the " original manuscripts of whose tragedies " also figure among the Hamburg curiosities, was the " poet-landlord " of the hotel " Konig von England," frequented by the author, who mentions him in the Buch le Grand ; and the translator ought to have referred to the passage in question, which must have been well known to him.

We confine ourselves to pointing out the above two instances in order to show the desirability of explaining the allusions to the numerous personages mentioned in Heine's works, and we will illustrate by one example only the propriety—nay, neces-

sity—of elucidating certain passages in them by references to his own writings. In The Florentine Nights (Vol. I., p.10), the fol.

lowingwords areput in the mouth of Max :—" The paintedforms of womenhave never interested me so deeply as statues. I was only once in love with a picture. It was a wonderfully. beautiful

Madonna in a church in Cologne," &c. This passage would derive greater interest by a reference to a poem in which Heine has referred to the above fact in his most melodious lyrical strains, and the full quotation of which will afford some

enjoyment, we believe, to our readers. It is the eleventh poem in the Lyrisches Intermezzo, and runs as follows :— " Im Rhein, im heiligen Strome, Da spiegelt sick in den Well'n, Hit seinem grossen Dome, Das grosse heilige Coln.

Im Dom' da steht ern Bildnis, Ant goldenem Leder gemalt ; In meines Lebens Wildnis Hat's freundlich hineingestrahlt.

Es schweben Blumen and Englein IIm unsre liebe Frau ;

Die Augen, die Lippen, die Wanglein, Die gleichen der Liebsten genau."

A general knowledge of Heine's life is also required in order

to understand fully the bearing of his writings ; his life being. as with Goethe, the best commentary on his works. The translator ought, therefore, to have prefaced his translation by at least a short biography of the author.* How is it that

he came to write the melancholy Florentine Nights, per- vaded by the gloom of the " poetry of death," or the half- cynical and half-serious Schnabelewopski Memoirs, which contain reminiscences of his youth, of his father, and of his sojourn in Poland and Holland ? What were the home in- fluences which prompted him to write the novelistic fragment, The Rabbi of Bacharach, and to what youthful impressions must be ascribed his predilection for France and the French P The answer to these and many other questions which must

necessarily crop up in the perusal of Heine's works, could only be gleaned from an account of his life, and a delineation of his temper and character.

Next to the desirability of introducing the translation by a biographical sketch, comes the expediency of giving Heine's writings in some systematic or chronological order, instead of beginning the series with fragmentary sketches,

mostly written about the middle of his literary career. The beginning ought to have been made, as in Campe's edition of 1876, with the Reisebilder, or with the Buck der Lieder, as has been done in Grote's Sritische Gesammtausgabe, published • Since writing the above, we have noticed that the publishers of the present translation intend issuing a " Life of Heine," from the pen of Mr. E. Garnett ; but in the meantime English readers will be sorely puzzled as to the bearing of a number of passages in the poet's writings. a few years ago. There is some plausible reason for the arrangement of the volumes in each of these standard editions, and the translator ought to have followed the one or the other. We must, in particular, express our surprise at the curious way in which Vol. H. has been put together, several cycles of poems, properly belonging to the Ruch der Lieder, having been promiscuously inserted. Possibly the translator adopted the order of some edition published about forty years ago ; but it certainly has not the merit of being either systematic or chronological.

As regards the translation itself, we must at once declare that it appears to us in general far more commendable than any of the English versions of Heine's writings hitherto published in this country. Of the inaccuracies which struck us in comparing the translation with the original, we will mention a few only. To the passage in which Heine declares of Hamburg " that it was not the infamous Macbeth who governed there, but Banko " (Vol. L, p. 100), the trans- lator appends the note : " Of course Banquo ; pun on bank." The pun is here, however, not on " bank," but on " Banco," which commercial term was formerly current at Hamburg in banking transactions. The Oberalten of Hamburg were not " supervisors " (p. 101), but corresponded rather to the English " Aldermen." On p. 104 we read, with reference to the teeth of the above-mentioned " beautiful Marianne," that " she has all of hers [i.e., all her teeth] and hair on them at that." This sentence will prove rather puzzling to English readers. The original German runs :—" Die schone Marianne hat noch alle ihre Zrihne and noch immer Haare darauf." " Haare auf den Zahnen haben" means in German to be " sharp," "resolute," 4:c., and if the translator had been acquainted with this meaning, he might possibly have given an equivalent for Heine's pun on the word Zahn, more especially as he has a good command of the English language. The word Winds- braut (literally "wind's bride") is explained (p. 126) to mean " the breeze which precedes the tempest," whilst it denotes the "tempest" or " tornado " itself. On p. 128 of the same volume, two Hamburg streets are mentioned, called respectively " Fuhlentwiete " and " Kaffeemacherei," and the latter is oddly translated by Mr. Leland " coffee-factory."

It is also to be regretted that Mr. Leland did not subject to a thorough revision his former translation of the Reisebilder, published in 1855, when he was "quite a young man," as Mr. Lowell described him to us at the time. Most of the old errors seem to have been left uncorrected, and we will quote one instance only, in order to show how much may be lost of Heine's sallies by a mistranslation. In one of his most biting satires on the insipid productions of the " tract-writers," he says:—" Iob babe nun mal im Schreiben mehr Gluck als in der Altonaer Lotterie and da kommt aus meiner Feder mancher Herztreffer,. manche Gedankenquaterne, —which actually means : "At any rate, I have better luck in writing than in the Alton& Lottery and there flow from my pen many prizes of sentiment and many big prizes of thought;" whilst the translator renders the latter part of the remark, "There come from my pen many heart-stunners, many choirs of thought,"—which translation is made worse by the appended note, "Quires of thought, Gedankenquaferne" (Vol. II., p. 344.) If Mr. Leland had been acquainted with the termini technici of the game of lottery, he would have known that Prefer means " an ordinary prize," and Quaterne "a winning series of four numbers," or " a big prize," and he would have been able to bring out fully the meaning of the exquisite Heinesque remark.

We might multiply the instances in which the original has been misunderstood, but the above examples will suffice to show that the greatest care must be exercised in translating Heine into English. It not only requires a thorough knowledge of the German language, but an intimate acquaintance with the persons and places mentioned in his writings, and besides, with the political and literary movements of his times. We must add that if we have dwelt so fully on the present trans- lation in spite of its shortcomings, it is because we should like above all to see Heine's works—or, at least, most of them—rendered into English, and because we think that, by taking due care, Mr. Leland would be in a position to produce a version worthy of the great writer.