A FRENCH TRANSLATION OF TENNYSON'S " ILAITD."* This work is

a masterpiece of its kind. M. Fauvel has shown himself a true lover of our Laureate's poetry ; his preface testifies to his sincerity, and his compliments to him and the proofs of his deep admiration and appreciation are worded most gracefully. After references to Shelley, Keats, Wordsworth, and Browning, he says :-

" Mais, de tous les rtveurs qui, grandis par rhommage,

Comma les demi-dieux ont plane sur notre Le plus haut, le plus pur et le plus inspire, Celui dont tout rime est In splendeur du Vrai, Celui qui, dans son oeuvre (en est-il de plus grandes 1) Dit les beaux devouments et lea vieilles legendes Eat le maitre accompli dont j'ai piensement D'une fidele main, traduit le sentiment."

And this last statement of his is no vain assertion ; he has translated the sentiment faithfully, and much praise is due to him for having done it so well, and for having at the same time translated with so much elegance of expression. There are no aggressive mistranslations which entirely alter the sense, or pervert or destroy the sentiment ; and therefore, just as Canon Ainger's Tennyson for the Young has been largely adopted for school teaching, this work might with advantage be utilised for the same purpose. It is not an ex- pensive one, being published at the modest sum of one franc.

The printing is large and very clear, and the chief errors seem to lie in the omission of accents. For instance, in the third line of the preface, the last word which has to rhyme with " ne " is given as " assassine," instead of " assassine ;" and the like occurs again at the end, when, instead of printing "Reveillez•moi de grand matin, mon here aline," the accent is omitted on the last word, which reads as " aime," and which has to rhyme with " Mai." These things might puzzle a young scholar.

In Canto I., verse 2, M. Fauvel thinks that it was the rock, and not the corpse of Maud's lover's father, that was mangled and flattened, for he renders it :—" Le rocher qui tomba avec lui git encore lit, fracasse, aplati, brise, eparpille dans le sol."

In verse 6 be transforms the substantive " lust " into the verb. The original reads :-

"And lust of gain, in the spirit of Cain, is it better or worse Than the heart of the citizen hissing in war on his own hearth- stone ?"

But the translator gives it :— " Et ceux qui, dans l'esprit de Cain ont le desir du gain, valent- ils mienx ou moins que le eceur du citoyen qui gerroie en siffiant sur son propre foyer."

• A French Translation of "Maud." By Henri Fauvel. Havre: Le Male at Cie.

Also, in verse 9, he seems to think that it is meant that the " days go by slurring," instead of that " Peace slurs them," for his words read: "Et les jours souffles ecoulent." He renders very clearly the purport of Lord Tennyson's line, " When only the ledger lives," by " Les registres sont les maitres ; " but he fails when he has to translate further, " and when only not all men lie," for his sentence implies rather, "and men are not the only ones to lie,"—" et les hommes ne sont plus les seuls n mentir." For some reason or other, in verse 10 he only translates two of the articles sold as a bread substitute. In the original it is : "And chalk and alum and plaster are sold to the poor for bread; " but M. Fauvel ignores the chalk : "Et pour pain, on vend au pauvre de Palma et du platre." The writer has looked into many French dictionaries, but in none of them does be find " conciliabule " given as the trans- lation of "centre-bit." M. Fauvel uses it so, however, rendering for " the villainous centre-bits," "les conciliabnles de coquina." The Petit Dictionnaire Francais interprets " conciliabule" as " assemblee secrete et illegale."

M. Fauvel has hardly succeeded with his translation in verse 13, Canto I., of " snub-nosed, smooth-faced rogue," when he turns it into "le coquin it la face vile au nez fureteur ;" and in verse 18: "Maud it la jolie moue quand mon pore agitait lea raisins it sa vue," is weak for : "Maud with her sweet purse-mouth when my father dangled the grapes ;" and he has to take four words to translate "moon- faced," using " aux joues potelees et rondes." But to com- pensate for these few faults, the rest of the Canto has been translated with great clearness, and over and over again M. Fauvel may be complimented on expressing so much in so few words. One pardonable mistake he has made; he thinks the "snub-nosed, smooth-faced rogue " already alluded to was meant to be capable of striking, not as Lord Tennyson means it, " home," but to "defend his home ;" for his lines run : " Et frapperait s'il le ponvait, fat ce mime avec son aune friponne pour defendre son toit."

In many cases M. Fauvel has dealt in a most masterly manner with phrases that would have puzzled many of his confreres. The writer anticipated that in Canto VI., verse 6, the adjective " glassy" (" with a glassy smile his brutal scorn") would puzzle M. Fauvel, who has tried to get over it by using " banal," which would have been a better rendering had it been a commonplace or hackneyed smile ; and for " That jewtIled mass of millinery," " Cette masse de bijoux et de colefichets " is a very free translation. A difficulty was again anticipated in Canto X., verse 2, where M. Fauvel has to give an equivalent for " a padded shape ;" he goes at it with " ii l'air nul." One would have thought, however, that no diffi- culty could come out of the line, " To preach our poor little army down," Canto X., verse 3; but M. Fauvel avoids "armee," and substitutes " parti " (" vint precher contre notre pauvre petit parti "). This is curious.

The translations of Cantos XI. and XII. are simply admirable, and done as no one but one who entered from his innermost soul into the feeling expressed could have done. In Canto XIII., verse 1, " Barbarous opulence jewel thick" is rendered rather lamely by "Et sea bijoux par un etalage barbare et fastidienx." In Canto XVIII., verse 6, "A purer sapphire melts into the sea," is rendered thus : " Le ciel est teinte d'un plus pur saphir." Why "le ciel" instead of " la mer "?

In the translation of the second part of Canto I., verse 1, M. Fauvel is seriously at fault in translating "He fiercely gave me the lie." He turns it as if it were " He threw ancient calumnies in my teeth.' " Il me jeta au visage d'anciennes calomnies." In the same canto, " The ghastly wraith of one that I know," is unsatisfactorily converted into " Le spectre de l'etre que je connais bien." It is certainly to be hoped that M. Fauvel will reap a well-deserved benefit by having his admirable translation circulated largely in England. Should he come here, he may rest assured he will find many Tennyson lovers ready to thank him for his good work.

For the upper forms of girls' high schools, it is particularly well suited ; and for all students, in fact, who have any of the poetic element in them, this work will have a special fascina- tion, so beautiful is the wording, so choice and so elegant are M. Fauvel's expressions, so light and delicate his hand in dealing with those rare beauties that abound in Maud, and which are unsullied by his rendering. Had any one asserted beforehand that he would have been so successful in this, his earnest work of hero-worship, it would have been contro- verted ; but the thing is done, the translation exists, and honour be to M. Henri Fauvel for his achievement.