Old Stories of Switzerland By a Lady. Franz Thimm. A
collection of translations from various German and Swiss poets, we think, with- out exception narrative. Some embody a historical or quasi-historical incident—as Itutreim's song of Tell ; others a legend—as our old friend Ida of Toggenburg. The sense and metre have been, the author tells us, scrupulously adhered to, and ballad poems literally translated have always a certain uncouthness. What is simplicity of diction in one language is baldness or awkwardness in another. On the other hand, a freer rendering is apt to give us a better English poem perhaps—but still what is no translation at all—an echo only of either the words or spirit of the original. Certainly "a Lady" is entitled to adopt her own theory of translation, and the literal theory, though it aims at much less, succeeds usually in giving more. Even when the translator is a master, the free theory buys one brilliant success by half-a-dozen failures. "The subjects" of these translations are really "interesting."
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