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child-like, artless, yet so guilty-she speaks from her failing heart such a voice of suppliant agony, that there should be a spirit found to give it an echo in reproaches to aggravate her misery and drive her to despair, it is a thing too horrible for a poet even to imagine of the devil. We seem to feel her tears falling, to hear her sobs in the broken sentences, and to look round for her gentle form with words of comfort and reassurance rising to our lips-be of good cheer-thy sins are forgiven thee. Such feelings rise so irresistibly that one expects to find them every where, even in the child and father of perdition, and it is a disappointment and a new and deeper stain even on his character that he has them not.

The poem opens with an address of the author to the crea tures of his fancy-the society of his declining age--the replacers of the companionships of his youth. It is very sweet and mournful and solemn, but seems to have no very direct bearing in any thing that follows. It has been done into English by Lord Levison Gower, and so done, that even to the mere English reader the vague melody of the original words conveys more of the spirit of the writer than all the sense of the translation. For the German is a language eminently poetical, of plastic ductility and infinitely rich, and admitting in a high degree of that suitableness of sound to sense, of which we talk so much and show so few examples. They who are ignorant and wish to be witty on this subject, may be witty if they can, or failing that, they may resort to the old story of the emperor who thought the German a fit language for his horse-fitter no doubt than for himself. But the initiated know, and the uninitiated may learn, if they will be reasonable, that no modern European language combines so many attractions as the German. Its facility for compound words-the versatility of its inversions-its faculty of appropriating entire foreign dialects to its own use, and working them in to its own texture-its energy, sweetness, and expression-these are the things to be weighed and estimated, and which the wise may be easily won to appreciate, in utter contempt of the small dust of the balance, of old saws about emperors and horses, and of studied bouquets of reiterated gutturals, and "acht hundert acht und achtzig achteckige hechs koepfe."

This poem is followed by is followed by a prelude in the theatre behind the curtain, where the stage manager appears between his clown and poet, as preparing for the first exhibition of the new

drama. The manager is full of anxiety. He exhorts the poet on the subject of his work as if it were still to do-as if he were there to inspire the actors, or to possess them in the very hour of their performance, and he supplicates for invention, novelty, variety, incident, and spirit, as one whose means of living depend on the event. He classes the poet and the clown together as the pillars of his hope-he reminds them that they have stood by him thus far through foul and fair, and begs them not to desert him here in his extremest need he lectures them upon public taste and the most infallible claptraps and baits for applause, and declares it is far better to get cash from the present generation, than the shadowy hope of a harvest of praise from the next. All this is as nuts to the clown-to the poet bitter ashes. Suppose, says the former, scoffingly, I too should talk about posterity and neglect my business, who would make sport for the world that is passingyet this must have its pleasures. You know what we stand in need of, dish it up for us by old rules and approved receipts, a love adventure, hopes, fears, and a catastrophe, a little poise and tinsel, and all goes down. But the dealer in metro stands upon his dignity-he speaks disrespectfully of the mob -gets on his high horse and appeals to future ages-then thinks of bygone days, and promises passionately that if they can be recalled, all contradictions shall be reconciled, all impossibilities performed, and all parties satisfied.

Ay, once again those moments bring,

When early hopes, a ripening throng,
Poured from the heart's perpetual spring,
Uninterrupted joy and-song.

When morning mists, all dim and gray,

Around life's rugged steeps were curl'd,
And all the vales with flowers were gay,
And buds just opening to display

The promise of a magic world,

Possessing nought, yet rich-how sweet

That love of truth-that self-deceit

That chainless impulse-bid it move

Those hopes-those passions-bid them burn

That strength of hatred-power of love

And youth-oh bid my youth return.

This, however, is asking too much, but the manager smooths him down as well as he can, and comforts him for the control he cannot have over time and the past, by offering the regions of space and all that therein is to his absolute disposal. He begs him again to astonish the expectant audience to the very

top of their expectations, and makes over to him, his mimic universe full of materials for the purpose.

Command your utmost heart's desire,

Suns, moons, and stars, nor save, nor spare,

And walls of rock and seas of fire,

And living things of earth and air.

Exhaust creation's wildest range,

Its tribute far and wide compel,

And lead your scenes with skilful change,

From Feav'n, throughout the earth, and hell.

I pause here to express my utter dissatisfaction, disappointment, and anger, at Lord Levison Gower. This dialogue, which in the original is eminently characteristic and full of sentiments, which though the situation makes them border on ridicule, are yet natural and true-vividly brought out and strikingly contrasted-all this, I say, he has tamed down in his translation, so that the greater part of it is not fit for the poet's corner in a village newspaper. One passage deserves to be excepted-it is the first of those I have translated, and I shall cite his version here, because one or two ideas in the lines in italics are preserved from the original in his, which are lost, or nearly so, in mine-in the rest my own, as a translation, is most accurate of the two.

A

Then give me back those days of feeling,
When I was an expectant too-
When through the wilds of fancy stealing,
The stream of song was ever new-
When morning mists the scene surrounded,
And buds foretold the promised rose-
When bee-like o'er the flowers I bounded,
And plucked and rifled as I chose.
Enough yet little formed my treasure-
The hope of truth-illusion's present pleasure.
Give me the active spring of gladness,

Of pleasure stretch'd almost to pain-
My hate, my love, in all their madness-
Give me my youth again.

passage which follows this is tolerably done, but all the rest is bad, excessively; but I do not complain of this so much, because it is in virtue of a privilege I have claimed for the whole herd of translators-servum pecus-but he has changed a corner stone of the design. Instead of the stage buffoon or clown, he introduces a friend with the manager and poet, thus destroying some of the liveliest points of the conversation, and deadening the little spirit that had not been distilled out of it

and carried off with the original dialect. He takes a freedom quite as unwarrantable in the next scene, of which he leaves out an important part, without a word of apology or hint at its existence in the German. It is a prelude, in Heaven. The angels are introduced singing anthems of praise; after which Mephistopheles enters and the conversation which Lord L. G. omits, follows between him and the Creator. It has too direct a bearing on the action of the piece to be thus passed over in dead silence, though it may not be very possible or desirable to render it in English-its familiarity is too decidedly profane and it must get new faults in any version. The only attempt I know of is by Shelley, which can be referred to for proof of what I am saying. With these exceptions, however, it is much to the purpose of that in Job, on which it is evidently modelled. Permission is granted to Mephistopheles to try the strength of his temptations upon Faust, and the scene closes with the extraordinary stage direction, "Heaven shuts and the archangels separate," and Mephistopheles left alone, soliloquizes on the kindness of the Deity in being so affable even with the devil.

I shall attempt the anthem of the angels-it has some indestructible essence in it, and although it has been treated first and last even worse than poor John Barleycorn, ploughed down, tossed to and fro and mangled, no translator I have met with has succeeded in quite extinguishing it.

MICHAEL.....The sun contends as erst and aye,

With kindred spheres in joyous sound.

And brings his first appointed way

In paths of thunder always round.

Angelic powers his sight inspires,

Though none his secret mystery knows,

And rolling spheres and glorious fires
Are glorious as at first they rose.

GABRIEL.....Swift-inconceivably-away

The earth pursues her rolling flight,

And alternates celestial day

With deep, and chill, and shudd'ring night.

It foams-the ocean-broad and free

On rocks and shallows far and near-
While hurries on with rocks and sea,
The ever swift revolving sphere.

RAPHAEL.....Contending storms through ether sweep,

And sea and land by turns invade,
Yet chained in nature's systems deep,

And still to them subservient made.

Precursor of the thunder's roar,

In fire, destruction marks its way,
Yet Thee thy servants most adore,
Lord, in the peaceful beams of day.

ALL........Angelic powers thy sight inspires,

Though none thy secret mystery knows,
And rolling spheres and glorious fires,
Are glorious as at first they rose.

We are now introduced to Faust, and we find him first in his character of an University Professor, in an old Gothic chamber of an ancient tower, among musty parchments, strange apparatus, and antiquated furniture. It is late in the night, and he seems to have just thrown aside his books in despair and disappointment, to muse on the results of his application, on the arts and uses of his life, and he finds themnothing. He discusses the value and substance of the sciences and studies among which he has so long been seeking repose of spirit and finding none, and he pronounces them vain and illusory, and exclaims bitterly against the deceit they have so long been wont to put on him, and through his means on others. He rhapsodizes his regret for the always inevitable and now irreparable waste of his life-of time and energies created and given him expressly to be wasted, and for that only, fitted and predestinated. He looks out at the window and speaks to the only face he sees, to the only companion he is wont to welcome.

Thou full orb'd moon-oh could try light

Behold my sorrows end to-night!

Thou, whom so oft with pensive brow

To-night's high noon I've watch'd as now,

While hither thy consoling ray

O'er books and papers found its way.

Oh could I to the mountain's height

Float off, all buoyant in thy light,
Or flit with ghosts the abysses over,
O'er meadows in thy glimmering hover,
Or bathe, from wisdom's sorrows free,
In floods of dew all fresh from thee.

Wo-still in prison, fast and deep,
Accursed noisome donjon keep,

Where Heaven's own light on weary walls,

Through painted windows dimly falls-
'Mid piles of books, which smoke and dust

And worms long since have made their prey,

And household stuffs, which moth and rust
Are hastening in their old decay-

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