DIFFICULTIES OF TRANSLATION.-FRENCH POETRY.

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In the present, as well as past, rage for book-making, and in this " of poetic' brass," it had often surprised me, that some of those unhappy barbouilleurs de papier, whose hours of idleness (and too frequently hours which should be of business), are employed in supplying the periodical press with its daily poetic bread, had never turned their heads or hands, for I know not which has the greater share in their productions, to a translation of some of the French poets into English verse; there not being, that I am aware of, a single translation of any of the "chef-d'œuvres" of the French poets; certainly none of note.

Impressed with this idea, and being one of the aforesaid barbouilleurs, I treasured it up as a discovery scarcely less important, at least to my own fame and profit, than that of a north-west passage, or a perpetual motion, resolved, when leisure should offer from the occupations of my profession, to set about a translation of nothing less than Voltaire's Henriade, that idol of national pride, and summit of universal perfection; indeed, so eager was I" for the fray," that a little before that leisure offered, I stole some hours from my proper studies, to set about that pleasing, though profitless one, of poetry.-Poetry! sweet maid, though thou wilt have much to answer for, when our Otways, Savages, Goldsmiths, Chattertons, and the long list of others, whom I remember not, and those by the world forgotten, shall rise up in judgment against thee. Yet, "with all thy faults, I love thee still." Apostrophe, en poete, and to proceed.

All difficulties melted before the warmth of my first attack, and the lines glided from my brain, or from what other department of my head you are pleased to imagine, down my pen with wonderful velocity; and thus the first paragraph appeared.

I sing the hero who o'er Gallia reign'd,

A throne by conquest and by birthright gain'd;
Who, from protracted ills, had learnt to sway,
And awe the foes and factions of his day;
To conquer and forgive alike he knew,
Where honor called, or mercy claim'd her due;
Mayenne, The League, Iberia felt his ire,
And own'd a king, a conqueror, and a sire!

O heavenly truth, descend! and on these lays,
Expand the force and brightness of thy rays;
That kings once more, with thee familiar grown,
May learn from thee whatever should be known;
And to a nation, too, be 't thine to show,
What guilty troubles from dissension flow;-
O tell how discord has our country torn;
A people's ills, and prince's errors mourn ;-
Here speak and if 'tis true there was a time,
When fable might with thy sweet accents chime;
When her soft hand might deck thy noble brow,
And, by a shade, adorn-assist me now!
Upon thy footsteps let my fable glide,
To ornament thy graces--not to hide!

Still Valois reign'd, and from his faithless hand,

Th' imperial reins of this infuriate band

Flow'd at full freedom--laws were trampled o'er,
And right-and Valois rather-reign'd no more!—

VOL. 1. 21. Fourth Edit.

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No longer 'twas the prince with glory crown'd;
By victory early taught the combats round;
Whose mighty progress, Europe trembling mark'd,
With whom his country's deep regret embark'd;
When from the north, so fame her hero grac'd,
That nations at his feet their sceptres placed;
How station acts on man, the muse must sing,
From dauntless warrior, sprung a slothful king!-
Lull'd in the breast of softness on a throne,
The weighty jewel weighed his weakness down :
Quelus, St. Megrui, Joyeuse, d'Epernon,
Reign'd in their sovereign's stead-voluptuous throng!
Whose only tenure of their power was this,
To plunge in joy his lethargies of bliss!

The Guises, now their rapid fortune prais'd,
For on his errors they their grandeur rais'd;
And found that fatal League, in Paris known,
The haughty rival of a nerveless throne;
The fev'rish mob, vile minions of the great,
Pursued their prince, and swell'd the tyrant's state.
His friends corrupted, from allegiance haste,
And from the Louvre by his subjects chas'd;
Revolted Paris drove him from her walls,
And all was ruin!-when Bourbon recalls
With noble ardour, and with virtue's charms,
Strength to the prince, and valor to his arms;

Leads them, still struck with wonder and with awe,
From shame to glory, and from sports to war!—
E'en to the city gates the kings advance;

Rome grows alarmed-Spain trembles for her France-
And Europe, watchful of the glorious prize,
On these unhappy walls directs her eyes!

Down on the west, those flowery borders near,

Where winds the Seine's swift current, broad and clear;
Now the retreat from bustle and from courts,

Where arts are nourished, and where nature sports;
Then the red stage, which mortal combat decks,

Unhappy Valois there his force collects,

There saw we those fam'd champions of the state,
By sect disjoin'd, united still by hate :
Before Bourbon those mighty heroes fall,
And in his breast are re-united all.

Truly they said, when by his wisdom sway'd,
They'd but one church, and but one chief obey'd.

Unable to comprise the second couplet of―

Qui par de longs malheurs apprit à gouverner,
Calma les factions, sut vainere, et pardonner,

in one of English verse, I was compelled to stretch it into two; but this was a liberty which I conceived every translator at liberty to take, although

it would be much better, I knew, to avoid it when possible, as it tends to weaken expression.

I soon, however, began to experience the difficulty of my task; but not to be put down by trifles, I pursued my undertaking, which at every step grew more and more irksome, as the poetic ardour, and pleasing novelty, gradually wore away. However I succeeded, by dint of downright labour, nay, perfect mill-horse-work, in the completion of seventy-six lines of the original, which I had dilated into eighty of mine. This brought me down to

"Le pere des Bourbons du rein des immortels,
Louis, fixait sur lin ses regards paternels," &c.

Resolved no more to yield what I considered the superiority of the English language on the point of conciseness, I laboured for an hour to reduce this to an English couplet, but, alas, in vain; and here my translative muse broke down upon the road, in utter despair of ever getting over the remaining 2000 lines.

On casting my eye back on this unfortunate failure, I have ruminated on the causes which might have led to it; still unwilling to tax my own irreAnd that cause I think solution, or want of perseverance, as the true one. I have found in the difference in the mechanical construction, or framework of the poetry of the two nations.

Although there are writers who have contended for the superiority of the English language, in force and beauty, there are few, I believe, who have ever advanced, as a general rule, that our language was so concise, that it could always express as much in ten syllables as the French could in twelve; and yet, until this be attained, the idea of rendering French verse into English, with any of the beauty or force of the original, must be abandoned. The French heroic measure, which is used by them in their tragedies, as well as their other serious poems, and which may be called their only national measure, consists of six feet, whereas that of the English consists of only five. And when we consider how necessary it is in poetry, that the sound and sense should act together, to produce any brilliant effect; and how much that sound, especially in English metrical verse, should answer to the couplet, we need not, I think, seek further for a cause of my own failure, and for the absence of English metrical translations of the French poets.

This cause, which operates against our translations, has a contrary effect in favour of the French, and accordingly we find that most of our celebrated poets have been translated by the French; Milton's Paradise Lost, and Young's Night's Thoughts, have both had this honour, and even Shakspeare has been burlesqued by them. But as an English translation must ever bear the marks of a compression or contraction, so, on the other hand, a French one must savour of diffuseness; and, indeed, what can be more tame, than the translation of that fine opening of Satan's address to the sun, in the Paradise Lost!

O thou that with surpassing glory crown'd,
Look'st from thy sole dominions, like the god
Of this new world; at whose sight all the stars
Hide their diminished heads!-To thee I speak,
But with no friendly voice. And add thy name,
O sun, to tell thee how I hate thy beams,
Which bring to my remembrance from what state I fell.

Toi dont le front brillant fait pâlir les étoiles :
Toi qui contraint la nuit à retirer ses voiles,

Triste image à nos yeux de celui qui t'a fait,
Que ta clarté m' afflige, et que mon cœur te hait!
Ta splendeur, ô soleil, rappelle à ma mémoire,
Quel éclat fut le mien dans le temps de ma gloire.

The latter is mere milk-and-water to the cream of the former. And although there are but six lines of the French, and seven of the English, yet it will easily be observed how this is managed, when only half the substance of the original is in fact translated.

Never were two languages, I believe, less adapted for translation, the one from the other, than the French and English; they are even more at variance than the manners of the people, of whose characteristics they seem to bear strong marks. The one is bold and vigorous, the other weak and effeminate; while the coarseness of the former is opposed by the smoothness of the latter. Nature seems to have marked these nations for eternal opposition; and wars and customs have cemented the bonds of enmity. May civilization and liberality polish away the rust of prejudice and national jealousy, but which, I fear, is doomed to continue until the nations themselves shall be laid

"Beneath the lumber of demolished worlds."

How a translation of the Henriade into English blank verse might answer, I have some doubts-not so much from the difficulty of the task, or the nature of the verse, but from the nature of the public before whom it must appear, and the difficulty of finding readers who would honour any epic poem of the present day with any thing beyond a perusal, for the express purpose of condemnation; not doubting but that many would take that liberty without the trouble of perusing it at all.

But not intending to enter into the minutiae of the French verse, or to take any enlarged view of translation in general, I believe I have now said all, and perhaps more than I had at first intended, and so take my leave of the subject, with giving my advice to young poets, not to attempt to compress a line of French heroic metre into an English one; and to consider well before they commence a blank verse translation, whether they have plenty of time to spare, and might not apply it to better purposes.

EDDA SAXON PURSUITS.*

H.

THE ancient Saxons placed their chief pleasure in a future life, in active military employments, and the joys of wine and company. "Tell me,” says Gangler in the Edda, "how do the heroes divert themselves when they are not drinking?" "Every day, (replies Har,) they take their arms, as soon as they are dressed, and entering the lists, fight till they cut one another in pieces. This is their diversion. But, no sooner does the hour of repast approach, than they remount their steeds all safe and sound, and return to drink in the palace of Odin." Horses are never omitted in the Celtic mythology. Thus Gray:

"Up rose the king of men with speed,
And saddled straight his coal-black steed."

"Her skill embraces all the cooking art,
Each useful recipe she has by heart;
"Tis her's to tell, with nicety and care,
The time 'twill take to roast a goose or hare;
She knows the mystery of hash and stew,
And every dish that's tempting to the view,
From British beef-steaks to a French ragout."

THE ACCOMPLISHED COOK, Canto 184.

My Aunt Martha is a notable housewife. She is continually bustling about; and call when you will, she is always in a fidget. She is a wonderful economist, and so deeply is she read in culinary science, that she is actually in treaty with a bookseller in The Row, for the publishing of a work on Domestic Cookery, which, I have little doubt, will eclipse every other of its kind. Yea, the defunct, but immortal Mrs. Rundell herself, to whom Blackwood has lately assigned the enviable office of chief turnspit to the gods, may hide her diminished head, when the collected recipes of my Aunt Martha shall edify the present race, and add new vigour to the rising generation. Then shall the half-pay sub. be taught to feast his hungry family with luxuries, of which, in moments of their greatest longing, they never dreamed. Poor lean authors shall no longer

"Pine on weak tea, thin broth, or pickled herring,"

but fatten on sixpence per diem; and half-starved paupers shall club their pence together, and sit down and make them merry. Nor is the genius of my aunt confined to the larder or the kitchen, her economy is universal; it embraces, not only every possible household expenditure, but pervades all her thoughts, words, and actions. Nay, I have even heard it confidently asserted, that nocturnal visions of well-saved eatables are continually flitting before her view when she seeks repose from her daily exertions; and there is, I know, a tradition in our family which says, that my aunt, when a child, wept bitterly for an entire afternoon, not at the diabolical doings of Jack the Giant Killer, or the lamentable history of Little Red Riding-hood, but in consequence of her father's cook having spoiled a fillet of veal by over-roasting it; so early did she feel the ruling passion of her life! She is, in truth, the most saving, bustling little body within the bills of mortality. In summer she rises with the lark; and then, if haply returning from a gay carouse, you should chance to refresh your eyes with a view of Covent Garden market,

"Where Flora and Pomona heap their sweets, On many a tempting stall; where early peas, (A morsel sweet, with duck of tender age,) Pay their first visit to the greedy town," you cannot fail to light upon my Aunt Martha.

But lest you should, by possibility, mistake her, I shall now, my gentle reader, present her to thy mental vision:-imagine, then, a staid, active, fussy little woman, with a deal of bustle in her gait, and of self-satisfaction in her look. A small black beaver hat, with a broad velvet band, and a cut-steel buckle (a time-out-of-mind concern), adorn her pericranium; and her principal habiliment is a well-saved family relic of the last century, which partakes equally of the ancient mantle and modern pelisse, and was known in the days of hoops and stomachers by the appellation of a blue