about himself, that evading these enquiries he pronounced the first name that came into his head: "Kurt Steffen, the blacksmith?" Most of the spectators were silent, and only looked at him wistfully, till an old woman at last said: "Why, for these twelve years he has been at Sachsenburg, whence I suppose you are not come to day." "Where is Valentine Meier, the tailor?" "The Lord rest his soul," cried another old woman, leaning upon her crutch, "he has been lying more than these fifteen years in a house he will never leave." 'Peter recognized in the speakers, two of his young neighbours who seemed to have grown old very suddenly, but he had no inclination to enquire any farther. At this moment there appeared making her way through the crowd of spectators, a sprightly young woman with a year old baby in her arms, and a girl about four taking hold of her hand, all three as like his wife he was seeking for as possible. "What are your names?" he enquired in a tone of great surprize, "Mine is Maria." “And your father's?" continued Peter. "God rest his soul! Peter Klaus to be sure. It is now twenty years ago since we were all looking for him day and night upon the Kyffhausen; for his flock came home without him, and I was then," continued the woman, "only seven years old." The goatherd could no longer bear this: "I am Peter Klaus," he said, "Peter and no other," and he took his daughter's child and kissed it. The spectators appeared struck dumb with astonishment, until first one and then another began to say, "Yes, indeed, this is Peter Klaus! Welcome, good neighbour, after twenty years' absence, welcome home." vol. ii. pp. 55—60. With the exception of a single tale from Musæus-the Dumb Lover---which sufficiently exemplifies the style of that pleasing writer, the whole of Mr. Roscoe's third volume is filled with the novels or romances of Schiller. And here we cannot refrain from inquiring, why our compiler has thought fit to devote this large portion of his undertaking to translations from a writer, already so celebrated, and so familiar to the English public; while he has omitted to insert any extracts from the other most famous modern German works of imagination, which may be said to belong to the same class as those of Schiller. We have disclaimed the wish to criticise severely the plan of any selection of such difficulty as that in which Mr. Roscoe has engaged; but we have a right to expect, at least, some consistency in his choice. As we observed, in noticing Mr. Soane's specimens of German romance, we should be disposed altogether to reject in such a work the too famous names of Wieland, Schiller, Göthe, Kotzebue but why glean from one of them only, and that one, perhaps, the most familiar to the English reader, and neglect all the rest? Why discard John Paul Richter and Claudius, Pichler and Kruse, novelists of great popularity with their own countrymen, and almost unknown to ours; while Schiller, with whose pieces all the world are already so thoroughly acquainted, is exhibited at full length? The tales of Schiller, however, can never be read without inteOf those here introduced by Mr. Roscoe, the most famous rest. is the Ghost-Seer-or "Apparitionist," as he is pleased to render its title. It is certainly a very powerful delineation of the effects. upon an original but imaginative mind, of a growing belief in supernatural agency, as connected with its own destiny. The second part of the tale is comparatively feeble and unsatisfactory, and quite unworthy of the first. It is singular that Schiller does not appear ever to have visited Venice, the scene of Geisterseher, whose adventures are interwoven in some of our most romantic associations, with that "fairy city of the heart;" and such is the creative power of genius, that while, in the poetical thought of Byron- -Otway, Radcliffe, Schiller, Shakspeare's art the unvisited scenes of Venice, over which the aerial spells of all these master spirits are thrown, existed for them all but in the dream of fancy. Schiller's Sport of Destiny, and the Criminal, though of inferior power to the Ghost-Seer, bear the stamp of his mind; but the two last pieces selected by Mr. Roscoe, Fraternal Magnanimity, and A Walk among the Linden Trees, scarcely deserved a place with the others. The contents of the fourth volume before us are much below all the preceding parts of the series in interest and value. They consist but of pieces from three modern novelists: Tieck, Langbein, and Engel. To the real merits of Ludwig Tieck as a dramatic commentator and critic, we rendered full testimony in a late number*, notwithstanding the absurd mysticism in which, even in his theatrical strictures, he so sedulously envelopes his thoughts. But considered merely as a novelist, he is a complete exemplar of all the most extravagant horror-mongers who infest the literature of Germany. Of the three tales here given, the Tannenhäuser is full of wild preternatural terrors; Egbert Auburn is a medley of " maudlin faerie" and revolting tragedy, and Love Magic is a perfect incubus of the imagination, in which the beauteous heroine is tempted by the devil to cut the throat of a child, for the sake of feeding a green-eyed dragon, and raising a potent love-charm from its blood! Two of Tieck's more amusing productions, the Pictures and the Betrothing, have already been "done into English ;" and we observe a translation announced, as in the press, of his most famous novel, Sternbald, the travelling painter, which is certainly a superior production, though far too long for insertion in the present series. Its action is laid at the most brilliant age of the arts; and though its incidents are few, Tieck, in conducting his hero through different countries of Europe, has made an ingenious and pleasing use of the old machinery of the "voyage imaginaire." Langbein is a writer of very different cast from Tieck, and has Monthly Review, No. x. p. 470. produced, with less power perhaps, several compositions of far more rational and probable interest. Marianne Richards, or the Memoirs of an Actress, one of his pieces here introduced, is a well told and affecting tale; and there is considerable humour in some of the other specimens selected by our compiler. We cannot speak in equal commendation of his choice from Engel for his concluding tales. That writer can boast only at best a mediocrity of merit; and the stories printed by Mr. Roscoe will scarcely support even this reputation. Engel is perpetually repeating himself; and Toby Wilt's sayings, which have received a place in this collection, may be found again in Lorenz Stark, of which Mr. Gans's translation has just appeared. To the construction of that novel, his most popular, and perhaps his best, Engel is said in Germany to have devoted nine years. Our opinion of the general merits of Mr. Roscoe's work, as exhibiting a series of fair specimens of the German fiction of successive ages, is to be gleaned from the tenor of the preceding remarks; and it will be seen that we have, on the whole, been led to think very favourably of the propriety of the selections, and of the editorial judgment and taste with which they are arranged. The work altogether has realized its object; and Mr. Roscoe deserves the praise of having collected into an English version a sufficient portion of the imaginative prose literature of Germany, not only to yield a great deal of amusement, but to familiarize every reader with the prominent characteristics which have hitherto distinguished the national fiction of that country. We are sorry that we cannot extend this eulogy to the mode in which the task of rendering the selections into English has always been accomplished. The tales shew so much inequality in the translation, that we are almost tempted to believe them the work of various hands. The language is often inelegant, careless, and slovenly; striet grammatical accuracy seems to have been nowhere attempted; and vulgarisms of all sorts occur, as it were, habitually in the greatest part of the text. Thus we have the adjective for the adverb:-as (vol. i, p. 207,) "His wife inquired how the merchant had enjoyed his journey? Oh, delightful, cried the merchant," for delightfully. In p. 205, of the same volume, we have," He shall see me there," for, he shall accompany me thither. And at p. 129, by a strange practical blunder, we are told," Human nature could endure no more, Sir Isegrim fell over in a deadly fit," &c. The human nature of a wolf! But throughout the book we have sang misused for sung, sprung instead of sprang, shrunk instead of shrank, drank instead of drunk. Now this is always wrong; but in construing from the German particularly, the fault must rest with the translator: for no native can possibly, in that language, mingle or confound the imperfect tense and the participle. With respect even to the fidelity with which the meaning of the original is rendered by the translator, his knowledge or care is often very questionable. We do not pretend to have compared the fourth, or the tenth part, of the various contents of his volumes with the German; but one tale we certainly have subjected to a close investigation; and the result has been any thing but favourable to the credit of the translator's general accuracy. Our familiarity with Schiller's pathetic tale of the Criminal, led us more particularly to observe the general defects of the English version; and a nearer inspection has satisfied us, that several passages in the original have evidently not been understood by the translator. A few instances will enable any tolerable German scholar to decide on the justice of our conclusion: Vol 3, p. 328. "He soon observed the advantage which the free life of his rival, Wolf, had acquired over him." It should be, the presents, or prodigal gifts, of his rival: the German word being Freygebigkeit, literally free-giving--not free living. In the same page, the woods in which Wolf carried on his vocation of deer-stealing, did not belong to a neighbouring lord, but to his prince landesherrliche Waldung-a forest belonging to the sovereign. p. 329. "He now expérienced the full severity of the law: had no more to give," &c. Read, because he had no more to give; denn er hat nichts mehr zu geben, &c.: that is, he could not again buy himself off. pas p. 333. "The hour tolled to vespers;" say rather, the bells chimed for vespers. Die Glocken läuteten zur vesper: they were the vesper bells, not the clock striking the hour. In the same page, the boy does not beg a present of the criminal, as the sage is here improperly rendered; nor was he likely so to do, since the man's appearance was so frightful. The translator's mistake, or gratuitous addition, throws a contradiction upon the boy's subsequent conduct. p. 347. For "I anticipated the reproach of all the rest of their sex," read, I expected to meet only with the refuse of their sex. The word Auswurf, in the original, means scum, refuse, disgrace; but the translator has mistaken it for Vorwurf, (which does mean reproach), and thus made nonsense of the passage. p. 351. "Should your princely patronage," &c. The original is, fürstliche Huld,-should your royal mercy, &c. The robber had more sense than to ask his sovereign for his patronage, under the circumstances of criminality in which he was placed. p. 355. "Justice was only to be propitiated with the blood of her debtor." The phrase is absurd in itself, and unwarranted by the original. Die unerbittliche Nemesis, &c.-the inexorable Nemesis seizes her debtor. In the same page, the robber is made to attempt to cut his way with his pistol!" Double-barrelled swords, and cut-and-thrust pistols," as honest David has it in The Rivals. p. 356. "An old gaoler approaching him behind, seized him by the arm." The man, if Schiller is to be believed in his own story, was a journeyman locksmith,-Schlofserge selle,-not a gaoler. These examples may suffice: we are no lovers of mere verbal criticism; but we do hold ourselves bound, on behalf of the public, to subject the accuracy of a translator to a rigid trial; where accuracy is the best part of merit: opining with an old authority that, in the transmutation of tongues, an author is not likely to write the worse for understanding his original. ART. IV. Rough Notes taken during some rapid Journeys across the Pampas; and among the Andes. By Captain F. B. Head. 8vo. pp. 309. 9s. 6d. London. Murray. 1826. WE had imagined that every thing which a foreigner could feel any curiosity in knowing about the Pampas, and the high road of the Andes, was to be found in a number of works already published, particularly in the volumes of Mr. Procter*, and of Mr. Miers, which are studiously minute in their descriptions of those magnificent districts of South America. It must be admitted, however, that Captain Head, though seldom deviating from the footsteps of these travellers, has contrived to invest his route with a very considerable degree of interest, if not of novelty, owing perhaps, in a great measure, to the enthusiasm with which he entered upon his task; and the indomitable buoyancy of spirits which he appears to have enjoyed throughout his various journies. Nothing seems to have escaped his admiration or his sarcasm. Setting out with a determination to laugh at the difficulties which he was to encounter on the way, and to find amusement wherever he could, he has been, too frequently we think, betrayed into something bordering on levity or folly. Although not an inexperienced traveller, as we learn in the course of his work that he had at least been as far as the Morea, yet he really appears to have landed at Buenos Ayres with all the prejudices, and forwardness, and sheer ignorance of the world, that are usually to be found only in a school-boy. The manner in which he attempts to caricature the customs and religion of three or four South-American towns which he galloped through, rather than visited, is by no means creditable to his heart or his judgment. Whatever does not instantly correspond with his English notions on these subjects, he sets down as absurd, corrupt, and impious. The facility with which he pronounces opinions upon the characters of persons whom he has only once seen, and never conversed with; the nonchalance with which he speaks of whole communities, whose society he admits he had not time to enter, are in every respect un * Vol. cvii. M. R. p. 128, former series. |
