pretty sure that no second foot will ever reach the spot where he first stopped from fatigue. After all, we strongly suspect that one of the most interesting portions of Chinese general literature will be found in the drama. So few have been the translations of this species of composition, that no adequate opinion can at present be formed of its merits. Excepting the tragedy of the Orphan of the House of Tchao,' imperfectly translated by Father Premare, and the version of the 'Heir in Old Age,' by Mr. Davis, (of the latter of which an account will be found in No. XXXII.) we know of no other specimens in any European language. Both these pieces, and the notices of four others now given by Sir George Staunton, are taken from a celebrated collection of one hundred plays, known by the name of Yuen-jin-pe-tchong. In the neat and well written preface to the present volume, we find some judicious remarks on the Chinese drama, which, on the whole, Sir George seems disposed to think less calculated than their novels to reward the labour of the translator: their plays, he says, are too local and national to please much as mere compositions; and their minute beauties of style and language must of course be injured or lost in a translation. All this, we doubt not, is strictly true; but at the same time, judging from the Heir in Old Age,' we are convinced that they let us see more of the habits, manners, and sentiments most prevalent in domestic life, than any other species of composition. We regret to have to add, that Sir George Staunton more than hints at having abandoned his Chinese pursuits. We cannot, however, be much surprized at it. Those only who have made the attempt to acquire some little knowledge of it, can duly appreciate the labour and unremitting attention required to make any available progress in a language that may be said to have neither alphabet nor grammar; but to consist of a series of pictured ideas, which none but a native well acquainted with the manners, customs and feelings of his countrymen, can be quite sure of always decyphering correctly. That a gentleman, and a scholar in the full sense of the word, should devote his valuable time to the literature of a country and a people, about which, as we before observed, curiosity seems so little alive, could hardly be expected. With all this, however, the decision pains us; as no one, we believe, remains in the country to fill his place; and the day may, and, we think, must arrive when a knowledge of the Chinese language will be found of infinite importance to the interests of Great Britain. It should not be forgotten that the Himalaya is now the only barrier between this empire and ours in the east; and that we have FF 2 have found the means to pass it in more places than one :—but, even supposing no other intercourse to take place between the two nations except that at Canton, it is not very creditable that it should be solely conducted through the medium of a ridiculous jargon of English, which the Chinese find their advantage in learning. It would increase but little the expense of Hertford College, by adding to that establishment a Chinese professor, while it would prepare the young writers, destined for Canton, for the study of a language, which, unprepared, they find little or no inducement to commence on the spot; but the attainment of which would give to their employers certain advantages which they seem not duly to appreciate. ART. VI.-Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered, a Heroic Poem, with was a desideratum in English literature, is an opinion which few will contest who have compared with the original poem those translations which had been already offered to the world. If that of Hoole has found its way into our libraries, it has been, we apprehend, for no better reason than that, till the late republication of Fairfax, no other was generally accessible: for besides the frequent omissions and misconceptions of which Hoole is guilty, he is chargeable with the still more fatal sins of tameness and insipidity to a degree which is hardly to be paralleled, even in that flattest and tamest period of English heroic poetry when the imitators of Pope had racked his sweetness to the very lees, and poverty and meanness were almost universally mistaken for a chaste and classic simplicity. 'Fairfax,' says Hume, ‘hath translated Tasso with an elegance and ease, and at the same time with an exactness which for that age is surprizing. Each line in the original is faithfully rendered by a correspondent line in the translation.' Now it is written,' as the servant in Romeo and Juliet observes-' that the shoemaker should meddle with his yard, and the taylor with his last;'-and, certainly, the historian ought to keep to his chronicle. Fairfax was, indeed, a poet in every sense of the term; and we will confess that if there was any thing which, in the first instance, prejudiced us against the critical fairness and poetical feeling of the present translator, it was the careless and half-contemptuous manner in which he affects to regard as obsolete a composition familiar, we believe, to every youthful reader of taste and feeling. Beautiful, Beautiful, however, as the poetry of Fairfax is, yet in another circumstance, which to a translator is still more necessary than poetry, his deficiency is so great as to overturn whatever claim he might else make to having rendered Mr. Hunt's labours superfluous. Instead of numbering, as Mr. Hume says, line for line with his original, he does not even number stanzas :—he is, in fact, habitually inaccurate and regardless of the meaning of his text; he takes leave of his author in almost every page, and wanders to the right or left just as his lively imagination prompts him. It cannot be said of him as of Mr. Hoole, that he has given an outline of the Jerusalem, divested of all grace and ornament; but his graces and ornaments are almost entirely his own. In short, his poem is a very delightful one; but it must be to another source that they must apply who desire to form any adequate conception of the real merits of the stately and melancholy child of genius, the fantastic lover of the Princess Eleanor, and the converser with aerial spirits. Of the present work, we certainly cannot say that it exactly corresponds to our ideas of what a translation of Tasso ought to be. It has the defect of being written, not in stanzas, but in couplets; the worst arrangement of measure, perhaps, ever applied to an heroic poem, and one which is less suited to the Jerusalem Delivered than to any other heroic poem, except the Orlando. Even blank verse, though in translations it seldom happens that the writer of it can sustain his tone sufficiently above prose to make a long poem throughout poetic, would be far better suited to the variety, the richness, the vivacity of the Italian writers, than that stately and unvaried sound which shuts up all sense and harmony within the compass of twenty syllables. But when Ariosto and Tasso have themselves furnished us with the model of a stanza admitting of an almost infinite variety of pause and harmony, more easy in execution than the couplet itself, and to the ear infinitely more agreeable, nothing but a strange pertinacity in adhering to old opinions could lead a man of Mr. Hunt's taste and talents to follow Hoole in the very peculiarity which, even more than his want of fire, contributes to the languor and tediousness of his narrative. Nor has Mr. Hunt himself escaped from the conse quences of his unfortunate election. He is sometimes inflated and sometimes obscure from the mere necessity of conforming to a cadence which cannot be varied with impunity, and whose limits are often too extensive for a single idea, while they are almost uniformly too narrow for more. But having expressed ourselves thus plainly and strongly as to the principal and pervading defect of Mr. Hunt's attempt, we should be unjust if we did not allow, that in almost all the other FF3 requisites requisites of a translator he ranks not only above his two immediate competitors, but above far the greater number of those who have aspired to make the readers of our language familiar with the poetry of other lands and other ages. He is more faithful than Pope or Dryden, more spirited than Cowper or Warton, and he has less mannerism and affectation than Mr. Sotheby. He is obviously well acquainted with his original, and has read him with all the enthusiastic admiration which a translator ought to feel, which is sure to increase in proportion to the intensity of the labour bestowed on his author, and of which the author in the present instance is confessedly worthy. To such an attempt there was sure to attach the apprehension of a want of novelty. Tasso was supposed to be a well known writer, though in point of fact many, even of those who regarded themselves as Italian readers, knew little more of him, we believe, than that his poem had Godfrey for its hero and the Delivery of Jerusalem for its action. It was not therefore unlikely that those who had been content to talk of him at second hand, and from the tasteless criticisms of Boileau and Voltaire, would still find this sufficient for their purpose, and experience little curiosity to inquire further into the merits of an author, whose clinquant' and injudicious mixture of Paganism and Christianity, Gothic and classical mytho→ logy, Oriental and European manners, had been so long the subject of common place declamation and censure. Nor, had the poet been better known than he really was, or had his reputation suffered less from the attacks of the French critics, was it likely that a work so laborious and extensive as this before us should obtain any great degree of popularity in an age which has rioted so much in the richness of original productions; and learned to look back with something more than weariness on the long and regular narratives, the classical imagery and classical correctness of style and taste, from which our more patient and studious fathers derived years of calm and deep enjoyment. It must not, however, be imagined that because Tasso was the avowed imitator of Virgil he is therefore deficient in original vigour; that, whatever truth may be found in the criticisms to which we have alluded, his faults are not abundantly compensated by beauties of the highest kind; or that those faults, in fact, however they may impeach his judgment, are not themselves of a nature to raise our opinion of his imaginative powers, and to contribute to the interest and entertainment which a perusal of his poem affords. With Homer it would indeed be idle to compare him; nor is there any thing in the Jerusalem, from beginning to end, equal to the glorious episode of Dido, or the descent of Æneas into the shades. Yet if in these respects, as well well as in the sustained vigour and majesty of his style, he is inferior to Virgil, there are many circumstances in which he can endure no unfavourable comparison with him. The choice of a subject, though that of the Jerusalem Delivered has been highly and generally extolled, we cannot think one of these. It is a vulgar error to suppose that a theme of great political interest is necessary for the ground-work of a great poem; such themes, on the contrary, from being already familiar in their naked and historical form, are less capable than most others of that varied ornament which poetry delights to scatter over the ground which she selects for her operations; of that breathless and suspended interest which is absolutely necessary to make a long story endurable. We know so little of what Homer's heroes really were, that we are not shocked at hearing actions ascribed to them, or finding them placed in situations which transcend all common experience of mankind-o vuv Bgoro εισι. It is the same with the heroes of Gothic romance, whose names are only transmitted to us in a cloud of mythology and wonder, which is become their proper element, and in which the wildest exploits and the most appalling witcheries are in their proper places, and therefore specious and probable. But when, instead of an imaginary siege of Paris in the unknown age of Charlemagne ; and of Paladins and knights whom the poet was at full liberty to bewitch or send to the moon at his pleasure; we have what professes to be a narrative of events in the 12th century, in which the personages are counts and princes of France and Italy familiar to the general reader of history, and of whose persons, manners and mode of warfare we can form no idea different from that which we entertain of other captains and statesmen; it is a little too much to introduce amazons and enchantresses, or to make the capture of a strong city depend on the success of a single knight in cutting down an enchanted tree in a neigh bouring forest. It is true that a belief in witchcraft was general, or perhaps universal in Tasso's day; but it was not in witchcraft of this exaggerated kind: nor was any soul then alive who supposed that witchcraft of any kind was to be opposed and conquered by the valour of a single warrior, or by any other means than the kindred and appropriate follies of holy water and exorcism: and above all, a man of judgment, however he may employ popular and temporary superstition as an ornament and an ac cessary, will never make the hinge of a story which he designs to live to posterity, turn exclusively on such contrivances. It is not thus that Shakspeare makes use of witches. With him they serve indeed to tempt and to bewilder-to dazzle the ambition of his hero by their magical illusions, and to prompt him to deep and FF 4 |